This is an interesting topic, according to popular opinion or belief, systemic racism and police brutality go hand in hand, but do they really??? Would everything be better if “WE” as black people were policing our own neighborhoods? In Washington DC most police officers are black, but they still have cases of police brutality, I don’t think as a society we can fight systemic racism through the police department. Are police racist sometimes, YES, but there are racist elements in all aspects of our society.
I will define police brutality as the unnecessary use of deadly force, while systemic racism is a belief in racial superiority thereby creating a system that allows individuals of a particular race to always get ahead. To me, the two are not interchangeable. this is why I believe that the whole protest was a fallacy or an excuse to riot, and get stuff for free. Let’s look at some alarming statistics since there is almost no outcry for black on black crime and killing.
- Blacks are only 13% of the population
- 50% of all homicide victims are black
- This means 3% commits 50 % of the nation’s homicides
Black lives are supposed to matter but there were no marches, no outrage, nothing at all, Anything passed 50 % is too much. Black lives matter only when “we,” say it does, and we can say its system racism, and people will just believe it.
This is how to debunk systemic racism, we should look at a particular area, and look at how many black people are in positions of power and authority in that area, basic math works, accountability works. If there are more black people in positions of power in that area, it is not systemic racism, just like in the case of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, to start with that case, what were the people protesting? police brutality or systemic racism? Systemic racism is not possible because in Baltimore most people who are in positions of power, ( especially at that time) were black. 3 of the officers who were accused and even the state attorney was black, not to mention that happened under a black president, it cant be police brutality,
In the case of Sean Bell, 2 of the police officer were black. I’m not saying that these killings are justified, I’m saying that it couldn’t be systemic racism when people in authority were black, I’m sure there will be people who will say hey, well Trump is a racist and he doesn’t really want to do anything about it, well here is the thing though if that was true, all the officers would have been prosecuted under a black president, it didn’t happen.
What about child support though, isn’t it systemic discrimination against men ??? The numbers are very disturbing. This is very quiet but child support. if you are behind on child support, you might end up in jail, they may take your drivers license, etc, That has crippled that black community for years, yet no one talk about that, if black lives really matter, look at the way we are throwing the system at ourselves. We are the first ones to call the system when we have a problem. It is funny that today we are talking about defunding the police.
Police Brutality and systemic racism are catchphrases that the media uses to get people to act a certain way. I don’t think we as people should pay attention to that, the media is in business to make money, so they will benefit from this. I think we need more practical ideas and not catchphrases. If we do catchphrases we won’t be able to solve anything.
