One possible solution to this White Cop/Black Death issue might be a form of segregation being quietly enacted within the law enforcement community. What if every city began a hiring system that began to favor black candidates to build up a large enough force devoted exclusively to patrolling and reacting to areas prone to high crime in neighborhoods primarily inhabited by the black community. As most cities have self segregated already based on economics, it would be fairly simple to designate the areas this contingent of officers would be responsible for, and white officers would no longer ne an issue in these areas. What do you folks think?
In reality it's not a bad idea but there are practical considerations that would require disturbing changes in either the law or departmental regulations regarding qualifications. Perhaps it has to do with the statistic that half of all violent crimes in the United States are caused by only 12 percent of the nation's population in the form of Black citizens. Oh and I still have no idea how sound that statistic is, but I do know that the United Nations itself quoted it back when Officer Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. Anyway I think that by both law and universally adopted LEO policies one cannot have a criminal record and become a law officer. So that means that the pool of acceptable Black candidates is already very tiny in relative terms and then there is the problem with money. Any Black citizen with a clean background and ambition can do much better for him or herself financially speaking (not to mention the prospect of living to a ripe old age) by doing damn near anything else under the sun than become a police officer. Another problem, even if one could find enough 'qualified' Black candidates, is that what happens when they are all on other calls and a few more important ones come into dispatch and there are no suitably dark skin-toned officers available to respond but only these melanin challenged yoiks otherwise known as White officers? Does one risk not having the 'correct' skin tone designation or suitable facial structure features by going with a (Brown) Hispanic or perhaps Asian descended Officer instead and then just hope and pray that nothing violent goes down at the scene to ignite leftwing race-arsonists? So if those problems can be solved then sure; it sounds like a solutions-set winner to me.
It's not the answer. There is no answer because racism is endemic in the USA (just like in some form or other in every country) and it's impossible to retrain a population to think differently from day one to infinity. What is needed is to do a better job of doing what needs to be done. Retraining the police won't work. It's cosmetic and merely a sound bite. They will take it as three days of paid leave and carry on doing that they are doing. Black people will continue to be targetted more than white people because that is the way it is. White people will continue to blame it on black crime without looking for the reasons behind it and black people will continue to blame the system for placing them in that situation without looking for ways to get out of it. It is what it is. Nothing is going to change and teenagers will continue to die in outrages committed in schools, colleges and universities and black people will continue to be targetted as aggressors. It's not that it shouldn't be changed but that it can't be changed. Live with what you have. It's better than civil war.
Remember being a cop isn't cool in the black communities. Being a pig is like being an educated black. Its looked down on by the community. Where will all these black cops come from?
If you give up on reducing the racism fundamental to US society and actively feed futher division, you'll just quicken the ineventable civil war that will be devestaing for us all. Stop treating people as skin colours and start treating them as human beings. It might not be easy to shift decades of cultural discrimination but as a concept it's blindingly obvious.
Take into consideration that even now African-American officers are not exactly respected in predominantly black neighborhoods. Besides, what you're suggesting is in itself a form of segregation-white cops stay out of black areas or else there's going to be problems. I know many black officers who would be offended, and rightly so, if they were told to take care of their own people and don't worry about whites or anyone else, that they aren't capable of dealing effectively with other ethnic groups. The majority of officers do well in either environment. Unfortunately, we're just hearing about the exceptions one after the other. Besides, what would be next? Only Hispanic officers in Latino neighborhoods, Or only Asian officers in Chinatown? And what if your suggestion would have been implemented in Ferguson, and a black officer shot a black man? Would blacks still have ravaged the town? Would Obama/Sharpton/Holder still have condemned him ? And would the Grand Jury have indicted a black cop, even though others here have said that their job is to protect cops? Enjoy!
I think the standards to be a cop are low enough as is without lowering them further so more blacks can be cops. The fact is there are far fewer blacks with HS diplomas and who have never had brushes with the law than there are cop jobs to fill. Add to that the fact that many black men would be run out of the hood if they took a job that would be considered acting white and the problem grows exponentially.
How about it if Black Americans dropped the " black " crap and became citizens instead of accepting the liberal /democratic teachings that undermine them as human beings.
As outraged as the left has been about white cops since August, I'm surprised that you guys have not come up with some actual concrete proposals by now. It sounds like you have no answers. Of course, who am I to talk? I don't have any answers either. I wrote about some sort of affirmative action in August, reasoning that since blacks don't trust white cops, shouldn't they get black cops to police their communities? Sure, it's Affirmative action, but it's AA because there is an actual job related reason for it. Unfortunately, I've since learned that it will just not work since law enforcement just can't hire all of the black cops they would like to hire. The pool of "qualified applicants" is just too small for the demand. It's interesting that considering the high unemployment among blacks, law enforcement agencies all over the country are desperate for black applicants, but there just are not enough people qualified to fill those positions.
At first I thought you were just being racists. lol Then I read the link to the Daytona Beach Journal article detailing the police's (failed) struggle to achieve a racial diversity that reflects the community they serve. So OP and your idea is being tried but apparently without success, at least in that locale. I'm not so sure if that it typifies other efforts in other regions but at the moment I'm too tired and lazy to do the research.
That article was a wake up call for me. Every idea I'd had about recruiting more black applicants had already been tried years ago. The problem is a lot larger, and more ingrained, than I had thought.
I guess it wouldn't be a great idea for white cops to paint their faces black. Probably not a solution. lol
Somehow, and I'm just reaching here, that may not be the bridge to good community relations between law enforcement and the black community.
The underlying assumption is wrong. Police respond to problems they don't manage the situation leading up to them. They can have some limited impact such as swarming an area with recent crime surges for a while but in the end the underlying problem has to be fixed by the black community themselves. Many if not most police forces require associate degrees now and blacks have an abysmal college graduation rate. Until there is a reformation in the black community the same old song and dance will continue to go on. Regarding black representation in the police force one key problem is the lack of qualified black applicants. Unless you want to lower the standards even more, which will only lead to more cases like Eric Garner, then there is always going to be a disparity because of the higher rate if criminal history and also the lack of education that is pervasive in the black community. Where the hell are the parents.......oh thats right they are having multiple kids out of wedlock and have rap sheets a mile long themselves.
Might be hard to find enough qualified blacks who would agree to be cops. We have some here, but we still have mostly white cops patrolling black areas. But given the problem as perceived by these black communities, it would be worthwhile to have black cops police black areas. Given the problems today, it is the only thing that might calm em down, and take away a reason for them to get angry.
It's not "you guys". I'm on the outside and not taking sides. I do think the requirement to identify anyone who comments on this issue (any issue!) as being on a side is another symptom of the fundamental problem I'm talking about. "Left or right?" is as bad as "black or white?". I don't pretend to have answers because what I'm talking about is the basic cultural attitude and I don't think that can be changed unless you want it to. The first step is for everyone involved (or at least a number of key individuals) to openly recognise the problem, not talking about what "they" do wrong but what "we" can do to improve the situation. Nobody needs telling how to do this, they just have to want to. I'm actually quite pessimistic about American's ability to do so in the foreseeable future though. As I said, that isn't solving the problem, it's exaggerating it. If your kids don't like eating their vegetables, you don't solve the problem by just feeding them burgers and fries. That's because there is a multi-generational issue with how black people have been treated (and have acted) and is just one part of the vicious circle you (all) need to break.
The comment of yours that I was responding to was this: It's basically pablum. Don't "give up on reducing the racism," and "Stop treating people as skin colours and start treating them as human beings." Sounds nice but means absolutely nothing in terms of practicality. If the issue is Black people don't trust White cops, you're foolish to not recognize that as a real problem. I'm at least trying to address that issue. So continue to force feed the Black community with the "vegetables" of white policing? Sounds like they'll love that plan.
I certainly respect your post and simply want to comment on it based on my experience as a police officer. I do not believe police departments today discriminate against blacks. Perhaps some five-man departments in Califotnia or some such benighted place but not in any significant police departments. In thirty years working in a police department in Colorado I encountered less than five applicants who were black. One was hired but left a year later saying the lack of a significant number of blacks in the community meant he simply didn't want to live there. One of the applicants I encountered handed me his attorney's business card when he was inquiring about the hiring process and said that's who would sue me if we didn't hire him. Our most significant minority group was Hispanic and we got few Hispanic applicants, too. I did some research to find out why. One problem was you couldn't apply till you were twenty-one. By the time a lot of our Hispanics were 21 they had steady jobs they like, a wife, and simply didn't want to move. Another problem was that some did things when they were 18, 19, and 20 that weren't horrible but did have a negative effect on competing with hundreds of others for getting hired. The most ironic incident came one week when I received a letter from the DOJ insisting we should hire only college graduates. I dropped that in the trash and regretted that rash decision because later in the week I got another letter from the DOJ demanding we hired more minorities. Only the federal government would fail to see any problem with their demands but I suppose a government that can't compare SSN and names on income tax might not touch base on ego-boosting requirements and affirmative action demands. What we did was institute a program of temp employees that would hire people out of high school and work with them and encourage them to take classes at the university. When they turned 21 they would apply for employment as police officers. When they turned 22 they had to leave the temp program. We got a number of Hispanic and female officers with this program. Then, the demand for a college degree prevailed and we went years without hiring a minority. When I brought it up once a sycophant for the idiot chief yelled, "That's not true. We hired a minority two years ago." Everyone, even the idiot chief, looked puzzled and finally someone asked. "Johanssen. He's a minority." "What minority?" "Asian." "He isn't." "He is. His grandmother on his mother's side was Japanese." Wow, that 6'2", blond hair, blue eyes, fooled us. I bet he'd faced a lifetime of discrimination. In the final analysis, it is my personal opinion that a police department that reflects the demographics of the community as much as practical is desirable but people have to accept it will probably cost more, too. One last thought. There are cities where police departments have been forced to hire blacks by court orders. The assumed benefits have not been forthcoming. People were hired who, in my opinion, should never have been cops regardless of their color.
The man who wrote the book "Black Like Me" took some medication that turned his skin Black. You think that might work?
Flat out, this post deserves to win a Best Post award. I am going to recommend it to the powers that be.
