Question: What do you call the beating of a black man to death by five black police officers, in violation of their oaths, their duties, and all respect for the sanctity of human life?
Answer: White supremacy.
Unfortunately, I’m not kidding. In an article for CNN on Friday (1/27/23), political commentator Van Jones argued that the murder of Tyre Nichols showed that “it is time to move towards a more nuanced discussion of the way in which police violence endangers Black lives” and , in particular, time to understand that “one of the sad facts about anti-Black racism is that we, Black people themselves, are not immune to its pernicious effects”. “In the end,” wrote Jones, “it is the race of victim violated — not the race of the violent officer — that is most relevant to determining whether racial bias is a factor in police violence”.
Last Saturday's edition of the New York Times(1/28/23), Clyde McGrady has given a myriad of quotes to support this notion. Nichols’s death, suggested McGrady, “brought into focus what many Black people have said and what is often ignored in cases of police violence involving white officers and Black victims: that the problems of race and policing are a function of an ingrained police culture. aggression and dehumanization of Black people, rather than interpersonal racism”. Defending the same thing more directly, Democratic Representative (from Florida) Maxwell Alejandro Frost tweeted: “It doesn’t matter what color the cops are. The murder of Tyre Nichols is anti-Black and the result of white supremacy.”
Little is gained by euphemisms at a time like this, so I’ll be as blunt as possible when I say: This is nonsense. Look at the flowchart constructed by the people interviewed by Van Jones, Maxwell Alejandro Frost and Clyde McGrady, and you will immediately notice that, with their approach, there is no situation in which the death of a black American not be considered a product of white supremacy. If police officers knowingly act in the name of white supremacy, it is white supremacy. if the cops not consciously acting in the name of white supremacy is white supremacy. If the cops are white, it’s white supremacy. if the cops not are white, it’s white supremacy too. No matter what the input, or the details, the result is always the same: white supremacy. This is not logic; this is magic.
Worse yet, it is a theory that treats black Americans as if they are inferior citizens who cannot be held to the same standards as everyone else. If you believe, as you should, that all people are equal, then you cannot consider some of them mere automatons when it is politically expedient to do so. To recognize a person’s intrinsic equality is to fully accept his capacity for good and evil, without asking for special treatment, without making vague appeals to his “culture,” and without offering excuses for his conduct when you would condemn someone of a different race. unequivocally for the same behavior.
I’m afraid there isn’t much important difference between what Van Jones and co are saying in (indirect) defense of the five Memphis police officers and what bigots of the past were saying against treating nonwhites as full members of society. Of course intention is different. But, at root, both cases hinge on the same horrendous implication, that the behavior of black American citizens is beyond their control. I do not believe this. The five cops who killed Tire Nichols did something horrible, and that’s right. why I believe in their full and irrevocable equality that I intend to judge them unreservedly for having done so. These men are my peers and should be treated as such.
What is the alternative? In fact, there are quite a few.
The first is that the five police officers must be treated precisely the same as a self-declared white supremacist. If, as has been claimed, the actions of the five men were indeed spurred on by the “pernicious effects” of “anti-Black racism,” then presumably the men should be charged with hate crimes, just as a white police officer would be charged. in a similar situation it would be. In his column, Jones proposes that “it is the race of victim violated — not the race of the violent officer — that is most relevant to determining whether racial bias is a factor in police violence”. Well, if we follow that thought to its logical implication, we must surely conclude that the victim was a specific target. for being black, and that police officers are therefore guilty of discrimination. And if that’s the case, then why not accuse them of it? Of course, we wouldn’t want to have a situation where the police officer’s race doesn’t matter. except to the end of his punishment.
The second alternative goes in the opposite direction. If, as McGrady proposes, our “problems of race and policing are a function of an ingrained police culture of aggression and dehumanization of Black people, more than interpersonal racism,” then the officers in this case must be victims, too. And if the officers in this case are victims as well, they certainly should be treated leniently by the courts. The purpose of talking about “embedded cultures” is to dispel some of the responsibility for the specific wrongdoing. It would be unfair in the extreme to identify a large and widespread conspiracy behind such a misdeed, and then treat the scapegoats who bear direct responsibility for this misdeed as if they were the sole architects, wouldn’t it? And if, in fact, “white supremacy” permeates American police culture, rather than just motivating the decisions of independent individual officers—if this “white supremacy” is the villain, no matter what individual officers are thinking—then surely we should extend the same tolerance to white police officers who find themselves in the same situation?
To my ears, both alternatives sound ridiculous and grotesque. With the notable exception of insanity—a condition that can apply only to individuals, never to groups—our culture and laws are built on the assumption that all men are created equal and that, regardless of their unchanging characteristics, all are endowed with equal capacity for love, hate, benevolence, greed, altruism, selfishness, ambition, selflessness, bravery and cowardice. When we abandon this principle—as too many people seem tempted to do—we enter the realm of reservations, conditions, mysticism, pseudoscience, sophism, and whimsy, from which there is no escape, and from which no good can come.
