The Great Racial Disconnect on Police

MOSTP352-814_2014_000000_low.jpg-400x257On Monday, Rasmussen released a poll of Americans regarding the guilt or innocence of Officer Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot unarmed 18-year-old black man Michael Brown six times in Ferguson, Missouri. Those polls show that 57 percent of black adults think that Wilson should be found guilty of murder; 56 percent of whites, by contrast, are undecided on the matter.

The latter position is the correct one. Witnesses, including one Dorian Johnson, claim that Brown was pulled over by Wilson, attacked by him and pulled into the car, ran, stopped when told to freeze by Wilson, held up his hands, and was then shot. Other witnesses — more than a dozen of them, according to local media — say that Brown attacked Wilson, went for Wilson’s gun, fled before being told to stop, then charged Wilson before being shot.

Here’s what we do know: Despite original media reports labeling Brown a “gentle giant,” Brown and shooting witness Dorian Johnson did participate in a strong-arm robbery of a local convenience store. We know that despite original witness reports suggesting that Brown was shot in the back, he was not. We know that contemporaneous witness accounts caught on tape suggest that Brown charged at Wilson. And we know that a young black man is dead with six bullets in him at the hands of a white cop.

And to huge segments of the black community, that last fact is the only one that matters. The full facts do not matter to extremists in the black community and to their white leftist enablers, particularly in the media. A full 41 percent of black Americans believe that riots and looting represent “legitimate outrage.” Not protesting — riots and looting. Just 35 percent of blacks think that looters and rioters are criminals taking advantage of the situation.

There is a pattern here: a widespread belief in the black community that the justice system is rigged against them. That belief is not without basis — there is no question that America has a history of racism within the criminal justice community. By the same token, there is also no question that American law enforcement is the least racist it has ever been, by a long shot, and that racism within the law enforcement community is broadly considered unacceptable and vile.

But the belief in a racist justice system seems to have maintained its stranglehold inside the black community. That belief, taken to its extreme, means support for black criminality. It is no coincidence that during the O.J. Simpson trial, 60 percent of black Americans did not believe O.J. was guilty. It is also no coincidence that many white Americans perceive black support for murderers like O.J. Simpson and riots in Ferguson as support for lawlessness, and therefore pooh-pooh charges of police racism. When crying racism becomes crying wolf, it is hard to take such charges seriously.

The solution, however, lays neither in knee-jerk accusations of racism from the black community nor in immediate dismissals of individual accusations by the white community. It lies in continued targeting and prosecution of individual racists in the police community, of course — and far more importantly, it lies in less criminality within the black community. The high levels of crime in the black community contribute to heavier policing, which in turn reinforces perceptions of racial targeting; those perceptions then create resentment against police than ends too often in violent encounters and failure to report crime. And so the cycle starts anew.

It’s time to break the cycle. The only way to do that is to focus on the fact that police have no excuse to shoot anyone unless those people are committing criminal acts. On that we can all agree. Yes, we must arduously insist that police hold to that standard, and we must prosecute those who do not to the fullest extent of the law. But by the same token, we must insist that criminal acts stop — and to do that, we must move beyond simple anti-police sentiment.

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  • johnlac

    Not a bad article, but who stating that police can shoot people who aren’t committing crimes? Shapiro stated some pertinent facts. There is a lot of crime in mostly black communities which necessitates stronger police presence.
    Whether Wilson was justified in shooting Brown or not (and it increasingly looks like he was), there are going to be many more incidents like this one simply due to the high levels of black crime. Begging and pleading with black thugs to stop committing crime will avail us naught. These thugs must be stepped on harshly and no apologies made.

    • Otis

      “Law enforcement” is the standard to which the thugs must be subjected to. We have written laws, and everyone needs to be on the proper side of the writing, i.e., non-criminal. Looting (stealing) is agin the law, and should be stopped, and violators apprehended and prosecuted to the full extent. This would go a long way towards restoring civility and proper behavior patterns. And yes, no apologies made, for the criminal subject brings enforcement upon themselves.

    • Sheik Yerbouti

      It’s amazing that our courts and law enforcement have turned into these mas black coddling systems. Naturally the problem escalates. The press hides what they can, the government hides the rest. They’re forcing us all to live a lie.

  • Loupdegarre

    For the last 40 years I have been employed in the Mortgage business. As a requirement I must take continuing education classes on new laws that have been passed by the Federal Government. You may be asking yourself what does the Mortgage Industry have to do with what’s going on in Ferguson? Well, while studying a course on Fannie Mae and the FHFA that now controls it I found this:
    Currently, FHFA establishes, monitors, and enforces the affordable housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that are mandated by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA).
    3. Families That Reside In Low-Income Areas Housing Goal (11%). Three categories of home purchase mortgages qualify for the low-income areas housing goal:
    a. Low-income census tracts (tracts with median family income no greater than 80% of AMI)
    b. Minority census tracts (tracts with minority population of at least 30% and a median family income less than 100% of AMI)
    c. Federally-declared disaster areas (regardless of the minority share of the population in the tract or the ratio of tract median family income to AMI)
    It was this last part that caught my attention so I looked up Federally Declared Disaster Areas. Under FEMA guidelines manmade disaster such as Terrorism, Civil Disobedience and Riot qualify an area for these loans.
    I have always wondered why there were no riots when the DC police shot Miriam Carey. I think I understand now; there was no money in it. Here’s the scenario, activist groups have members all over the country with police scanners and when they hear of an officer involved shooting in a minority neighborhood they immediately check it out. If it fits the profile the alert goes out and the agitators head for the town to foment Riot and destroy property. Thus the whole area now qualifies for low income loans backed by FANNIE MAE and they cannot be turned down. My guess is that some of the Activist groups will be the ones who will broker the loans and make a load on points, then they leave and move on to the next tragedy. It’s like Rahm Emmanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. If anything like this is true then it just shows how little the so-called activist care for the people and how little they think someone’s life is worth.

  • Mo86

    “And to huge segments of the black community, that last fact is the only one that matters.”

    Absolutely right. That’s all they care about.

    But you forgot also the whites tormented by “white guilt” for things they didn’t do and were not even born to see! They hold this same view.

    And if you dare to bring facts and reason to this discussion, YOU are the one branded a racist – by blacks and the “white guilt” crowd alike.

    There is no reasoning with these people. I’ve tried, over and over again.

    I’m at a loss.

  • Gavin Smith

    Just let them riot. Who cares? I am so sick of that race.

    • African Child

      Another racist. The article is about removing racial prejudice, reducing crime among blacks who are angry at the US justice system which they feel do not protect them enough and people not jumping to conclusions without proper investigation about an incident.

  • Digli

    Lets say for the sake of argument that Darren Wilson is guilty of “Murdering” Michael Brown.
    Does it follow that justice is served by stealing from store owners who had nothing to do with Michael Browns death?
    Store owners who just like most of us are trying to make a living?
    Owning a store in Ferguson, working hard, trying to make a living, means that your possessions are taken and your business is set on fire?
    What if white people decided that every time a white person was killed by a black person a home or business owned by any random black person should be looted and fire bombed?
    Isn’t that what the Klan did?
    Haven’t we condemned and eliminated that behavior?
    The same attitude should be taken toward the actions of the looters and rioters in Ferguson.
    It should be condemned and eliminated.
    The reasoning of the looters (If there is any) seems to be faulty in the extreme.
    They’re using the death of another to justifying stealing from innocents.
    Most aren’t even justifying it, they just see a chance to steal.
    If the looters can’t make these distinctions the police should.

    • physicsnut

      you need to hang around some left wing revolutionary types – they WANT a revolution – and to “build a mass movement” – as if this is France in the 1780s or Russia in 1917. There were jerks in the Progressive Labor Party who said that people get radicalized when they get a billy-club on the head, so they provoked police action by smashing plate glass windows to get it started.
      I remember the riots in 1977 when the electricity went out in NYC – and within an hour there were those who put on makeup and were breaking into the clothing store on broadway and 104th st – in fact one cop got a chain out of the squad car and yanked the grates off the store so they could loot the place. It did NOT get started because a cop shot a black kid – it started because the electricity went out !!!!! Some people look at this as an opportunity.

      Keep in mind that for some people, jail is an Improvement in their standard of living – hard to get one’s head wrapped around that. Also, some parents bring up their kids to be criminals. Not politically correct, but true nevertheless. I heard that in a sociology class.

      • Digli

        I understand all of what you’re saying.
        I was making the same point.
        Hey …some will riot if their team wins a championship (or loses)
        I wonder why someone like the president or any..ANY.. news commenter can’t just say: “The store owner whose things you are stealing and whose store you are destroying didn’t hurt anyone.
        He’s just a little person like you , trying to make his way in the world”
        These rioters are such idiots that maybe Sharpton or Jackson or Obama…yes even maybe Obama could point these things out.
        Have you heard Obama say “These store owners didn’t kill Michael Brown. Leave them alone”.
        It’s so simple and all the rhetoric is about how complicated it is.
        They all want a pay off of some kind. Everyone involved.

  • physicsnut

    they cycle is probably about as difficult as the Palestinian cycle. Call it “irreconcilable differences”. And if it is not This difference, it will be some other difference. Then you have interested parties who goose one side or the other, because they think it works to their advantage, or they are looking for some “entertainment”.
    we keep expecting the police to have all this figured out – in advance, just in case. That means the cops have to be sociologists, anthropologists, and into adolescent psychology, and have eyes in back of their heads,as well as knowing everything about everything.

  • Gamal

    Isn’t robbing a store a criminal act? Isn’t attacking a policeman a criminal act?

  • trickyblain

    I agreed with this article, with the exception of this:

    “The only way to do that is to focus on the fact that police have no
    excuse to shoot anyone unless those people are committing criminal acts.”

    No. The police have no excuse to shoot anyone unless that person is an immidiate and clear danger to the officer and/or the public. The officer is not a judge, jury and executioner.

  • Henry John

    “Black Community”?, “White Community”?, “Red Community”?, “Yellow Community”?,” Brown Community”?”Tan Community”? What? Have “journalists” been smoking boxes of crayons?Or are they trying to hype up their readers by playing to blind prejudices? The community that the founders of our country gave us was,ans is, based on our motto e pluribus unum- The American Community. We do not live in a land in the separate states of pigmentation. We do live in a land where vicious thugs roam the streets and the suites, looting and pillaging with a six gun or a fountain pen.

    For liberal or conservative commentators to place individuals in tight little boxes using skin deep criteria is worse than bad journalism, it is shameful and an outright fraudulent practice that promotes knee jerk responses instead of reflective though. Will the government “experts” help sort out this confusion by issuing race cards with the percent of such and such of the persons racial blood; or will armbands do?

    The biggest problem with race in America, and elsewhere today, is that there is such a thing as race as an existential defining property of a human being.

  • Digli

    Check this out. It’s just one of many and you can find them all day long on YouTube. (The poor driver is white no less imagine if was black)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q83mfdPZcko

  • Adam

    Bens absolutely wrong about making the police less racist. Im sure they have tolerance classes shoved down their throats at every point and turn. This is a symptom of societal breakdown and the lefts exploitation of it. No amount of sensitivity training will make it go away as they’re manufactured crises for political ends and they will simply manufacture whatever new “grievances” are needed to keep it going.