Labelling America’s police as racist is to take the easy way out. The truth is far more complex, and if we ignore that, we will miss the opportunity to really change things for the better.
Trying to persuade people that America’s police aren’t racist is, in today’s world, the very definition of an impossible job. But that is what I believe. Of course, with over a million law enforcement officers in the country, it is inevitable that there will be some who are racist (take a million people from anywhere and you will likely find the same). But my extensive experiences with America’s police have shown me the true picture is far more nuanced.
I have patrolled regularly with dozens of police departments across the US for almost 20 years, and I can tell you that the problem is less the police and more the system.
Detroit is the city I have the most experience of. It’s a poor place with a population of around 670,000, of which over 80% are black. Its police department, too, is majority black, and is led by a black police chief. The city’s mayor is white.
Detroit has been a byword for decay and devastation for decades. Following economic shifts and the riots of the 1960s, thousands left the city. The effects were devastating. Wealth and business left, while the poor and most vulnerable were left behind. The fall in population and employment resulted in huge drops in tax dollars for the city, and a spiral into high crime rates and ruin.
Policing a city as violent as Detroit comes with huge challenges. It’s a rare year when an officer – or even multiple officers – is not killed in the line of duty.
Outside of the glowing, recently revitalised downtown core, many streets and neighbourhoods resemble a war zone – a cliché, yes, but in Detroit’s case absolutely true. Streets are lined with the burnt-out wrecks of former homes. Some are literally piles of blackened splinters. Many plots have been cleared away and left to nature.
What is often surprising is that among the devastation, people and families continue to live their lives. Many live in absolute poverty – sometimes so bad that when I have spoken of it publicly previously, I was accused of being a liar. One example emerged after an apparently abandoned house was raided by police because they believed drugs were being used inside. Officers raiding the house found a man and woman living there, along with seven children aged between nine years and nine months. There was no heating, no beds, no windows and no toilet. Other than the people, officers found two guns and a dead dog.
Unemployment and poverty are the norm. Gangs and gunfire are a daily – sometimes hourly – reality. The police are patrolling some of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the country. But they do it because they love their job, this city and its people.
One officer told me: “White, black, Mexican [it doesn’t matter]. We do it because it’s our job. I’m never going to turn my back on it until it’s time I have to call it quits. When I can’t do better for the people of this city, when I can’t do better for Detroit, that’s when I’ll call it quits. I’m here for the officers, and for the citizens that are trying – and there are good people here – and all the other people in this city that can’t get out. But it’s disheartening that people don’t know what we are going through. This is going on a mile from your house, with your white picket fence and your flowers.”
The police – more than any other group – get it, because they spend their lives in these neighbourhoods. They see how people have to live and try to survive. People often try to counter “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter”. Of course all lives matter, but the truth is some lives seem to matter less than others – not to the police, but to society. Anyone spending time in poor, inner city neighbourhoods – as the cops do – can tell you that.
For many in Detroit the only place they can go to get food is their local “party store” – a corner shop that sells junk food, liquor and smokes. The storeowners are shielded behind inch-think bullet-resistant screens. Police frequently visit the stores and it’s a rare occasion when I don’t see an officer put his hand into his own pocket to pay for people’s food.
Officers also work closely with former gang members and I’ve accompanied them into schools where they work to steer kids away from gangs. Cops will often drive kids to and from school, to keep them safe or take them for something to eat, because they know the kids won’t eat otherwise.
Unfortunately, some people do have bad experiences with bad cops but for many kids – and adults too – the police are one of their few contacts with something good, safe and positive.
I know a white officer who was in regular contact with a poor black kid who went to school in clothes that were too small for him. His jeans hung above his ankles. His t-shirts were tatty. His shoes were so small he had to cut the ends off so his toes weren’t crushed. He was bullied for his poverty. But he was also an excellent football player with a chance of a scholarship.
One day the kid stole a pair of sunglasses from another kid, which he sold to buy second-hand but better-fitting clothes, at a thrift store. He was arrested. When the officer found out, he went out of his way to try and convince the judge to go easy, explaining the kid’s tragic circumstances. The cop wrote letter after letter explaining that he was a “good kid”. The judge seemed not to listen and the kid was convicted. He lost any chance of a scholarship. His chance of getting out vanished. The cop was furious. He was furious with the court, the school, the coach, and the other kids. Out of all those people, the one who cared the most about that kid seemed to be the cop.
The police aren’t perfect, but the fact is most cops are like those I’ve described. Racist, corrupt cops are fewer than the media and those with anti-police agendas would have you believe.
After the footage of George Floyd’s death was broadcast, I had outraged cops contact me. “Those officers’ need to be arrested immediately and marched in front of the TV cameras”, one wrote. Police officers were as disgusted by what they saw as everybody else.
That there needs to be change, I would not dispute. The practice of departments hiring officers who have been fired by other departments for misconduct needs to end. The inflated “warrior” attitude that some officers carry also needs to be weeded out (officers themselves have complained to me that some cops behave like an occupying force rather than public servants).
In a year, police in America may shoot around 2,000 people, with around 1,000 killed in what is termed “justifiable homicides”. Almost half of those killed are white, and a quarter black. But it’s important to recognise that there is disproportionality in that figure, as blacks make up only around 13% of the population.
There must be reasons why the numbers are so unbalanced, but I believe it is more down to socio-economic factors than racism on the part of the police (although unconscious bias may well play a part, and is something that many departments are teaching officers). Officers must take responsibility for their actions of course, but those occasions when an officer and a desperate person come together, sometimes with tragic circumstances, are often the fault of neither. The cop is just doing his or her job. The person they face is just trying to survive.
My fear is that the current protests will fizzle out and everyone will move on “until the next time”. Politicians responding to the protests with promises of police reforms are only kicking the can of responsibility down the civil rights road. The police are just one thin layer of a far bigger problem.
What does real change actually look like, then? For one thing, there needs to be investment in the poorest and most disadvantaged communities. Education needs particular attention – in some inner cities, including Detroit, classes have gone without teachers (with older kids ending up teaching the younger ones). In some schools the infrastructure is genuinely dangerous and there has been a lack of pens, books, chairs and even toilet paper. Kids are described as being “warehoused for seven hours a day”.
Recently, a group of Detroit students brought a lawsuit against state officials for “failing to provide opportunities to learn”. The state attorney argued for the lawsuit to be dismissed, as the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution – which says that no state shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty or property’ – said nothing about ‘literacy’. This, despite the Michigan legislature having voted to redirect hundreds of millions of dollars (up until 2051) from school district property taxes to subsidise a new sports arena and other developments downtown (“Downtown isn’t for us [blacks]; it’s for out of town, rich white folk,” one local told me). Billionaires, it seems, get public money, while kids shiver in empty, freezing classrooms.
One black cop put it another way when he told me, “They [“rich, white folk”] don’t want too many more Obamas.”
The police aren’t racist; the system is. Politics, business, communities, education, health care, social services; there needs to be genuine investment and help for those who are struggling the most – often through no fault of their own.
It’s all very well talking about defunding the police – as many are, including celebrities, from their positions of wealth and privilege (they certainly won’t have to live with the consequences of these calls) – but many of the people living in these desperate, poor, violent neighbourhoods have told me repeatedly that they want more police, not less. Defunding, abolishing or simply blaming the police alone only hurts the most vulnerable people and communities. Politicians – and others – need to stop using police as a cover for their failures.
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