Reform advocates say Black cops not exempt from anti-Black policing
Nichols death showed bias, dehumanization is pervasive in all directions
— That the death of Tyre New York Nichols — young, Black, just trying to get home — came at the hands of Memphis police officers was a familiar refrain in the nation’s seemingly endless lamentation of racism and police brutality aimed at Black people.
This time around, though, it was five Black officers who were fired and charged with second-degree murder in the horrifying Jan. 7 beating that was caught on video and led to Nichols’ death in a hospital bed three days later.
But the fact that Black officers killed a Black man didn’t remove racism from the situation. If anything, say reform advocates, it showed that a police culture of racial bias and dehumanization is pervasive enough to spread in all directions, even among minority officers whose presence in law enforcement is often touted as proof of reform efforts.
“What we have to understand is it is not the color of the officer,” said Joshua Adams, an activist in Memphis. “It is the color of who’s being policed. That’s what creates the difference.” The key question is “why does policing show differently for Black people?”
Black and brown officers can be conditioned to view Black and brown people as suspect, advocates say.
“With any organization or institution, there is a period of orientation where you are being introduced to core values and philosophies,” said the Rev. Earle J. Fisher, senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Memphis.
“I think this happens with police regardless of the color of the police officer. You have spent time in the indoctrination process, and part of that indoctrination is certain people on their face — from what some would call cultural bias, or others would call internalized white supremacy — you’re indoctrinated to believe that certain groups are more prone to criminal behavior than others,” he said. “And so you treat Black people as if they are guilty until proven innocent. You treat white people as if they are innocent until proven guilty.”
Legal scholar Amara Enyia said “being Black and a police officer does not undo the inherent anti-Blackness in the policing system.”
“That’s one of the most insidious characteristics of the system, because we may buy into a notion that because they’re Black means they can’t possibly have adopted the norms and values of the system,” said Enyia, policy and research manager for the Movement for Black Lives, a national advocacy coalition aligned with the broader Black Lives Matter movement.