Silence Gives Power to Savages: Whites and Their Response to Racist Police Brutality

“Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.”

– Dr. Benjamin Spock

When whites frame the need for action against racist police brutality as a “black problem,” they departmentalize the issue. By that, I mean they neatly pack it into a box labeled “Minority Concerns” because they see no direct familiarity with mistreatment by enforcement. Although many are sympathetic to the plight of blacks, they view the police as respected authorities “just doing a tough job.” In essence, many whites are completely indifferent.

Samantha Cocco, current women's coordinator for the Akron Chapter of the Ignatian Spirituality Project and research administrator for the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education at Case Western Reserve University, explains a typical white view …

“As white people, we are tired of hearing about it because it doesn’t affect us. Because we know we can commit a petty crime and not wonder if we’ll make it out of our arrests alive. Because we know we can go jogging and come home alive. Because we can lay down for a nap and not worry about never waking up again. Because our kids can play with toy guns. Because we know we don’t pose a threat to authority figures with tasers and nightsticks and guns for the simple fact of our skin color and what it represents.

“But we are nowhere near as tired as Black people and POC. Black folks are tired because they’re living it, every day. They’re tired of having a good day until they open their phone or computer and see the news that another brother or sister has been unjustly murdered.”

(Samantha Cocco. “Fellow White People, About Your Inherent Racism.”

Ignatian Solidarity Network. May 29, 2020)

How about police attitudes toward the issue? The results are hardly surprising.

Pew Research Center conducted an extensive survey of nearly 8,000 sworn police officers across the country in 2016. In that survey, 67 percent of officers said they thought the deaths of black people in encounters with the police were isolated incidents, compared with 31 percent who said those deaths were part of a broader pattern.

Just 35 percent of officers in that 2016 survey said they thought protests against the killings of black Americans were motivated at least in part by a “genuine desire to hold officers accountable” for their actions. In separate questions, almost all officers (92 percent) said that these protests reflected at least some long-standing bias against the police, and 86 percent said that the attention surrounding high-profile incidents of police killings of black men and the resulting protests has made their jobs harder.

Dr. Earl Smith, an adjunct professor of sociology at George Mason University, says people can become annoyed if one makes statements asserting a disconnect between police and the Black community, “but I’m thinking, ‘Who are you trying to kid? In the place that I grew up (Long Island, New York) police routinely beat up young Black males.”

In truth, the relationship between African-American – black people – and police has always been contentious. Blacks have a historical fear of authorities with good reason, as local governments often looked the other way as black citizens were terrorized. That same history reeks of no accountability for white police officers who attack black citizens.

And, make no mistake, the blame for lack of action against violence can be shared. In addition to it being a race issue, police violence is a class issue within the black community itself. Dr. Ray Von Robertson, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, says middle-class blacks want to dissociate from the problem, believing a respectability doctrine – dressing well, being well educated and well spoken, avoiding the general appearance of trouble – will shield them from any conflicts with the police. Recent headlines, however, have shown police aggression directed toward those who would not necessarily have been previously thought to be likely to end up in conflicts with police.

Racist police brutality is not just a black problem, it is an American problem that must be faced by all U.S. citizens – those in the majority and those in the minority. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reports …

“Accurate and comprehensive data regarding police uses of force is generally not available to police departments or the American public. No comprehensive national database exists that captures rates of police use of force.

“The best available evidence reflects high rates of use of force nationally, and increased likelihood of police use of force against people of color, people with disabilities, LGBT people, people with mental health concerns, people with low incomes, and those at the intersections of these groups.

“Lack of training and lack of funding for training leave officers and the public at risk. Critical training areas include tactical training, de-escalation techniques, understanding cultural differences and anti-bias mechanisms, as well as strategies for encounters with individuals with physical and mental disabilities.

“Repeated and highly publicized incidents of police use of force against persons of color and people with disabilities, combined with a lack of accurate data, lack of transparency about policies and practices in place governing use of force, and lack of accountability for noncompliance foster a perception that police use of force in communities of color and the disability community is unchecked, unlawful, and unsafe.”

(Catherine E. Lhamon, Chair. “Police Use of Force: An Examination of Modern Policing Practices.” U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 2018.)

The demonstrators who have taken to the streets in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers are protesting against police violence and the inequities of the criminal justice system, which call into question the role and neutrality of the law enforcement personnel who patrol those streets. Antiracism is about doing and not just knowing. That means taking on the issue of racism and oppression as your own issue even if you’ll never truly understand the damage that it does.

White supremacy – white nationalism – uses whites as racial dividers. This nationalism espouses the belief that white people are a dominant race and seeks to develop and maintain a white racial and national identity.

Instead of entertaining ideas of white pride, we should work to defeat inequality and injustice in family systems, in communities, in schools, and in police departments. We should constantly be asking ourselves what we can do as white people to break those systems down and to evolve and learn … and, of course, how to be responsive in our own white skins.