Police officers Rafael Ramos (left) and Wenjian Liu (right) fatally shot in Brooklyn over the weekend. Credit: Creative Commons / The Independent
A 28-year-old man identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley apparently shot two uniformed New York City Police Department officers, Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32, execution-style as they sat in their marked patrol car in Brooklyn last Saturday. Investigators believe the gunman’s motive for the slayings was to avenge the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown – two black men killed by police officers earlier in the year. Police also suspect Brinsley of shooting his ex-girlfriend in the abdomen previously that day at her residence in Baltimore.
According to NYPD Police Commissioner, William Bratton, the gunman shot the officers with “no warning, no provocation – they were quite simply assassinated, targeted for their uniform.”
Only minutes after murdering the officers, Brinsley turned his gun on himself and died on a subway platform as police began surrounding him.
While allegations of racism against individual officers and entire departments have certainly gained traction across the nation with the high-profile killings of black men and boys recently, no one can condone the random murder of police officers as a solution to this long-standing problem.
In fact, speaking for the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton was emphatic in his condemnation of the events in Brooklyn: “I have spoken to the Garner family and we are outraged by the early reports of the police killed in Brooklyn today. Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases.”
I contend that allegations of racism in the hiring practices, policies, and attitudes in police departments represent in microcosm much larger forces evident in our country. We must not and cannot dismiss police killings of black men and boys as simply the actions of a few individuals or “bad cops,” for oppression exists on multiple levels in multiple forms. These officers live in a society that subtly and not-so-subtly promotes intolerance, imposes stigma, and perpetuates violence. These incidents must be seen as symptoms of larger systemic national problems.
The concept of “Social Reproduction Theory” asserts that schools and other social institutions reproduce social inequities, especially in terms of socioeconomic class and race, which exist in the larger society. When we challenge racism only within any institution like law enforcement organizations, we are missing the point if we do not address the roots, the origins of racism (and all other forms of oppression).
Researchers Charles and Massey interviewed 3,924 undergraduate students at 28 selective colleges and universities on their perceptions of various racial and ethnic groups – 959 Asian-Americans, 998 whites, 1,051 African-Americans, and 916 Latino/a students. Results indicated that “black people are rated most negatively on traits that are consistent with American racial ideology. White, Latino, and Asian students are all likely to perceive blacks as violence-prone and poor. They also rate black people more negatively than themselves in traits like lazy, unintelligent, and preferring welfare dependence.”
These students represent the very types of people who eventually enter police training academies and take their place patrolling the streets. These are the very types of people who eventually enter the classroom and teach our children. These are the very types of people who eventually enter politics. These are our future and current leaders.
So, where did they (we) learn these attitudes that they (we) are reproducing? They most certainly did not invent or create these negative belief systems. Rather, we all are born into a society that teaches us these biases. These systemic inequities are pervasive throughout the society. They are encoded into the individual’s consciousness and woven into the fabric of our social institutions, resulting in a stratified social order privileging dominant groups while restricting and disempowering marginalized groups.
Other researchers, Artiles, Harry, Reschly, and Chinn, contend that “bias is more than the personal decisions and acts of individuals. Rather, bias against minorities should also be thought of in terms of historical residua that are layered in social structures and that may lead to various forms of institutional discrimination.”
By our challenging social institutions, we are taking a necessary step in reducing and one day eliminating cultural bias to ensure that these institutions work for everyone regardless of race and other social identities. But this is surely not enough.
All individual police officers do not necessarily exemplify the problem, though some officers perpetuate the oppression. Law enforcement as an institution does not necessarily represent the problem, though many agencies perpetuate the oppression.
Rather, racism stands as the problem: the systematic and hierarchical ideology of white superiority and white privilege. We must look into the mirror at ourselves as well. Especially for us white people, we must come to consciousness of our social conditioning and the ways we have internalized notions of “race.”
I believe we are all born into an environment polluted by racism (one among many forms of oppression), which falls upon us like acid rain. For some people, spirits are tarnished to the core, others are marred on the surface, and no one is completely protected. Therefore, we all have a responsibility, indeed an opportunity, to join together as allies to construct protective shelters from the corrosive effects of oppression while working to clean up the racist environment in which we live as well as addressing the racism we have internalized. Once sufficient steps are taken to reduce this pollution, we will all breathe a lot easier.
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Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld is author of Warren’s Words: Smart Commentary on Social Justice (Purple Press); co-editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (Routledge) and Investigating Christian Privilege and Religious Oppression in the United States (Sense); editor of Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price (Beacon Press), and co-author of Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life (Beacon Press).
I agree that “racism stands as the problem: the systematic and hierarchical ideology of white superiority and white privilege.” What is worse is that in the era of Climate Change, this stubborn racism persists on a grand and global scale and makes international cooperation almost impossible. Following is my statement which also represents the views of green and pro-poor Haitian NGO’s and Haitian Americans. Please circulate.
Statement on Climate Justice for Haiti and Black Communities throughout the World
December 2014 – Global Racism
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We are concerned by the extreme levels of racial division and violence in American society, as illustrated by the many deaths of African-Americans because of police brutality. Another type of global racism towards Haiti, Cuba and Africa is driven globally by the U.S. political Right and their deeply-pocketed financiers which include fossil-fuel interests and irresponsible corporate elites and billionnaires. Extreme levels of this dangerous racism has been shown by those who at high levels of U.S. power, are sabotaging President Obama’s efforts to rebuild the U.S. and global economy while advocating for gun manufacturers and the transfer of surplus war supplies to police poor African-American communities.
We deplore the corruption and mismanagement, driven by U.S. corporate interests which prevented the use of funds raised after the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010, to finance a more equitable and ecologically sound Haiti, as well as address the Cholera crisis.
We are alarmed about the continuing inequality linked to racism nationally and globally.
In thinking globally, we are alarmed by the sufferings of millions of people in the Arab world who are the victims of the collapse of their nation-states long dominated by repressive militaries and elites supported by oil interests in the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia. Oil interests in the U.S. fund Climate Change deniers and skeptics, many of them long prominent in U.S. academia or mainstream media, and politicians who are opposed to technology transfer of green energy to developing countries, in particular to Haiti, Africa and the Arab people.
Their extreme and pathological racism is in part driven by anti-science and ignorance, given the many scientific breakthroughs in genetics, geology, archeology, anthropology and other disciplines, which confirm that racial differences are ultimately historical and geographical. Racial diversity, like all other diversities – and we will mention some here (ethnic, national, political, religious, gender, sexuality) are ultimately essential to human and planetary survival.
At a time when scientists have established the certainty of Climate Change, we find the racist, anti-immigrant climate in the U.S. dangerous and irresponsible for the future of Humanity as we need all the multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-national cooperation to make a peaceful and timely transition to a global ecological and peace economy supported by a local and global green energy infrastructure.
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S LEGACY: ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE
We are grateful to President Obama for having done so much to funnel major federal funding into all types of renewable energy initiatives during his tenure, which also made it possible for many Blacks in the U.S. to gain influence in the hereto mostly Euro-American (white) environmental and green energy movements.
We are saddened that President Obama is not receiving the credit he deserves for having done so much to advance the cause of Climate Change. Haitians in Haiti and the Diaspora wish to develop a long term relationship with President Obama beyond his presidency, as Haitians and African green social entrepreneurs believe that he will continue to be a powerful supporter of Climate Justice and green technology transfer for the U.S., Haiti, Africa – in sum, for Black communities throughout the world. This will soon include Cuba, as part of the Caribbean community, of which Haiti has long been a distinct member.
We believe that President Obama’s legacy can be enhanced even more by consolidating a long term alliance with the Haitian and African diapora in the U.S. by helping us find the sustained large-scale international financing for developing job-creating green buildings, micro-grids and solar-powered districts during the coming two years. This, in partnership with European partners and international institutions such as the World Bank.
Yanique Joseph,
Director, Haitian Renaissance Institute, since 2010
Executive Director, Green Cities – Green Villages, since 2001
[Based in New Haven, CT]
Member, Yale Entrepreneurial Society, since 2001
December 17, 2014
Years ago a friend told me that people are afraid of what they don’t know. People also feel that people who are not like them are somehow “not up to snuff.” If schools would teach just one class on cultures and how they differ, I think it would go a long way toward mutual understanding.