Showing posts with label policing in black community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label policing in black community. Show all posts

Sunday, December 21, 2014

African Americans don't need to be told to hate or mistrust the police.

I'm convinced that conservatives and cops think black people as a whole are incapable of thinking for ourselves. First we had to be told by Obama, Holder, and Sharpton to get mad when no no cop was indicted in the Garner or Brown cases. I mean of course we wouldn't have gotten mad. Why would we? I mean Garner could have been our brother, father, grandson, or nephew. No way we internalize that, we of course would have went on our merry little ways if not told to be angry.

But now I have just found out from conservative media and the police that I and several million other blacks have never had an issue with or mistrusted the police until Obama, Holder, and Sharpton told us we had an issue with them. I just found out that all those prior negative experiences (although I like most black men have no record and have never committed a crime) I have had with police didn't make me bitter or distrustful of them it was that "evil" triumvirate of Obama, Holder, and Sharpton that made me feel that way.

Former NY mayor Guiliani who has done more to hurt minority and police relations by always taking the cops side than any member of the "evil" triumvirate said on Fox News Sunday ( where else) that "We've had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police, I don't care how you want to describe it -- that's what those protests are all about."

Guiliani would be right if only police abuse and brutality had not been prevalent in the minority community long before President Obama was in office and Holder was appointed Attorney General. Generations of black and brown people have grown up in the United States and have had to deal with negative interactions with the police. That's just a fact and all police and conservatives bitching and moaning about it won't change that fact.

Guiliani and his ilk have made a false equivalency between protesting the death of Eric Garner and wanting better treatment from the police with being anti-cop. I'm sorry that comparison is simply bullshit. To believe that the comparison you would have to believe that the only way to do police work in minority communities is to violate people's civil and human rights.

If cops want the protest to stop then they should stop whining about being called out for their behavior and make changes to that behavior. What will help heal the rift is police acknowledging they have been occupying communities of color and not policing them. What will bring change is treating minority communities the same way you treat others. What will is actually reaching out and getting to know the community you police and finding out who is trouble and who is a young man on his way from school.

Until that happens the mistrust and in some cases hate will linger. No one will have to tell anyone what to think because we know firsthand.

George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.com

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Racial gap in U.S. arrest rates: 'Staggering disparity'

When it comes to racially lopsided arrests, the most remarkable thing about Ferguson, Mo., might be just how ordinary it is.

Police in Ferguson — which erupted into days of racially charged unrest after a white officer killed an unarmed black teen — arrest black people at a rate nearly three times higher than people of other races.

At least 1,581 other police departments across the USA arrest black people at rates even more skewed than in Ferguson, a USA TODAY analysis of arrest records shows. That includes departments in cities as large and diverse as Chicago and San Francisco and in the suburbs that encircle St. Louis, New York and Detroit.

Those disparities are easier to measure than they are to explain. They could be a reflection of biased policing; they could just as easily be a byproduct of the vast economic and educational gaps that persist across much of the USA — factors closely tied to crime rates. In other words, experts said, the fact that such disparities exist does little to explain their causes.

Read more: Racial gap in U.S. arrest rates: 'Staggering disparity'

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Cedric the Entertainer: Neither Side Trying to Find Truth in Ferguson

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal , Cedric the Entertainer discussed several issues in the black community including diabetes, education, and Ferguson Missouri on which he had a very interesting take. Watch the interview below: