The images from yesterday’s protests have impacted me like they have everyone else. Here are some thoughts.
The media framed Martha Raddatz’ photo as soldiers protecting the Lincoln Memorial, as if protesters were going to attack and damage it. I couldn’t help think they were locking Lincoln in so he wouldn’t join the protestors. Imagine a giant marble Lincoln marching with the crowds.
Then I saw this video exchange between a protestor and a soldier which led me to think that we need to set up sanctuaries for military who find themselves ordered to confront and attack American citizens peacefully protesting. We need safe places with good attorneys so they can put down their weapons and refuse to participate in Trump's war on his critics. Nuremberg surely offers them legal protections from obeying unlawful orders.
Finally this thought was presented by Mica Herskind on Twitter and people weren't getting his point:
They wanted to know what was wrong with police trainings as solutions. Well, this is something I know a little about.
1. Police training aims at changing individual attitudes & behavior
2. Systemic reform changes structures and procedures in institutions that reinforce racist attitudes and behavior
Trying to 'train' people out of racism when the system they're in continues to reward racist behavior and punish people who fight racism just doesn't work. How do police systems structurally support racism? The police code of silence punishes police who inform on corrupt, violent, and racist behaviors of their fellow officers. Less than transparent “human resources” rules such as selection and promotion procedures are greater obstacles for minorities than for whites.
My first direct encounter with this was while I was doing research in the City of Pasadena for my doctoral dissertation many years ago. I was interviewing department heads on the privacy practices for personnel files. I was taking notes as the city's doctor - who did physical exams on applicants, particularly for the police and fire departments - showed me how the files were managed. At some point he showed me some X-rays he used to screen out applicants. One had a different curvature in the spine from the others. If they have this curve, he told me, they are going to have back problems in the future, so we screen them out now. Then, almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that all blacks have that curve. He'd known me all of maybe 45 minutes and just assumed I would see nothing wrong with that. He didn't know that the new City Manager was questioning me every day about what I was finding.
More recently I served as an expert witness for a fire fighter who sued the Municipality of Anchorage because of discrimination when he failed the subjective part of the promotion exam several times. He scored well on the objective parts, but not in the part where the all white panel makes judgments about people's 'moral' strengths. He won a $700,000 judgment. But only after taking the significant career and financial risks of hiring an attorney and suing his employer. I'd note the Fire Fighters union also found nothing wrong with the process when he went to them for help, but then they represented the members of the promotion panel too. It was then I began to see that police and fire fighter unions make large contributions to mayors and council candidates. Police reform is hard when the union is made up of 80 or 90 percent white officers. I strongly believe in the importance of unions, but I also see where they can perpetuate racist systems. Mayors are reluctant to make significant changes that would negatively impact the members of unions that make large donations to their campaigns.
Changing these hidden parts of the system, which few people understand is what we mean by systemic or institutional change.
[Original version posted at whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/...]