If we wonder how it is that black men continue to be shot at an alarming rate throughout the country, we need look no further than the intertwined history of American policing and white supremacy.
As far back as the period of Reconstruction following the civil war, blacks were arrested for wanting to vote, negotiate labor contracts or exercise their political and social rights. According to historian Khalil Muhammed, working for white landowners was the only thing that was not criminalized. Further, black labor was sold to private contractors and blacks who resisted were arrested. As a result, blacks were arrested at disproportionately higher rates than whites for simply trying to assert what had been promised them during Reconstruction. The criminal justice system emerged during this time and racial bias was woven into the warp and woof of policing. It served to keep blacks in subordinate roles so they could be exploited in various labor markets.
In the beginning of the 20th century when blacks were migrating north in record numbers, the notion of criminalization followed. Blacks were criminalized at far higher rates than their white counterparts. As census taking emerged as a metric for monitoring the population, the data bore out the fact that blacks had higher rates of criminalization. It is important to remember that their “offenses” were simply an attempt to exercise the freedom given them with the abolition of slavery. The consolidation of crime statistics brought about by the census fed arguments for diminished equal citizenship, segregation and unequal distribution of goods and services.
During prohibition, boot legging operations and speakeasies were disproportionately located in black communities (even if they were run by whites). This further reinforced the notion that black communities were hot beds of crime.
When the NAACP was founded in 1910, tracking data on lynching in the north was a priority. It resulted in increased attention to police violence. The first race riots took place in East St. Louis in the 1920’s. Riots followed in Philadelphia and Chicago. The first Blue Ribbon Commission in Chicago found that when police had the chance to protect blacks from white mob violence, they chose to either aid or abet the white mobs and disarm and/or arrest blacks. The 1922 report showed that police systematically engaged in racial bias. The recommendations of the report were largely ignored.
This scenario of race riots, investigations and reports had similar findings in Harlem and other cities around the country. The Harlem report was shelved before it was ever made public. Finally, a black newspaper called the Amsterdam published it.
As late as the l940s the NAACP tracked lynching data; many of the reported lynchings involved police officers or police accomplices who aided and abetted in various ways. In a paper titled, “Living Histories of White Supremacist Policing, Towards Transformative Justice,” the history of selective mobilization of police resources was traced and correlations were made with white supremacists in state and non- state actors. Such under-policing shielded white supremacist officers from closer scrutiny and sanctions. Make no mistake; police officers were involved in the denial of basic human rights to blacks.
Under the presidency of George W. Bush the FBI published a study on white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement. The 2006 report, a portion of which has been declassified, stated the “KKK is notable among white supremacist groups for historically having found support in many communities which often translated into ties to local law enforcement. Although the First Amendment’s freedom of association provision protects an individual’s right to join white supremacist groups for purposes of lawful activity, the government can limit the employment opportunities of group members who hold sensitive public sector jobs, including jobs within law enforcement, when their membership would interfere with their duties.”
According to The Intercept, a 2009 intelligence study by the Department of Homeland Security, it was concluded that the greatest danger came from small terrorist cells embracing violent right wing extremist ideology. When the study was released within the Department of Homeland Security the pushback was immediate and severe. It resulted in the dismantling of the one unit that investigated this growing phenomenon in law enforcement.
In 2015 a classified FBI counter terrorism policy guide stated that “domestic terrorism investigations focus on…extremists and often have links to law enforcement.” White supremacists actively seek membership in law enforcement as “ghost skins.” The term is used to refer to those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs in order to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist beliefs.
Still, each time a black man is shot an investigation or study is undertaken. As we see again and again it brings no systemic change. While individual police officers who commit these offenses need to be held to account, these scattered prosecutions will do nothing to bring about change in police culture.
This is not to say that all police officers are white supremacists. That is NOT the case. All police officers, however, DO exist in a culture of white supremacy within the police department. It is a bias that is as invisible as the air they breathe. They are not conscious of the cultural bias (at least most of them) but this makes it no less influential in the way they discharge their duties.
What is needed is no less than a wholesale culture shift in police work. Separating the intertwined roots of American policing and white supremacy is no small feat. It is, however, absolutely necessary for police to stop murdering black men.
The Irreverent Reverend 