“Let’s Talk About ‘Black On Black’ Crime”: African-Americans Long Oppressed By What Might Be Called “America On Black” Crime
OK, fine. Let’s talk about “black on black” crime.
That, after all, is where the conversation seems to inevitably turn whenever one seeks to engage a conservative on the American habit of shooting unarmed African-American boys and men. So it was exasperating, but nowhere near surprising, to see former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani go there last week on Meet the Press.
Asked by host Chuck Todd, during a discussion of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, about the fact that African-American communities like that one are often served by snow-white police departments, he offered some perfunctory words about the effort to produce more representative cop shops. But then Giuliani took a sharp turn off topic and into the brambles. “I find it very disappointing,” he told Todd, “that you’re not discussing the fact that 93 percent of blacks in America are killed by other blacks. … I would like to see the attention paid to that that you are paying to this.”
There followed a sharp exchange with another panelist, author and professor Michael Eric Dyson, which produced this parting shot from the mayor: “The white police officers wouldn’t be there if you weren’t killing each other.”
Somehow, he managed not to call Dyson “you people.” In nearly every other respect, Giuliani’s words reeked of a paternalistic white supremacy unworthy of a former mayor of America’s largest city — or even a sewer worker in its remotest Podunk. But again, this has become the go-to “reasoning” for those on the right — Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh — when asked to give a d–n about the killings of unarmed black boys and men.
That formulation is false for multiple reasons.
In the first place, being concerned over the shooting of unarmed black men hardly precludes being concerned over violence within the African-American community. Giuliani and others suggest a dichotomy where none exists.
In the second place, they ignore the obvious: When black people commit crimes against black people, they face prosecution, but when police officers (or certain neighborhood watchmen) commit crimes against black people, they face getting off with little if any punishment.
In the third place, what exactly is “black on black” crime?
Do black people kill one another? Sure they do. Ninety percent of black murder victims are killed by black assailants.
But guess what? White people kill one another, too. Eighty-three percent of white victims are killed by white assailants. See, the vast majority of violent crime is committed within — not between — racial groups. Crime is a matter of proximity and opportunity. People victimize their own rather than drive across town to victimize somebody else.
So another term for “black on black” crime is “crime.”
But there is crime and there is crime.
Redlining, loan discrimination and predatory mortgages have stripped generations of wealth from the African-American community. What is that if not robbery?
The Republican Party practices policies of voter suppression. That’s the assault and battery of African-American political rights.
Mass incarceration criminalizes the very existence of black men and boys. That’s the rape of equal justice.
Unarmed people are killed by those who are purportedly there to protect and serve them and the “just us” system looks the other way. That’s the murder of basic human rights.
It is touching that Giuliani and others are so concerned about black-on-black crime. But African-Americans have also been long oppressed by what might be called “America on black” crime.
When do you suppose they’ll be ready to talk about that?
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist for The Miami Herald; The National Memo, December 1, 2014
“What Does ‘Black-On-Black Crime’ Have to Do With Ferguson?”: The Issue Isn’t Us; It’s How White America Views Blackness
The answer to the question posed in this post’s title is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not one thing. Nada. Zip. Zero.
The “Black-on-Black crime” moniker is racist rhetoric functioning under the guise of concern for the state of Black America. People of all races — Blacks included — seemingly love to discuss how not killing our own and being more respectable will alleviate the effects of racism.
It’s dangerous, however, to tell Black people to dress better, work harder or be respectable because it diverts attention from the gaze of the oppressor to the behavior of the disenfranchised. It showcases how deep anti-blackness runs within our society. This highly misinformed line of thinking negates the complex historical implications surrounding a white cop killing an unarmed Black teenager.
Authority has a long history of not respecting Black people so why some folks think becoming more respectable will solve anything is confusing. Our respect means nothing to those who see no value in Black life. They don’t care for or want our respect — they want our compliance. They want our submission.
“Black-on-Black crime” highlights the fear surrounding Black masculinity, the lack of Black femininity, and perceived inherent Black criminality. And, when Black people are shamed for committing the same crimes at almost the same rates as whites, it illustrates how much the white supremacist gaze has been internalized.
The term, which originated in the 1980s, cites Black people as a problem as opposed to poverty, poor educational opportunities, proximity and other factors that lead to increased crime rates within all communities — regardless of color.
Research conducted by David Wilson explains how the media picked up on a new wave of violence within Black communities — which was undoubtedly fueled by job loss, debased identity and “rampant physical decay”– and constructed the misperception that intraracial crime was a malady only plaguing Black America.
But racial exclusivity is apparent in the majority of violent crimes. Around 91 percent of Black victims are murdered by Black offenders while 83 percent of white victims are killed by another white person, based on the most recent FBI homicide statistics.
The “Black-on-Black” crime argument alludes that there’s nothing normal about Black intraracial crime. “White-on-white” violence is simply called crime. Why is Black intraracial violence depicted as some rare Pokémon in crime discussions when it is only slightly more prevalent?
Flawed white perception is not assuaged is these talks — Black behavior is, instead, attacked. This places Black folk in a “Catch 22.” No matter how “respectable” we are or become, as long as our skin is Black we will never amount to white standards though we are expected to be a reflection of them.
Respectability will never be a solution because the issue isn’t us; it’s how white America views blackness.
Mike Brown’s death, and the subsequent lack of justice, isn’t about the myth of “Black-on-Black crime.” It’s about how Blacks are disproportionately, and often unjustly, targeted by law enforcement. It’s about how systemic racism frames the way in which Black people, especially men, are viewed. It’s about how Black corpses are criminalized and put on trial but their white killers often go unindicted.
The circumstances surrounding Mike Brown’s death represent a much larger racially oppressive government and police structure that excuses white killers but refuses to humanize black victims due to the inherent guilt attributed to black people and blackness.
And when you tell Black people to be more respectable and not kill one another, you’re identifying us as savage brutes who deserve to be gunned down due to this assumed lack of humanity.
The protests in Ferguson do not show the supposed intrinsic animalistic nature of Black people. They showcase a community — and reflect a nation of people — tired of constantly being at the mercy of a justice system that sees no value in their livelihood.
Ferguson is illustrating what happens when people are fed up with being targeted. Ferguson is spearheading a movement. Stop detracting from that with baseless “Black-on-Black crime” discussions.
By: Julia Craven, The Blog, The Huffington Post, November 30, 2014
“A Badge Does Not Confer Credibility”: Bias Can Strain An Already Difficult Standard In Prosecuting Police
Average people find it difficult to place themselves in the shoes of police officers who live everyday knowing their next call could be their last. So when faced with a shooting by a police officer in questionable circumstances, they give deference to the officer’s decisions.
Jurors usually find that such officers reasonably believed the slain person posed a threat of serious bodily harm or death, justifying deadly force under legal standards.
Prosecutors are keenly aware of this tendency and know they will have difficulty prosecuting such cases. It would be hard, however, to create an alternative legal standard that could better ensure both an officer’s right to safety and the individual’s right to be free from excessive force.
Many minority citizens fear that jurors’ racial biases expand the notion of when it is reasonable for an officer to use deadly force. Indeed, one of the first questions many commentators asked when the decision was announced in the Michael Brown shooting was whether the grand jurors who declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot him to death, were split along racial lines.
Perceptions of racial bias undermine the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, splitting citizens along racial lines when a white police officer kills an unarmed racial minority.
While we cannot eliminate the possibility for bias in prosecutions, we can make the process more transparent. Local prosecutors should not be faced with the choice of bringing charges against members of the police departments they rely on every day. These cases should automatically be referred to the state attorney general’s office or a special prosecutor who does not have the same perceived conflict of interest.
Jurors should be given clear instructions that an officer’s testimony carries the same weight as that of any other witness and that a badge does not confer credibility.
Criminal prosecutions, however, are not the most effective way to address systemic problems in a department because they focus solely on the actions of an individual officer and not on the organizational culture that likely shaped that conduct. To force broader changes in police practices, advocates should focus on institutional factors that encourage police misconduct, such as the failure to identify, supervise and discipline officers who are prone to misconduct.
By: Kami Chavis Simmons, Former Federal Prosecutor, Professor and Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Wake Forest University School of Law; Room for Debate, The New York Times, November 25, 2014
“The Deck Is Stacked In Favor Of The Police”: Given Every Benefit Of The Doubt, Which Rarely Happens In Other Criminal Cases
Once more a police officer is not being held legally accountable for a killing. There are so many instances of this. Earlier this year, two Fullerton, Calif., police officers were found not guilty of all charges in the killing of Kelly Thomas, a homeless man who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Medical records show that bones in his face were broken and he choked on his own blood; the compression of his thorax by the police made it impossible for Thomas to breath and deprived his brain of oxygen.
In the wake of the grand jury’s choice to not indict the Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson, the question must be asked as to why so often juries, and grand juries, rule in favor of the police, even when there is strong evidence of police misconduct. With a videotape of a savage beating, a California jury acquitted the four officers who beat Rodney King and a subsequent federal court jury acquitted two of them.
It is only when police officers are being investigated that the criminal justice system seems to operate most like it is supposed to in protecting the rights of suspects. Grand juries are meant to be a check on prosecutors. But in reality grand juries usually do whatever prosecutors want and generally are presented only evidence supporting an indictment. In Ferguson, however, the prosecutor presented all of the evidence and deferred entirely to the grand jury.
There is supposed to be a presumption of a defendant’s innocence in every criminal investigation. All too often, though, prosecutors and judges and even juries act with the assumption of a defendant’s guilt. By contrast, when the defendant is a police officer, there is a strong presumption of innocence. There is great deference to the split-second decisions of the officer in the field, even when the force seems clearly excessive. The officer is given every benefit of the doubt, which rarely happens in other criminal cases.
The problem is that the law gives too much deference to police conduct and does not do nearly enough to hold the police accountable. This also is true when police are sued by victims for money damages in civil court. A number of legal rules make it very difficult for victims of police abuse to successfully sue.
The events in Ferguson have focused national attention on the problem of excessive police force. It must be a catalyst for a careful analysis of why the legal system fails to achieve justice for victims of the police and how to correct it.
By: Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean and The Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment law at The University of California, Irvine, School of Law; Room for Debate, The New York Times, November 26, 2014
“Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters”: Something Much Bigger Than What One Police Officer Or One Prosecutor Does
Once again we find ourselves reckoning with the reality that we live in a country where justice is applied unequally. But the truth is – unequal justice is no justice as all. To keep our “eyes on the prize,” it might be helpful to step back and envision just what it is we mean by the word “justice.”
Back in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the memorial service for the four little girls who had died in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Imagine with me for a moment if he had said these words about the killing of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, or Tamir Rice.
And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. They have something to say to every Negro who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.
When Dr. King quoted the scripture that says “Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” he was referring to something much bigger than what one police officer or one prosecutor does. And it was something much more audacious than what happens in a court room.
Now don’t get me wrong. Dr. King said we should not “merely” be concerned about the murderers. Holding people accountable for their crimes is certainly a part of justice. But the truth is…he had a finger to point at all of us for our complicity.
Too many of us in this country have bought into the idea that jail = justice. If we just send the perpetrators to prison, we can wipe our hands clean and assume that justice has been done. That’s one of the reasons this country has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Yes, I know that its also because of the failed “war on drugs.” But that war was based on the idea that we can effectively deal with a problem by locking people up. So it is our addiction to prison as the solution that is at the root of the problem.
The idea that jail = justice is not something that is simply embraced by conservatives. It finds a home with liberals when we step away from what happens to the poor and start thinking about the crimes of the wealthy. For example, Bailey Miller writes: Can We Please Put Some Bankers in Jail Now? In it, Miller doesn’t grapple with what justice would mean for the activities that led to the Great Recession. The assumption seems to be that – until the bankers are put in jail – justice has not been served.
But Miller does point out that for then-Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (and eventually the Bush administration), the idea of justice went beyond sending the specific perpetrators to jail.
One clue might be the contents of a memo written by Holder in 1999, during his stint as deputy U.S. attorney general. The document, “Bringing Criminal Charges Against Corporations,” urged prosecutors to take into account “collateral consequences” when pursuing cases against companies, lest they topple and take the economy down with them. Holder also raised the possibility of deferring prosecution against corporations in an effort to spur greater cooperation and reforms…
I would suggest that Holder’s concept of justice is more in line with the one articulated by Dr. King. First of all, it took into consideration what justice would mean for all of the innocent people who would be impacted by the prosecution of a corporation. But secondly, more than sending perpetrators to jail, he had his eyes on reforming “the system, the way of life, the philosophy that produced” the crimes.
I’ll leave it to another day to discuss the role prisons should play in our search for justice. Suffice it to say, I agree with Al Giordano.
Prison should always be a last resort, and only for someone who will put others at risk with predatory behavior. It doesn’t work as a deterrent. As a punishment, it is barbaric. My concept of a just and better world has almost nobody in prison, not even people I hate or who have done bad things. The whole thing has to be rethought…
A re-thinking of what justice means would require us to consider the affirmative rather than simply the reactionary. One place to start might be with the words of Bryan Stevenson: “The opposite of poverty is not wealth. Its justice.” When I think about what that means, it gets the brain synapses going in a whole different direction than jail = justice. And I can begin to imagine what it would mean for justice to roll down like waters.
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, November 28, 2014
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