One of the most common lines we hear in contemporary society is when someone says something controversial then follows with, “I’m not a racist or anything” or, “I have black friends I can’t be racist.” It’s so satirical that it’s comical. Must a person be required to see themselves as charismatic to be charming or inspiring to others? Or yet, does a dog have to see himself a good boy to not dig through the trash? LibreText Biology Library includes a section of innate behaviors. These innate behaviors, contained by every single human, are instinctive and rigid.
Craig Lindsey quotes in a Datebook article, “As admirable as it is that pop culture is trying to correct the racist mistakes of its past, it’s the racist actions that are still going on in 2020 that concern me the most” (Lindsey). Lindsey posted this Datebook article in October of 2020, and it’s not like hundreds of years of racism was cured in less than three years. The same colorblind America that people were raving about after the Obama election was quick to rally with slogans of “White Lives Matter” and “You will not replace us” (Lindsey). We can look particularly at the Charlottesville rally held in 2017. Hundreds of white nationalists marched around with burning torches, declaring to “Unite the Right.” After taking two sweet days to respond to the rally, waiting until the damage was done, former President Trump finally acknowledged what was happening in Virginia (Silver). My grandmother used to say when I was young, “delayed obedience is disobedience.” I guess we can see how much of a priority it was to him...thanks president.
We can take a completely different perspective rather than looking at silly extremist who are hopefully not the regular, common persons. The Tulsa Police Department averages 9.3 deaths per 1 million people (Police). Whereas in places like England and Wales, they kill their civilians at a much lower rate of 0.5 persons per 1 million (Police). The Police Brutality Center calculated since January 1, 2015, police killing of white people lies at a rate of 2.3 people per million, per year (Police). At over two times that, black people have a rate of police killing at 5.8 people per million, per year (Police). The 2022 Police Violence report stated that black people are also more likely to be unarmed and less likely to be threatening someone when killed by police (Police). More statistics, just in case you didn’t get the point, show that Oklahoma police officers kill blacks at a 10.3 times higher rate than whites (Police). Our own state. Mapping Police Violence tracked the times of January 2013 to June 2023 from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, where they have killed forty-eight of their citizens, forty-one being black (Police).
This is the sad reality of our country. We can pitter-patter around the undeniable truth of racism within our society, but the police brutality must end. It is an evident fact that the frequency of police killings matching the racial disparities in our country needs urgent action. The Police Brutality Center also mentions a study from the Department of Justice. In 2016, at least 12,200 local law enforcement agencies and 3,000 sheriff offices operate independently with minimal oversight. Breaking that down, that averages about 90% of those agencies employing fewer than fifty officers and nearly 50% of local departments with fewer than ten officers. No one is claiming that employing more people would fix this situation, but the allocated power at hand clearly needs to be adjusted.
Atatiana Jefferson is the name of the late twenty-eight-year-old who was tragically killed in her home by Fort Worth police officer, Aaron Dean on October 12, 2019 (Sykes). A call was made by a concerned neighbor to the Fort Worth nonemergency line for a wellness check on Atatiana once they noticed an opened door. It was confirmed by the officers’ bodycam footage that they arrived at her home around 2a.m, bypassed the gate to the property backyard, then was looking through the window with a flashlight while yelling at Atatiana things like “put your hands up” and “show me your hands” (Sykes). After shooting and murdering Atatiana, who was babysitting her nephew, her family filed a wrongful death suit against Dean, who plead not guilty by the way. His lawyer spoke out for him to say that he is “sorry” and his family “is in deep shock,” as reported by NBC (Sykes). Not only was the lawsuit about justice for Atatiana, but also to argue that the city of Fort Worth is conniving, deeming their failure to reprimand Dean in prior cases of excessive force. Also, for the failure of department to adequately train their officers. A press release from Fort Worth Police Department said that Dean felt threatened at the time prior to discharging his weapon (Sykes).
How many scared men are we going to let tote around loaded guns with that much power? How many cases are our courts going to have to go through before people like Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor and countless others receive justice? Or the more important question, why are we still living amongst a society where this justice still must be received for black people? These racist implicit biases are still alive within contemporary society. In a Pew Research Center article, they cite studies displaying white subjects that respond just as strongly as older white subjects with anxiety and uncertainty and expressing higher negative explicit and implicit racial bias when tested (Silver). These young white subjects were more likely to agree with statements like “I would rather work alongside people of my same ethnic origin” (Silver). Why is this? It could be a multitude of reasons: the lack of black education within school systems, the media portrayal of black Americans, the number of black men incarcerated, improper history teachings, the lack of integration within communities, etc.
In a Washington Post, Yale University social psychologist, Jennifer Richeson, says “People learn to be whatever their society and culture teaches them...The truth is that unless parents actively teach kids not be racists, they will be. This is not the product of some deep-seated, evil heart that is cultivated. It comes from the environment, the air all around us” (Wan). To be within a fair, egalitarian, integrated socioeconomic society, we must change bias to change culture (Silver). If there are scared men with questionable racist implicit bias, this country will never cease to be free of racism and brutality. We must stop humanizing people just when we get to know them or understand their personal perspective. It should not take Atatiana Jefferson, and Breonna Taylor’s lives to see people as people. We must be proactive antiracists. We must teach our children to not be colorblind or to fear color, but to recognize and love other cultures for what they are.
-Azlee