Let's Talk Privilege
POLICE PROTECTIONS
A brief history of the US police force:
Colonial Times
1636-1700
1704
1836
Civil War
1861-1865
Late 19th and Early 20th Century
1929
Community Volunteer and 'night watch' systems or part time, privately paid, for profit policing systems. (1)
First slave patrol created in the Carolina colonies. "[In the South] the economics that drove the creation of police forces were centered not on the protection of shipping interests but on the preservation of the slavery system. (1)
"The first publicly funded, organized police force with officers on duty full-time was created in Boston in 1838...merchants came up with a way to save money by transferring to the cost of maintaining a police force to citizens by arguing that it was for the “collective good.”"(1)
"During the Civil War, the military became the primary form of law enforcement in the South, but during Reconstruction, many local sheriffs functioned in a way analogous to the earlier slave patrols, enforcing segregation and the disenfranchisement of freed slaves." (1)
"... era of political machines, so police captains and sergeants for each precinct were often picked by the local political party ward leader, who often owned taverns or ran street gangs that intimidated voters."(1)
"[President Hoover created the ] Wickersham Commission... to investigate the ineffectiveness of law enforcement nationwide. To make police independent from political party ward leaders, the map of police precincts was changed so that they would not correspond with political wards."(1)
​
"The drive to professionalize the police followed, which means that the concept of a career cop as we’d recognize it today is less than a century old." (1)
SOURCES
Article by Olivia Waxman with information from Gary Potter, a crime historian at Eastern Kentucky University.
People of Color still have to struggle with the racism and biases caused from generations of politically and socially accepted oppression.
Our modern idea
of the police is less than
a century old, prior to that our law enforcement system worked overtly and almost exclusively
to protect white
interests
POSSIBLE Talking points And Responses:
"Sure the police might have been started to protect and further the success of white people but that's in the past. The police are different now, it doesn't affect people today."
Policing was a way to control labor to make white people richer and keep people of color and those that the white majority believed to be 'other' enslaved or subjugated. Our law enforcement's roots in white supremacy has contributed largely to the disenfranchisement of people of color for centuries which is not an effect that can be taken away in a matter of decades. Even since the modernization of the police force, their treatment of communities of color has shown that implicit biases and racism continue to this day which justifiably fuels distrust in the police for people of color. White people do not have the same relationship to police that people of color do because they do not have to fear the police as people of color do.
Support:
May 28
Cheesecake, figs, and pinot noir.
A research paper by University of California Davis Professor, Cody Ross, found this statistic.
Negative racial bias can clearly be seen when police officers do not evenly apply the law to all groups of Americans. This extreme example shows the possible deadly outcome of those biases. The data from this paper was from 2011-2014.
Overt
Racism
within police forces has
been proven to exist in contemporary America
In 1991: "A federal judge has concluded that many Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies at the Lynwood station routinely violate civil rights, are motivated by “racial hostility” and use “terrorist-type tactics” with the knowledge of their superiors."
Since 2000, law enforcement officials with alleged connections to white supremacist groups or far-right militant activities have been exposed in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and elsewhere.
In 2017: "internal FBI policy documents have also warned agents assigned to domestic terrorism cases that the white supremacist and anti-government militia groups they investigate often have “active links” to law enforcement officials."
In New York:
'Stop and Frisk' violated the constitutional rights as "83 percent of the stopped population were black or Hispanic, despite the fact that those minority groups, together, made up just over half of the city’s overall population."
In Ferguson, Missouri:
“African Americans are more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops... but are found in possession of contraband 26% less often than white drivers"
In Chicago:
“black and Hispanic drivers were searched approximately four times as often as white drivers, yet ...contraband was found on white drivers twice as often as black and Hispanic drivers.”
Greensboro, North Carolina:
“officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no discernible reason. And they were more likely to use force if the driver was black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance.”
In New York:
Disproportionate
arrests
lead to disproportionate incarceration rates.
"white people are more likely than black people to sell drugs and about as likely to consume them. Even so, black people are 3.6 times more likely than white people to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more for drug possession."
"Being convicted of a crime has devastating effects on the employment prospects and incomes of ex-felons and their children"
“We can’t blame the entire police force for the actions of a few bad officers. My brother is a police officer and he would never treat a person of color differently."
The real issue is that our law enforcement system is not protecting and serving all Americans equally. A systemic issue can be seen across the US of police disproportionately applying the punishments and protections of our laws across race. Despite there being upstanding police officers, these events continue to occur. Our entire police system has grown from supporting and protecting white interests and white people but not doing the same for people of color. So since our system is allowing for the continued abuse of POC, all parts of that system are bad and we need to restructure it to truly befit our diverse society.
​
​
More Info:
"when we argue in defense of the morality of individual police officers, we are undermining a protest of the larger issue: the unjust system of policing in the United States....It is not that some police officers aren’t doing admirable things in our communities, but revering police officers for not abusing their power is dangerous — it normalizes police violence and numbs society to these issues. The idea that “not all cops are bad cops” belittles attempts to uproot the system. When we go out of our way to controvert this fight, we are perpetuating the inherent problems with racialized policing."
-Narain Dubey
To avoid
making the person you
are talking with go on the defensive, keep them
open by stressing the overarching issue and explaining
these points:
Having and recognizing white privilege does not mean you're racist.
"[racism is defined as] 'individual- and group-level processes and structures that are
implicated in the reproduction of racial inequality.'
​
Systemic racism happens when these structures or processes are carried out by groups with power, such as governments, businesses or schools."
​
"bias...is a conscious or unconscious prejudice against an individual or group based on their identity. "
The following quotes are from the article "What Is White Privilege, Really?" by Cory Collins
"white privilege exists because of historic, enduring racism and biases."
"White privilege is not the suggestion that white people have never struggled.... And white privilege is not the assumption that everything a white person has accomplished is unearned... Instead, white privilege should be viewed as a built-in advantage, separate from one’s level of income or effort.
People can be ignorant about these inequities, of course. According to the Pew Research Center, only 46 percent of white people say that they benefit “a great deal” or “a fair amount” from advantages that society does not offer to black people. But conscious choices were and are made to uphold these privileges. And this goes beyond loan officers and lawmakers. Multiple surveys have shown that many white people support the idea of racial equality but are less supportive of policies that could make it more possible, such as reparations, affirmative action or law enforcement reform.
In that way, white privilege is not just the power to find what you need in a convenience store or to move through the world without your race defining your interactions. It’s not just the subconscious comfort of seeing a world that serves you as normal. It’s also the power to remain silent in the face of racial inequity. It’s the power to weigh the need for protest or confrontation against the discomfort or inconvenience of speaking up. It’s getting to choose when and where you want to take a stand. It’s knowing that you and your humanity are safe.
You can't change
that you have privilege
but you can change how you use your privilege. Be cognisant of the way you walk in the world and how that is different for others. Actively work against the biases passed down from a racist history and do your best to bring other white people towards understanding
and positively using
their privileges.
