Racial equality, white supremacy facing off
After shooting three people during Tuesday night’s protests in Kenosha, Wis., the gunman, with his arms raised and a semiautomatic rifle dangling off his body, walked toward police in their armored vehicles as people angrily shouted at him. And what did police do as this white armed person walked toward them? They let him pass like he wasn’t a threat to public safety.
Now, take a few seconds and imagine this: What if the armed person walking toward them was a Black man? Do you think the police would have rolled past him in their vehicles as if he were one of their own?
Authorities have since made an arrest, alleging the gunman was 17yearold Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, Ill., and alleging that he used an AR15type weapon to kill two people and injure a third. In a news release, an attorney for Rittenhouse said he acted in selfdefense.
Before the shooting, Rittenhouse was captured in several videos alongside other men carrying long guns in Kenosha, according to a New York Times analysis of the videos. In one video posted on social media, an armed Rittenhouse talks with police in an armored vehicle. Police express gratitude and offer water bottles. In another video, Rittenhouse tells a videographer that he is protecting businesses, including a boardedup car dealership.
He was one of many armed counterprotesters who showed up in Kenosha on the third day of civil unrest as protesters raged against another shooting in America of a Black man by a white police officer.
These counterprotesters would like for the American public to think they’re some kind of uncaped heroes rushing in to defend a community under siege.
But that’s not what they’re defending. Intolerance and hatred is what these armed counterprotesters are defending.
We’re witnessing a battle over America. One side is fighting for equality and all races to be treated equally and fairly. The other side is fighting for white supremacy, and they have a president in the White House and, it seems, police on their side.
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DSan Francisco, said the fight for justice and equality lives in current social uprisings. She spoke during the virtual commemoration of the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington in which the Rev. Martin Luther King delivered the historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
She said the “movement for justice goes on” in honoring Rep. John Lewis and the “other heroes who were beaten, bloodied and killed in the fight for civil rights.”
“To honor George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, who were most recently attacked, and hundreds of other Black Americans harmed and murdered because of who they are,” Pelosi added.
George Floyd’s death kicked off civil unrest in this country that won’t end until the police stop killing people who don’t pose an immediate threat to their safety or the safety of others. On Aug. 23, Jacob Blake was shot seven times by a Kenosha police officer as Blake tried to get into his car. Blake is now paralyzed.
Since 2015, the Washington Post has tracked police shootings, finding that Black people have been killed at more than twice the rate of white people. Here’s something else: In 2018, 65% of police officers in America were white, according to Data USA, which used U.S. Census Bureau data for the report.
Police brutality and systemic racism isn’t just a problem for Black people. It’s America’s problem. Unfortunately, to some Americans, Black lives haven’t been worth much since slave owners were forced to stop selling our bodies to the highest bidder.
Jack Glaser, a UC Berkeley professor and social psychologist who researches stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination, told me there’s a double standard for what police consider to be threatening.
Apparently, for police in Kenosha, a person who appears to be white walking with a gun as police respond to a shooting doesn’t pose a threat.
“One of the causes is just the automatic stereotypes that police and other people have associating Black people with crime and weapons and violence,” Glaser said. “There’s also this element of dehumanization where people generally see people of other races and ethnicities as less human, and that’s especially so with white people in how they regard Black people.”
In 2018, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth, in a news conference after the arrest of shoplifters who led police on a highspeed chase, said people who weren’t an “asset” should be warehoused, according to multiple news reports. Seriously.
He apologized after meeting with members of Kenosha’s NAACP chapter, but the message was clear: Law enforcement gets to decide whose life matters.
That’s just one reason protesters across the nation are demanding greater police accountability.
“Your whole job is predicated on the assumption that we will be afraid of you,” said Erin Kerrison, assistant professor of social welfare at UC Berkeley, referring to police in general. “That’s why it’s such a problem when people aren’t. It threatens your legitimacy. Your whole job is wrapped up in our complying with your assumption about what you deserve and how you get to treat us.”
Here in California, the Legislature is attempting to enhance police accountability through legislation. One of the measures with a chance of passing is AB1506 from Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, DSacramento. The bill would require the state attorney general to review more uses of police force, something Attorney General Xavier Becerra and his predecessor, Kamala Harris, refrained from doing. I’m skeptical how effective it will be.
A bill that would require officers to “intercede when present and observing an officer using excessive force” was promising, but it was held, in part, because of pressure from law enforcement lobbyists, McCarty told me.
“The law enforcement lobby is very influential, even in this era of postGeorge Floyd and the public wanting real police reform,” he said. “The law enforcement lobby still has a lot of reach in state politics. (The police are) afraid of change. Sometimes I think they’re afraid of the consequences and accountability, but the public is demanding it.”