On May 25th, a white police officer murdered an unarmed black man. Over a week of protests have followed, spreading to cities throughout the nation. Most have been peaceful, yet some have been violent. Rioters have thrown bricks through windows, looted stores, and set cop cars on fire. In response, police officers have fired rubber bullets and used tear gas to break up both violent and peaceful protestors. Several people have been killed, with many injured. The National Guard was mobilised in Minnesota on Thursday. The cop who killed Floyd was charged with murder and manslaughter on Friday, which yesterday was upgraded to second degree murder. The central talking point has inevitably been about race. Racism is still a massive issue in America, and there is a large sense of injustice among the black community after yet another example of police brutality against an unarmed black man. There are other issues that this tragedy has once again exposed though, which should be heard, and given serious thought.
1. Violence is not an answer. Political solutions are.
Some have to justify the violence seen over the last week by arguing the black community have consistently not being listened to, despite decades of peaceful protests. They sense that racism is as prevalent in American society today as it was decades ago. People are angry at the lack of reform to police practices in the US for several generations. Regardless violence is not the answer. Not only is it wrong morally, but it’s also to the detriment of the powerful message put forward by peaceful protestors. There’s three principle reasons why the violence we are seeing is unacceptable:
Number 1 - More black lives are being lost, and innocent people are being put at risk. Whether it be peaceful protestors being met with excessive force from police. Whether it be people caught in the crossfire, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether it be innocent adolescents being mobilised to fight and riot by those promoting and engaging in violence (There have been numerous videos online of members of the black community passionately pleading with youngsters not to take up arms and not involve themselves in the violence). Or whether it be the loss of black lives such as David Dorn or Patrick Underwood, and several others killed as a result of what has been happening this past week.
Number 2 - Violence and destruction is taking place within communities that are already socially and economically deprived. These are communities which are already short on services and receive little investment. Destroying these communities is actively counterproductive to the goal of giving more black lives the chance for a successful, prosperous and happy life. As seven black elected officials in Tampa, Florida said on Sunday, ‘we must remember, we have to live here tomorrow’. Many of those rioting are angry, and believe there is no other way, but equally, there are many who are simply acting opportunistically.
Number 3 - It is doing further damage to the already strained relationship between police and the communities they serve. One of the fundamental issues the US is having is a lack of trust in police. People of colour in particular fear the police, and for many the first thought when pulled over by police is simply surviving. But violence adds more fuel to this fire, and the images of people turning over cop cars, and setting them on fire is an endorsement of further violence against police. The vast majority of cops are good, well-intentioned people. Blaming all of them for the actions of a racist, murderous few will only add to the problem. Police and communities need to work together. Young people taking up careers as cops to police the communities they come from can only be a positive thing. Violence is undermining that crucial message.
What political solutions are there though ? The impression seems to be that there aren’t any left - that they’ve all been exhausted. Trump is in the White House after all. But people forget that the majority of government in the United States is local. Barack Obama wrote an article about how, although many of us focus only on the presidency and federal government, ‘the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system are at the state and local levels’. Yet voter turnout among these levels of government is rarely above twenty percent, and often even lower among young people. These are elections to offices that can have a direct impact on many of the issues people are protesting about. As Obama rightly points out, if you want to bring about long-lasting change, people must have their voices heard at the ballot box, alongside peaceful retests to raise awareness. If those rioting expressed their anger and outrage at the ballot box rather than chucking bricks through windows, or setting cop cars on fire, we would see more progress. Political mobilisation is the best known way to achieve change. History is evidence of that.
2. It's Not All About Race
Throughout the last week, race has been the driver of the protests. The black community feels that this keeps happening to members of their communities, and are understandably angry. Often this anger is directed at the police force. Claims of systematic and institutional racism are common whenever there is a murder of an unarmed black man. Racism is still obviously a problem in the US police force. There are too many examples of bad cops, too many examples of racist cops. But it goes deeper than this. These are fundamental questions about the police in the United States… it isn’t just about race.
Nearly four years ago a white man by the name of Tony Timpa died after police had pinned him to the ground for more than 13 minutes. Body-cam footage showed the police officers mocking the man after having pinned him down. The officers involved were disciplined, but returned to active duty a month later. This is not an isolated example. Daniel Shaver was shot dead by police in 2016 while unarmed and on all fours. Again there was no successful prosecution and the officer in that case was able to retire with a pension and trauma pay. I feel the need to re-emphasise the point that this doesn’t mean race is not an issue. It clearly is. But the impression that this is a problem isolated to the black community is simply false. Police violence, and bad policing generally, is an American problem as much as it is a black problem.
Between 2017 and 2019, there have been nearly 700 black men and women killed by police, nearly 500 Hispanics killed by police, and over 1200 whites killed by police. The issue of police brutality is one that impacts all Americans, even if it's at varied and disproportionate rates between races. One thing to note with the above statistics however, is that in the majority of the cases, the victims of a police killing are either armed or attacking police. According to the Washington Post’s police shootings database however, over a similar time frame, 47 unarmed whites have been shot dead by police while not fleeing from them. The number among black men and women is 19, and among Hispanics it is 10.
But it is complicated. Not only is data on police violence in the US difficult to confirm (the above statistics are double the official numbers), it is also difficult to analyse. Yet there is one thing which can be said for certain. American cops have an excessive force problem. Unlike in the UK, police in the US are armed - something that shouldn’t be a surprise in a country with roughly 400 million guns. Cops are also at risk of violence, with an average of about 50 cops a year being killed feloniously over the previous decade. This is undoubtedly a contributing factor as to why police are more inclined to use excessive force. Consistent evidence has also shown that states with lower rates of gun ownership, and stricter gun laws, have lower rates of police killing civilians.
The breeding of a culture in which cops are inclined to use excessive force is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, and not swept under the rug. On the most recent data, American cops kill over 28 people per million. That rate is three times the rate in Canada, seven times that of France, over twenty times that of Germany, and over 50 times the rate of people killed by British police in 2019. While race understandably dominates the protests and the news cycle, police violence against the civilians they are meant to protect is an American problem. The scenes of very aggressive police responses to the ongoing protests is yet more evidence that American police are more inclined to use excessive force than in other countries.
3. The Wealth Gap and Race
Broader issues regarding race in America make it about wealth too. The black community, and people of colour more generally, disproportionately hold far less of the wealth in American society. The median black family have an average wealth ten times lower than the median white family. These are huge disparities based predominantly on decades and centuries of discrimination and oppression, both by institutions, and by people and groups. Yet what is often perceived as systemic and institutional racism in the present, is mainly a lack of social mobility in the United States. Over 90% of children born in the 1940s were earning more than their parents, but for children of the 1980s this figure has dropped to 50%. Similarly only 45% of 1980s kids will achieve a higher standard of education than their parents, compared to over 70% of 1940s kids. An in-depth report by the World Bank found that the United States has significantly lower rates of social mobility than the developed economies of western Europe. The country of the American Dream is only 27th in the world on the social mobility index. This undoubtedly disproportionately affects people of colour, and is a key reason for racial inequality in the US. But it is a problem both in, and out of, the context of race in America.
Racism in America continues to be a massive problem. Yet, it won’t be solved through the prism of police brutality alone. It is clearly deeper than this. People find conversations about race incredibly difficult. It has a long, bruising history. Not only in America, but in the UK too, and around the world. The experience of blacks in America is not simply about overt (or covert) racism they may suffer. It is directly linked to racial disparities in wealth that represent open wounds of a traumatic history, and the lack of social mobility in a country which prides itself as a place where anyone can do anything.
4. Being White
For a lot of people, the last week has been about listening. Listening to the grief, pain and frustration, and trying to understand the injustices felt by black communities. For me personally, I questioned the worth of writing an article about this. As a privileged white guy, do I have anything to add to the conversation ? I am not convinced that I do, but I think it is important not to hide away from the conversation. It’s all too easy to ignore issues of race prevalent across the Atlantic, and continue in our own lives. These issues are not exclusive to the US - problems of racism remain in the UK, Europe and around the world.
It is also not a useful exercise to take the view that conversations about race are only reserved by people who are victims of racism. The point of the last week has been for white men and women to listen and to raise awareness to them/us about the continued problems of racism, and the distinct lack of progress. White people have to be part of this conversation. Racism is not just a problem reserved for those who experience it. It is a problem for all of us. Conversations about race should also not be ideological, but rather they should unite people across the political spectrum. A video from 2017 showing Black Lives Matter protestors being invited onto the stage at a pro-Trump rally to engage in a conversation is a blueprint for progress. Videos of police officers standing in solidarity with protestors over the last week is a blueprint for progress. Too often issues regarding race, often in the context of police brutality, are just part of the continuous news cycle. Even the most extreme examples only dominate news headlines for a matter of weeks, before people move on. Barack Obama, and many others over the last few days, have emphasised that this represents an opportunity for real change in the US.
And it is not just about police brutality. If black lives matter, all black lives must matter. Not just the lives of those murdered by police when unarmed. Black lives matter for the thousands that are killed every year by gun violence. Black lives matter in education at schools and colleges. And black lives matter at the ballot box.
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