Rev. Al Sharpton said that Tyre Nichols, beaten to death by Memphis police last month, would not have been beaten to death if he were white. How does he know that?
“There is a certain class of race problem-solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.” Booker T. Washington
From Sharpton’s speech which was falsely characterized as a eulogy:
“’Well, Reverend Al, you don’t understand: how are they going to keep crime down in the Black community and, at the same time not be tough and rough?’” Sharpton imagined being asked. He then answered, “Well, the same way they do it on the White side of Memphis and keep the crime down, without being rough and tough.”
“How do you have the same department and keep crime down on one side of town without beating folk to death, but you can’t do it on the other side of town unless you feel that you can get away with it there?” he asked.
He then offered his take on the beating being racial, saying, “I can’t speak for everybody in Memphis, I can’t speak for everybody gathering, but for me, I believe if that man had been White, you wouldn’t have beat him like that that night.”
Is Sharpton correct? Do police have more respect for white criminals? Tony Timpa was white and was also beaten to death by police a few years back. I suppose police only beat black men to death, except for all the other times when they beat white men to death.
The two cases are similar: excessive violence which lead to an unjustifiable death. Neither victim seriously resisted police and the police outnumbered and overpowered each. Repercussions were not the same however. When Timpa died, three officers were placed on administrative leave but returned to full duty later; two other officers were disciplined for “being discourteous and unprofessionalism.” The officers involved with Nichols death were immediately fired and charged with second-degree murder.
One-channel media focuses on race and “white supremacy” as factors in Nichols death despite the fact that the officers and the victim were all black, and despite the facts that Memphis is a majority black city, has a black mayor, and a black police chief. There are not enough cases where white supremacy truly applies and this is all they have to work with today. It is tough to make chicken salad from chicken poop, but our one-channel media is dauntless. So, Nichols’s story is elevated and labeled racist, but Tony Timpa’s saga is a local crime story media determines doesn’t matter to our sensibilities.
I despise the focus on race in all these incidents; race is continually raised when it shouldn’t be. Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in the death of George Floyd in 2020, yet, at the trial, racism was never introduced as a motivating factor. The one-channel media played up that angle because that is the narrative they must sell. Media had no proof of racism other than pointing to the races of the individuals involved. How about we ignore race unless we are certain of the motivation?
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” Martin Luther King.
Virtually everyone agreed Derek Chauvin abused his power and made poor decisions with regard to George Floyd. The Timpa case was remarkably similar, but hardly anyone cares about Timpa because hardly anyone knows.
timpa-suffered-same-fate-as-floyd
George Floyd’s death was an injustice; however, in so many other instances police defend themselves or defend others while making split second gut-wrenching decisions and are still accused of racism. Rashard Brooks was a man who resisted arrest, beat two police officers, stole an officer’s taser, and fired upon the officer as he was being chased. Riots ensued in Atlanta after the police officer shot and killed him. Jacob Blake violated a restraining order, digitally raped his ex-girlfriend, and when confronted by police officers he went for a knife in his car. There were riots for days after in Kenosha, Wisconsin after police shot him. Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend fired on two police officers, hitting one in the leg. When police returned fire, Taylor was killed in the crossfire. Taylor has become a cause celebre and the Louisville police department is now being investigated for suspect police practices because officers tried to protect their own lives when fired upon by the target of the warrant. The overwhelming majority of cases highlighted have similarly weak links to the white supremacy narrative.
You might think you know what happened in the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor, but no one knows that better than the lead officer on the scene, Sergeant John Mattingly.
. . . with the full support of the mainstream media, Black Lives Matter activists and other leftist groups immediately pounced on the tragedy, exploiting Breonna’s death and twisting the story—in some cases, telling outright lies—to bolster a shameful “All Cops Are Bastards” narrative and radical “Defund the Police” agenda . . . In 12 Seconds in the Dark: A Police Officer’s Firsthand Account of the Breonna Taylor Raid, Mattingly takes readers inside the Louisville Metro Police Department’s response to suspected criminal activity that night, debunking lie after lie about what happened,
The narrative is propped up with cases that don’t fit the narrative at all. This ought to tell us there is a problem with the narrative. Nichols’s death is a true travesty, but one channel media had a problem to overcome when reporting on it: the race of the officers. Five black police officers beat another black man to death. Where is the white supremacy angle?
Just envision it in your head and the white supremacy will become clear in this instance also. Atlantic magazine journalist Jamele Hill wrote:
“I need so many people to understand this regarding Tyre Nichols. Several of the police officers who murdered Freddie Gray were Black. The entire system of policing is based on white supremacist violence. We see people under the boot of oppression carry its water all the time.”
The system is one of white supremacy even when the officers are not white. Really?
Former Obama political appointee Van Jones said:
“Black cops are often socialized in police departments that view certain neighborhoods as war zones. In those departments, few officers get disciplined for dishing out ‘street justice’ in certain precincts — often populated by Black, brown or low-income people — where there is a tacit understanding that the ‘rulebook’ simply doesn’t apply. Cops of all colors, including Black police officers, internalize those messages — and sometimes act on them.”
The only “proof” media offered regarding the Floyd/Chauvin encounter was the race of the individuals. Now, we are told even the perpetrators’ races doesn’t matter. Former Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y:
“If you think the Memphis police officers had to be white in order to exhibit anti-Blackness, you need to take that AP African American Studies course Ron DeSantis just banned,” Jones tweeted.
Filmmaker Bree Newsome:
“Diversifying the police force doesn’t end racism because racism is inherent to the organization of the institution & its daily operation. Racism is what policing is,” she said.
Simply stating it must make it a fact. No further evidence is required.
U.S. Representative Cori Bush:
And let’s be clear: merely diversifying police forces will never address the violent, racist architecture that underpins our entire criminal legal system. The mere presence of Black officers does not stop policing from being a tool of white supremacy.
I found Whoopi Goldberg on a list of the greatest comedians of all time. I don’t remember her as a comedian, but I wish she would return to that profession. She now suggests white men be beaten by the police to prove a point:
“Do we need to see White people also get beat before anybody will do anything? I’m not suggesting that. So don’t write us and tell me what a racist I am. I’m just asking is that what people have to see in order to wake up and realize this affects us all?” Goldberg asked.
More white men should be beaten by the police before change occurs? Did anyone notice when Tony Timpa was beaten? No. Doesn’t that discredit her point? Goldberg knows she will be criticized, so she pre-emptively exempts herself. Still, her comments are ugly and ignorant. Generalizations of people are bad, even white supremacists.
What is the Real Problem?
There are indeed real examples of white supremacy and systemic racism in our past; there is no denying that. The real question is how prevalent are these today? Are lies being spread about history or about the present? White supremacy cannot be as prevalent as our media says when they sell it in instances where it does not exist.
A Harvard study delves deep into this topic, but arrives at the wrong solutions because they conclude wrongly about the depth of racism today.
harvard-soliving-racial-disparities
She praises the efforts of Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins in Massachusetts and George Gascón, the district attorney in Los Angeles County, Calif., who have pledged to stop prosecuting a range of misdemeanor crimes such as resisting arrest, loitering, trespassing, and drug possession. “If cities and towns across the country committed to that kind of reform, that would be a profoundly meaningful change,” said Natapoff, “and it would be a big step toward shrinking our entire criminal apparatus.”
Stop arresting people for minor crimes? Rudy Guiliani did the opposite in New York City in the 1980s and turned that crime-infested city around in a few years. Guiliani implemented the “broken windows” policy: arrest people for lesser crimes and avoid the more serious crimes altogether. Tolerating the smaller crimes, as the Harvard study suggests, sends the message “crime pays”, which leads to more significant crime. By the way, there was an effort in LA last year to recall Gascon (https://www.recalldageorgegascon.com/).
The article continues:
“Despite what many people in low-income communities of color think about police officers, the broader society has a lot of respect for police and thinks if you just get rid of the bad apples, everything will be fine,” Smith added. “The problem, of course, is this is not just an issue of bad apples.”
On the other hand, maybe the overwhelming majority of cops are doing a good job. Media uses the few “bad apples” to make the point the whole system is bad. The system of criticizing police and preventing police from doing their jobs is the bad one. Restore respect for the police force and make it a job the best people compete for. Lack of support for the police, particularly among law-makers, needs to stop.
The article ends this way:
“This nation is devoted to freedom, to combating racial discrimination, and to making government accountable to the people,” wrote Brown-Nagin. “Legislators today, like those who passed landmark Civil Rights legislation more than 50 years ago, must take a stand for equal justice under law. Shielding police misconduct offends our fundamental values and cannot be tolerated.”
What are they talking about? Police misconduct was not shielded in Memphis. Officer Chauvin was convicted for killing George Floyd. Michael Brown’s killer was not prosecuted because there was no case against him (the Obama administration concluded as much), not because he was shielded. In defense of the narrative, media ends up defending actual criminals and criticizing police behavior confronting them. This is the actual problem.
Last May, I wrote the following regarding the Derek Chauvin trial. It bears repeating today:
A systemically racist system would not have immediately fired Officer Chauvin from the police force. A systemically racist system would not have charged Officer Chauvin in a few short days after this incident (something that was done in record time in this instance). A systemically racist system would not have released the body camera evidence so quickly; it would have found a way to cover it up A systemically racist system would have had a phalanx of police officers and public officials lining up to defend Chauvin’s actions. A systemically racist system would not have convicted Chauvin. A systemically racist system would not have elected a black president twice along with a black vice-president last year; it would not even allowed those choices. A systemically racist system would not have allowed so many black senators, mayors, representatives, governors, attorneys general, and the like to hold office in order to represent both black and non-black populations. This claim of systemic racism is built on a lie, a lie to discredit political opponents who otherwise agree with their accusers on the evils of racism.
A systemically racist system would also seek out and encourage more people like Chauvin, not condemn such behavior. A systemically racist America would have hundreds, if not thousands, of black men being killed unjustifiably by police officers each year. That’s simply not the case. On average, there are 50 to 60 million interactions between police and the public each year. Of those incidents, a very small number result in the death of a black civilian, and most of these we don’t hear about because most of these are justified. Of the few we do hear about each year, most are not as clear-cut as the George Floyd incident. If we could find more clear cut incidents like the death of George Floyd or the death of Walter Scott a few years ago or the beating of Rodney King 30 years ago, we could have a real debate about this matter. Instead, we have a lot of incidents which are highlighted, but few that are worthy of discussion.
Police sometimes blatantly abuse power, but that problem is quite limited and not systemic. Unjustified killings of men, black or white, by police are not representative of America (they are a diminishing fraction of events in America) and they generally have nothing to do with race.
I do know that what happened between Derek Chauvin and George Floyd should not define race relations for all Americans. They are two flawed individuals and their interaction should not be representative for the rest of us. Chauvin is not a proxy for my views, nor is he a proxy for the relationship I, nor any other white American, has with another black American. He is not a proxy for all police officers, and if found guilty, it doesn’t mean all police officers are guilty of racism by association. We make this same mistake every time there is this kind of story. We’ll make the mistake we made with Trevon Martin and George Zimmerman, with Michael Brown and Darren Wilson. I wish we would stop taking a few individuals as representatives of entire groups.
Incorrectly define the problem and you arrive at the wrong solution.
The Numbers
The false narrative impacts many opinions. Very few unarmed black men have been killed by police, but a significant portion of the public believes otherwise. Overall, more whites are killed by police more than blacks (see the numbers below). A 2021 poll showed Americans consistently overstate the actual number of unarmed black men killed by police; the correct number is 13. Nearly two-thirds of liberals estimated the number between 100 and 1,000 (conservatives were much closer to the correct number):
The total number of blacks killed by police, including armed individuals, is a few hundred, but often these individuals attack or confront the police.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124036/number-people-killed-police-ethnicity-us/
Some note that blacks are a smaller percentage of the population, and the black per capita rate is 2.5 times higher than the white rate.
The rate of police shootings of Black Americans is much higher than any other ethnicity, at 37 per million people. This rate stands at 28 per million for Hispanics and 15 per million for Whites.
Is racism the only possible explanation of this? Is it possible more blacks are killed by police because more are involved with crime? Crime is far higher in large cities, and large cities generally have a larger black population than the rest of the country. This concentration leads to far more encounters between police and blacks than would otherwise be expected. Two-thirds of Memphis, Tyre Nichols home, is black, and Memphis has one of the highest murder rates in the country:
memphis-one-of-highest-murder-rates-in-country
Memphis, Tennessee, is among the U.S. cities with the highest homicide rates. There were a total of 289 murders reported in the city in 2020, or 44.4 for every 100,000 people — well above the national homicide rate of 6.5 murders per 100,000.
Blacks comprise 30% of Chicago, a city with almost 800 murders annually. Police statistics show 95% of its murder victims are “people of color”. Media downplays hundreds of murders of black men in Chicago and elsewhere, generally perpetrated by black men on other black men, and instead focus on 13 nationwide deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of the police. The fact is there is more crime in heavily black areas like Memphis and Chicago. One-third of all black males have a felony conviction. With such numbers we should expect more violent and fatal encounters between blacks and police in those locales; a ratio of 2.5 to 1 is not out-of-line. How do we conclude systemic racism from these numbers?
There is indeed a problem, a problem with the murder of so many black men in large cities, but it is not the police murdering innocent black men but rather others living in these same neighborhoods murdering each other. Blacks die of homicide at a rate 13 times that of whites, again not because of the police. The focus is taken off this serious and wide-spread problem to instead address a problem which is very rare. One-channel media is obsessed with the phantom of “systemic racism”. Ask Al Sharpton if you want to know why. Ask how he and his cronies benefit from the attention paid to them. Booker T Washington saw the same phonies in his day 100 years ago. I have talked before of one-parent families and illegitimacy being the biggest driver of this inequity. The death of George Floyd has been a watershed that has only made the problem worse as people again shift focus away from the real problem and blame white supremacy for the disparate impacts.
McDonald
Heather McDonald is a journalist who has studied this problem extensively. She brings facts to this issue as well during an interview with Andrew Klavan and directly addresses the phony systemic racism narrative.
Per McDonald, everything is driven by disparate impact. We cannot enforce the law without having a disparate impact on blacks–and not because the system is racist. The only way liberal politicians have found to eliminate the disparate impact is to stop enforcing the law, so this is the “solution” seized upon. Yet, this only makes the problem of violence in the black community worse. Many, including the Harvard study quoted above, advocate for this because they are blind to any explanation but racism. McDonald offers solutions, but ones those at Harvard and one-channel media don’t want to hear.
For more on systemic racism: https://seek-the-truth.com/category/systemic/
Dave (About me: https://seek-the-truth.com/about/)
Seek the Truth 