Cops and Post Racial America
John McWhorter, who has made his career saying that racism is not what’s holding black America back, says, in response to the Skip Gates incident that “The relationship between black men and police forces is, in fact, the main thing keeping America from becoming “post-racial” in any sense.”
This strikes me as incredibly important. The argument that many make — and that McWhorter rejects — is that the structure of American society, from a cultural, political and economic perspective, specifically makes it harder for black Americans to succeed. Without getting into the truth claims, it’s pretty clear how, in a visceral sense, the constant suspicion one gets from the police, simple on the account of being a black male, will make one mistrustful of society at large.
That’s because police, in America, are more than just enforcers of the laws, they are supposed to uphold our social order and strengthen our social fabric. When you hear language about “keeping the peace” or about preventing “disorder, ” or in Gates’s case “disorderly conduct” that’s “unruly behavior likely to set off wider unrest,” imagery and symbols are being evoked that are much more than simple legal codes and regulations. Instead, police have the combined function of fulfilling the state’s most basic imperative, the monopoly on violence, and, more generally, in establishing the conditions under which peaceful, orderly society can operate. And if black men, from a very young age, have experiences which tell them (rightfully or wrongly, it doesn’t matter) that these frontline defenders of society will hassle them solely because of their skin color, then it’s much easier for them to have a wider mistrust of institutions and social norms.
This is one of many reasons why good police work is so important, and why police officers who arrest people becuase they embarrass and irriate them should be disciplined harshly. Anything else would be showing a lack of seriousness about the work they do.
