Structural Racism and Fatal Police Shootings of Unarmed Victims

Structural Racism in the United States is defined as “the normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics – historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal – that routinely advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.”

Structural racism is a system of hierarchy and inequity, primarily characterized by white supremacy – the preferential treatment, privilege and power for white people at the expense of Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Arab and other racially oppressed people.

Key indicators of structural racism are inequalities in power, access, opportunities, treatment, and policy impacts and outcomes, whether they are intentional or not. It involves the reinforcing effects of multiple institutions and cultural norms, past and present, continually producing new, and re-producing old forms of racism.

A study led by School of Public Health researchers (2018) found states with a greater degree of structural racism, particularly residential segregation, have higher racial disparities in fatal police shootings of unarmed victims.

The association between levels of structural racism and the racial disparity in the shooting of unarmed victims by police held even after controlling for the rate of arrests of black individuals in a state, and for the overall rate of fatal police shootings of black victims.

The study suggests that this police shootings are not simply about the actions of individuals, but about the actions of all of society. The researchers are hopeful that reframing this from an individual to a societal problem will pave the way for a meaningful discussion about institutional racism. Study co-author Anita Knopov, a pre-doctoral fellow at SPH, reports …

“This suggests that the higher rates of fatal police shootings of unarmed black victims are not merely a result of more interactions between police officers and black suspects. Instead, our results indicate that in some states there is a systematically different response based on the race of the suspect.”

Aldina Mesic B.S. Et al, The Relationship Between Structural Racism and Black-White Disparities in Fatal Police Shootings at the State Level. Journal of the National Medical Association, Volume 110, Issue 2, April 2018, Pages 106-116

Surprisingly, the study revealed the highest black-white ratios of police killings are concentrated in the Midwest, as are broader disparities in outcomes and living conditions like segregation and economic status. Among the states with the highest disparities in black versus white shooting victims and the highest racism index scores are Wisconsin and Illinois — home, respectively, to Milwaukee and Chicago, two of the most segregated cities in the country.

The study also found that overall, unarmed black civilians are more than four and a half times more likely to be shot dead by the police than unarmed white civilians. The data also includes instances in which law enforcement maintains a victim was armed at the time of a shooting, even when that fact is disputed – which could mean a potential undercount in the rate of police shootings of the unarmed victims.

Structural racism has deep roots. Racial differentiation has been created, and is constantly being re-created, to serve a social and or economic purpose. It is maintained through social, legal and political controls (from slavery to Jim Crow laws to ghettoization to uses of ‘law and order’ and the criminal justice system, restrictive immigration policies, etc.). 

We must examine the modern existence of this racism and vow to attack its core causes, not simply keep score of injustice after injustice. Society needs a wake-up call to action, not another reaction with fleeting regrets.   

“Systemic and structural injustice is violence. What we often look at is the violence that erupts on the streets. Well, that’s a response to the violent lives in which people have been forced to live. That’s what we have to begin to do – to look at the systemic and structural racism, period, which means dismantling some of these things, changing laws, changing policies, etc. So that’s one level.

“And then we talk about this sort of collective consciousness and what happens when, as President Obama put it, Johnny and Jamal go to apply for a job. And we know the likelihood is that Johnny is going to get it and not Jamal. We have to look at that.

– Kelly Brown Douglas, African-American Episcopal priest