This won't directly address the issue, but if you look at any of the implicit bias research, other black people are also likely to have a negative bias toward fellow blacks than they are to whites. Because I'm not looking up all this research on my lunch break, I would guess that a lot of it is due to conditioning, both in the past where blacks maybe wanted to be white in order to be treated better, or black children having only white toys to play with, to now as black people are standardly portrayed as criminals and "thugs" in a lot of our media.
So, I would say that even if the officer is black, he's still a product of this conditioning that he's experienced just as being a person in the U.S., but also in police culture where there is a lot of research that supports the idea that there is racial bias when officers choose how to treat suspects.
I think that this is an interesting point and your comments regarding conditioning of people further supports the idea of a cultural issue instead of a racial issue. Where do you think it starts? I ask because my kids have friends that are black, white, asian, and hispanic. None of the kids care what the other kids look like, as long as they are fun to be around. In terms of police culture, why do you think that it is that way? I think that understanding why these beliefs exists is an important factor to understanding how to solve the issues.
I also wonder if on some level we all do this, maybe not with race, but with appearance. If a person who appears to be homeless comes in asking questions about a vacant lot, are you going to think and respond differently than a guy in a suit?
To be honest, I don't follow the BLM movement. I think they started out generally being angry at the status quo, but are now starting to try to organize around actual policy ideas. I think the country as a whole being willingly to meaningfully engage in a serious discussion about this, and being willing to accept that the racial discrimination is real and is bigger than just a few rogue people acting outside the norm, is also a big step. But it's not an easy one.
There are a lot of suggestions for law enforcement, like support for community policing efforts to allow officers to get to know the folks in their patrol areas on a personal basis, citizen review boards, investigators from outside the department looking into any cases of interest, better training regarding implicit bias, etc. But that's just one area. And there are pervasive issues in tons of various other areas (housing discrimination, voter discrimination, potentially job discrimination, etc.). So, in my opinion, the way to solve the issues is to start listening, bring everyone together, and start working on solutions that are based in sound policy, and respect the voices of those that are disenfranchised. This is only going to be able to happen on a local level, in my opinion, but the feds could work to help put together tool kits and training programs and things like that.
I think you bring up some very good ideas and I agree that some of these should, and I think in some places are being implemented. I also think that like most things in life, it is a two way street. I think that there needs to be a cultural shift where police officers are seen as a benefit to the community instead of a problem.
But one thing that is for sure, riots and attacking police are not going to help the situation any. It just further strengthens the idea that police need to use extra caution around some people, which can set the wrong tone to defuse the situation.
On the police shooting side of things I think a lot of it goes to training. Take the lady in Tulsa. Why did she reach for the gun when she had other non lethal methods of handling the situation? The guy might have been reaching into the car for something, but the officer never saw a gun or lethal weapon so she had no reason to use lethal force. Police also need to learn how to calm down a situation. Not everyone is going to listen to their commands. They might be thinking I'll do this and the officer will understand. Maybe the officer should start listening to what the people are saying once in a while. Take the case (I think in Florida) where the guy was helping a mentally disabled guy and was shot while trying to tell the officers he was playing with a toy truck and had some issues. The lady in the Charlotte (2nd shooting) video is telling the cops her husband was on medication. Teach people to fully assess the situation and to adapt to new information and there will be less shootings. Sadly, easier said than done and it doesn't solve any racial problems, but it's a start.
The situation in Tulsa is a bit different than the situation in Charlotte, and I think that there needs to be a balance between diffusing the situation and still having the ability to protect yourself. The video of the shooting in Charlotte shows that the person who was shot and killed by the police officer was acting erratically, they already had confirmed that he had a gun, and did not obey any of the officers requests.
If you were the officer in Tulsa, and the suspect reached back into the vehicle, what would you have done? If you were the officer in Charlotte and saw the gun on the suspect, saw that he had been smoking weed, and he refused to obey your comments, and his hands continued to hover near his gun, what would you have done?
