On Monday, May 25th, George Floyd, an unarmed person of color, was killed by a Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for several minutes, even after he was handcuffed.
This was an extremely disturbing story—so disturbing that I am choosing not to show yet again to people the image of this officer kneeling on Floyd. It was yet another example of police using excessive force on an unarmed person of color.
And yet, at times over the past week, I have struggled to figure out what to say about the killing of Floyd. After all, I am white, I am conscious that I have a lot of privilege that comes with being white, and the last thing I want to do is drown out the voices of people of color advocating for justice. But then, I found that I did feel compelled to say some things, so here you go…
Growing up in New York City with all the friends of color my brother and I had, it was clear that there was a major disparity between the way the two of us were policed and the way our friends of color were policed. The two of us never got stopped, searched, or frisked by the police, but our friends of color frequently experienced that—so frequently that people would call it “walking while brown.” The stories of frequent stops from our friends also matched statistics for stop-and-frisk in New York City—blacks and Hispanics at one point made up only half of the population, but 85% of the stops.[1] I can go on and on with the statistics and the stories related to stop-and-frisk, but to read more, I encourage you to read my blog post about the institutional racism in the way I was policed. So when people suggest that racism does not exist with policing, I have personal experiences that show otherwise. Racism exists in policing.
What I didn’t do as much in that post on institutional racism and policing was show how said racism goes well beyond stop-and-frisk; after all, I was focused on my own experiences of privilege in that post. So, while an entire book could probably be written on racial disparities in the way people are policed (or are generally handled in the criminal justice system), here are some lowlights:
- Blacks are 3.64 times as likely to get arrested for marijuana use as whites, even though usage rates are comparable. In some cases, those rates have become worse, even with the current push towards legalization in some parts of the country.[2]
- Staying on the topic of drugs, even though usage of illegal drugs is comparable between blacks and whites, blacks are five times as likely as whites to go to prison for illegal drug possession.[3]
- On average, police seem to require less suspicion of black and Hispanic drivers before they are pulled over than white drivers.[4] This statistic is particularly relevant to the current discourse on policing and people of color, as a few years ago a traffic stop of Philando Castile, a person of color, led to his being killed by a police officer.
- Innocent blacks are about seven times more likely to be convicted for a murder they didn’t commit than whites.[5]
- Unarmed blacks are about 3.49 times as likely to get shot by the police as unarmed whites.[6]
“How does this all relate to the killing of George Floyd?” you may ask. Floyd’s killing shows that the police murder of Mr. Floyd does not exist in a bubble. Far from it. To the contrary, this killing is a microcosm of a larger problem: there are vast racial disparities in the way people are policed in the United States of America.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonoberholtzer/2012/07/17/stop-and-frisk-by-the-numbers/#43c323106703
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomangell/2020/04/20/on-420-aclu-highlights-racist-marijuana-enforcement-in-new-report/#229dc03f7487
[3] http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf
[4] https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/
[5] http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf
Blind Injustice 
One thing I’ve been struggling with, on top of my feelings about the incident itself, is seeing white bloggers suggest that white privilege is not real. We should be way past that whole absurdity, but apparently not.
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Yeah, I’m struggling with that too. Which was actually part of what motivated me to write today’s post.
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Awareness is an important step forward. What do you do next?
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That’s a good question, Rosaliene.
Awareness is a good start. In terms of what is done after awareness, I think listening to how we can be of most help is important. Too often, some of us make assumptions about how we can be of most help, but end up doing harm because of those assumptions.
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Fantastic post Brendan. I’m checking out these links.
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Thanks. I’m glad this post was helpful.
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Great post, while I wrote yesterday of this subject I felt raw, now today I feel numb. We are missing the empathy that makes us human. I have lived through scary times in this country but with the exception of being in a riot I was never afraid to live my life.
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Yeah, these are scary times, I think. I felt raw yesterday as well, so I can relate. I also feel tired. So tired.
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Good one 👏
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I never get that sort of argument. What I’ve learned about statistics is that you can manipulate them to suit your narrative. Lots of black people in government at all levels. A black President for eight years. And my guess it would have been longer if the rules would have allowed it. Those are people who respected the law. Criminals are criminals. Color shouldn’t come into it. I’ve seen enough small claims court shows to know that there are as many black liars, thieves and idiots as there are whites criminals. Usually tripped up on their own statements.
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Color shouldn’t come into it yet there seems to be lasting disparities based on skin color. And that is the case, regardless of who is in power now and who has been in power in the past.
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