(A note from the Author: Recently, a reader point out that the police were not mistaken in going to Breonna Taylor’s house. The no knock warrant was written for Breonna Taylor. So this means that the police department chose to utilize a no knock warrant for someone that did not have a police record; has never been arrested for drug possession; and no credible proof that drugs had been delivered to the residence. This further proves the assertion that systemic racism is widely practiced in this County because no knock warrants are largely used on African Americans than on any other race. Thank you, John, for giving more information for my assertion.)
A ruling came out in the Breonna Taylor case. This was a case of mistaken identity. A young paramedic was sleeping in her home with her boyfriend one night in March. At 12:30 am, three police officers broke down the door with a “no knock” warrant. Startled awake, both called out, “who’s there?”. The boyfriend, fearing a break in, grabbed his gun and shot at the police who he thought were intruders. The police opened fire and shot Breonna six times. Like similar cases over the past few years, the police officers’ actions were deemed to be justified self-defense and in accordance to law. One police officer was charged with “wanton endangerment” for firing shots into the neighbor’s home. That charge was not related to Breonna’s murder because the police officer that shot her is still on the Force. The boyfriend was taken in for shooting a police officer in his home, defending himself and Breonna.
This murder of an unarmed young black person is not a single incident. It has been happening way too often for it to be an unfortunate situation. Just “Goggle” police involved shootings in Georgia. There have been 73 police involved shootings this year. Very seldom are officers indicted or arrested for these shootings. The Country is rather divided on the cause of the problem. People have called to defund the police stating that the police are the cause. Others have said you cannot blame all police for a few bad cops. Still others have blamed the victim for their own deaths, “they should have not struggled and fought back; they shouldn’t have run away; they should have surrendered”. But it is not about good and bad police officers or good or bad black people. It really is about systemic racism.
Some people fight against the idea of systemic racism. They believe that everyone has equal choice and equal rights under the law. “It is all about choices and making the right or wrong one”. This thought process is due to the lack of experience with the system that continues to inspire racist actions under the law. Recently, the President of the United States said that there is no such thing as systemic racism. That teaching black history, slavery, and its effects, is tantamount to brain washing our youth and that is child abuse. He has stopped all anti-racism and anti-sexual harassment training for federal employees and has extended that to companies and contractors doing business with the Federal Government. He declared that he would start the 1776 Commission to create educational curriculum that would be patriotic and paint this country in a great light rather than to put “black people’s problems” in the center of who we are as a nation.
Here is the truth, however. Our laws, justice system, mores, and social norms are racist at the very root. The investigators in Louisville Kentucky made a correct ruling. The police officers, in the Breonna Taylor case, were acting in accordance with the law in carrying out their duties. The laws, police training and requirements, as well as civilian acceptance of such is racist. We have been taught to fear people of color. Movies have painted black and brown people as dangerous. From “The Birth of a Nation” released in 1915 with a watch party in the White House under President Woodrow Wilson to the recently ended television series “Empire”, media has painted a picture in society’s mind of the danger and criminalization of dark skinned people. Slavery, black laws that only applied to black people, red lining that told black people where they could and could not live are all part of the laws that continue to paint the color of a person of interest or number one suspect. There is not a black adult in this Country that has not, at one time or another, felt the effects of systemic racism. Some think it is just something that they must put up with. A part of life. Some doubt their own self-worth because of this deeply rooted US issue. Many white people tell me that they are not racists and do not think that way. What I am trying to convey is our system is racist and has been since before the ink on the Declaration of Independence dried. Everyone one of us has been indoctrinated into these thoughts and reactions.
Here is an example I ask you to consider.
You are driving down a highway, any highway, in this great land. You see two or three police cars on the side of the road with the blue and red lights blinking. The cars surround a single car whose former occupant is seated on the side of the road with hands cuffed behind him. The police are searching his car. What are your first thoughts at this sight? “Ah, a drug bust” or “he must have been doing something wrong”. Guilty as sin, right? Try this scenario instead. A young black man is driving to work as he usually does this time of day. A police car follows him for about three miles, giving the police enough time to call his license plate number in to check particulars. His orders are to utilize stop and frisk whenever he sees something suspicious. When skin color causes suspicion, a young black man always looks suspicious. The police officer calls in the intended vehicle stop and is soon joined by two other police vehicles. The young black man pulls over as required, gets out of the car upon request, puts his hands on the roof of his car as ordered and is searched and put in hand cuffs and told to sit on the curb or the ground. He is watch by one of the officers as the other two search the car. The reason given for the stop is a burnt-out taillight. After the police finish with the car, having found nothing, they remove the cuffs and issue a warning ticket for the taillight, letting the man continue on to work. This happens and I personally have been there to witness it. The police were doing what they should have been doing under the law, what they were trained to do. However, when suspicion is created simply by skin color, it is racist actions that is condoned by government regulation.
Next time you pass police activity on the side of the road, ask yourself what you really see and deconstruct that interpretation to determine why you see it that way.
Let’s unpack the existence of systemic racism. In the case of Terry v Ohio, in 1968, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police could stop and search any citizen based on reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed. This denied many people of color their 4th Amendment Rights under the Constitution. Once again, skin color is considered suspicious.
President Nixon created a hate campaign by declaring the war on drugs in 1971 listing people of color as responsible for the illegal drug trade. This war declaration allowed him to pour resources into the legal and justice systems to combat what he saw as his greatest enemy: antiwar left and black people. Nixon knew that the public would back him in advancing mandatory sentencing for drug crimes and support no-knock warrants. He knew he would win the vote if he appeared strong on crime to eliminate the fears he instilled in people.
President Regan extended this campaign with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act that provided $1.7 billion to fund the War on Drugs focused in urban intercity while also creating mandatory minimum sentences for drug offense. Part of the law placed longer mandatory sentences on crimes involving crack cocaine than on crimes involving powder cocaine. Crack cocaine was cheaper and mostly in intercity impoverished neighborhoods and powder cocaine more expensive and found in more affluent county neighborhoods. However, most patrols stayed in the “hood” and not in the County so oppression on minority neighborhoods continued.
President Obama reduced or eliminated sentences for 1385 individuals sentenced with minor, non-violent, drug crimes. He had pushed to permanently eliminate differences in sentencing, but this did not pass the Republican controlled Congress.
This brings us to the current President. Trump has repeatedly incorrectly linked crime to people of color and calls black people thugs further painting the systemic issues with color. During his 2016 campaign, Trump said black people “neighborhoods” were war zones. They struggle to get by on food stamps. They see nothing but failure around them.” While that may be true for some people living in poverty (any color, by the way) it is not true for all black people. Trump painted a picture in everyone’s mind that all black people live in squaller and participate in welfare and violence. Thus, causing more suspicion to be heaped on skin color. He could have stepped up and called for reform and the end of laws that enforce racism. He could have developed a task force to review how police handle situations. He could have mandated the true teaching of US History, the good and the bad of it. But instead, he simply declared that systemic racism does not exist, and he does not want anyone to talk about it anymore.
We cannot keep shutting our eyes and turning our heads to the systemic racism in this Country. It will not go away. It has been around longer than we have been a Country and to not teach the truth in our schools is like Germany not speaking the truth about the Holocaust. It is our history. It is part of us. It is up to us to say, “No More”. Until we do something to bring this into the light, the dark will always be feared. We can start this change with a little step and that is learning about our true history and understanding why we think the way we do when it comes to race.