After thinking about the idea of what the ‘systemic’ means in systemic problems or systemic racism, I think I’m getting closer to formulating an understanding, at least my own that I wish to articulate. I’m not there yet, but feel like you’ve presented some great data that shows it clearly exists, as it has for most all the history of America, except maybe the 1970s, just after the Civil Rights Bill was signed and just before the ‘crack’ epidemic that demonized black men. I would say it is not that all cops are conscious racist, but they act with the invested power of the government that has legally enacted laws that are aimed deliberately against blacks (I could throw in other minorities maybe but the entire history of the US it has been blacks so I’ll stick to that.). There are no doubt some actual racist cops, ones who are members of actual white supremacist groups. We know the head of the police union that protector Derek Chauvin was one such cop based the group insignia he brandished. But most cops simply participate in a system that have been driven to disproportionately target blacks. Remember Hillary Clinton promoting the crime bill in the early 1990s with the catch phrase ‘super predatory’ that was defined as a young black male selling crack on the corner? Remember then Senator Joe Biden promoting this crime bill with the same sentiment and then passing it? And those were the Democrats. Imagine how the Republicans felt who backed it. Then remember how the prison population more than doubled, with blacks being swept up by that crime bill? It was the politics leading up to the bill and the politics of that bill that set us on the current course of brutal tactics we witness on today. It is the politics that and the law that was passed that embedded the current round of racist tactics that are ‘systemic’. The ‘clean’ cops reflect the training passed down to them by the law of the land that was passed, not because they entered into the police academy as racists or intend to rakishly handle blacks. We see for the most part the system coursing through them. Some will do the right thing; some most will follow along; and a few Derek chains will commit heinous acts of brutality because they know the system that created racist police actions is the same one that ‘has their backs’ when they pull the trigger. I’m just thinking of what you’ve said, the evidence presented, but am still processing. I don’t know how to put it yet, but for now I can see most police who aren’t racist willing to act within a racist system imbued by the power of politicians, trying to follow what is told, which is acting with force first, and many pulling the gun on blacks at traffic stops too fast and pulling the trigger too fast, but as trained.
