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+---- Thread: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence (/thread-19537.html)
Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - Einzige - 04-22-2021
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/22/pers-a22.html
Quote:
PERSPECTIVE
Biden uses “systemic racism” narrative to obscure class character of police violence
Niles Niemuth@niles_niemuth
9 hours ago
In response to the guilty verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, the Biden administration and the media have pushed the narrative that police violence is the product of “systemic racism” and “white supremacy.”
Speaking Tuesday night, shortly after the verdict was announced, Biden declared that Floyd’s death had exposed “the systemic racism that is a stain on our nation’s soul. The knee on the neck of justice for Black Americans… The pain, the exhaustion that Black and brown Americans experience every single day.” He insisted that suppressing police killings requires “acknowledging and confronting head-on systemic racism and the racial disparities” in policing and the justice system.
Derek Chauvin as he is engaged in the killing of George Floyd (Source: Twitter)
Without exception, police violence in the United States is presented in the media and political establishment as a racial conflict. The disconnect between this narrative and the reality of police violence is staggering.
According to data collected by the Washington Post, 6,222 people have been killed by police in the US since the beginning of 2015. Nearly three times more people have been killed in encounters with police in just over six years than US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan over the last two decades.
Breaking it down by those victims who have been identified by race, 2,885 are white, 1,499 are black, 1,052 are Hispanic, 104 are Asian, 87 are Native American, and 47 are classified as other. From a standpoint of percentages, 46.4 percent are white, 24 percent black, 17 percent Hispanic, 1.7 percent Asian, 1.4 percent Native American, 0.75 percent other and 8.8 percent unidentified.
Relative to the entire population, there is a disproportionality in the number of African Americans and Native Americans killed by police, while whites, Hispanics and Asians are killed at a rate lower than their share of the population. Native Americans are killed at a rate that is seven times higher than their share of the population, while for blacks it is roughly two times higher.
There is no doubt that racism is a factor in many police killings, but it is not the racism of the entire society. It is racism in a particular segment of society, the police and military forces. The ruling class cultivates within its apparatus of repression all manner of fascistic and reactionary conceptions.
However, once the socioeconomic background of where the victims were killed—typically areas with low median household income and high rates of poverty—is factored in, most of the disparity is accounted for by economic factors.
Given the data about police killings, the exclusive focus on black victims is not only a distortion of reality, but it also vastly underestimates the scale of police brutality in the United States. Explaining this social phenomenon through a single factor, racism, leaves out a majority of the victims. The media’s presentation implies that police killings of whites and others are legitimate.
The state and mainstream media, most explicitly in the New York Times 1619 Project, have invested an enormous amount in promoting a racialist narrative of American society, that the United States is divided between “white America” and “black America.” What accounts for the effort to interpret all American history and contemporary politics through the prism of race and reinterpret all social problems as racial issues?
The alternative to a racial analysis of American society is a class analysis. By blaming “systemic racism” and “white supremacy,” the reality of capitalism and class oppression disappears. The issue of social inequality is no longer about the rich against the poor, but white against black.
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - pbrower2a - 04-23-2021
Is there any question that poorer people do more of the sort of crime to which the police react? Ruling out political corruption, large-scale embezzlement, investment fraud, and fraudulent fund-raising that people of advantage might do (such as the late Bernie Madoff) and sex offenses including those with violence attached, street crime is typically what poor people do if they do crime.
People with honest ways of making a living do not turn to robbery, burglary, or drug-dealing. Remember also that police react violently to violence directed against them (such is police training, and it is generally understood that a cop's life matters more than an offender's life). Add to this, violent behavior is not good for getting ahead in American life -- not even in holding the most menial of jobs.
I do not deny the presence of racist cops or even those that are much more trigger happy around black people than around white people. Maybe white cops assume the worst about a black man driving an expensive car. After a few stops of some physician who drives what cops often recognize as a "Pimpmobile"* who happens to be black, the cops start seeing a membership card from the American Medical Association next to the man's driver's license they recognize that the fellow is neither a pimp nor a pusher. That car will not be stopped except for a traffic violation or if it is reported stolen.
In no way do I trivialize the degradation that poverty is. I have been there, and it is dreadful. Poverty in a society which judges character mostly by ownership of assets and class privilege obviously implies little chance of personal happiness. If we need radical change to ensure that working people not be poor, then let us take those radical measures, even if they are 'only' tax reform, a more generous welfare system, better access to education, or trust-busting.
Then again, it would be wise, in view of the trigger-happy character of many police, for black people to be deferential toward the police. Confrontation of the police, especially if one does so with anger or violence, can only make things worse. Just obey the police, and if you have no outstanding warrants and don't tell a bunch of lies, then you will get away with "driving while black".
*slang for high-priced marques of cars (Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, etc.) that "successful" criminals love to drive... so do many successful professionals with honest careers. Pimps and drug traffickers love to imitate what they see as the success of legitimately-successful people so that they can impress people.
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - David Horn - 04-23-2021
There is an international commission analyzing the policing in many countries (not all cooperate enough to make analysis possible). One of the primary investigators is a retired judge from the UK, and he was interviewed on NPR. Based on data,, the per capita number of police killings and non-lethal uses of force by police in the US is higher than it is in both Russia and Turkey, neither being paragons of virtue themselves. He cited two reasons: social animosity, which includes but is not limited to racism, and prevalence of guns that make all police interactions dangerous for the police and potentially deadly for both parties.
We're sick. We need to admit it.
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - pbrower2a - 04-23-2021
(04-23-2021, 06:44 AM)David Horn Wrote: There is an international commission analyzing the policing in many countries (not all cooperate enough to make analysis possible). One of the primary investigators is a retired judge from the UK, and he was interviewed on NPR. Based on data,, the per capita number of police killings and non-lethal uses of force by police in the US is higher than it is in both Russia and Turkey, neither being paragons of virtue themselves. He cited two reasons: social animosity, which includes but is not limited to racism, and prevalence of guns that make all police interactions dangerous for the police and potentially deadly for both parties.
We're sick. We need to admit it.
Good point. The gun culture must die if America is to be a civil society.
If I were black:
1. I would adhere closely to all traffic regulations.
2. I would not keep a firearm in my car unless I were a sport hunter headed to or returning from the hunt.
3. I would follow police instructions to the letter if stopped. A police stop will be over if you have no reason to be arrested.
4. I would avoid all behavior associated with the criminal element. Even the racist cops recognize that there are some good black people.
5. I would never call a cop some derogatory name (most infamously at one time, "pig".
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - Eric the Green - 04-23-2021
Einzige is using a class narrative to obscure the racial character of police violence
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - pbrower2a - 04-23-2021
(04-23-2021, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Einzige is using a class narrative to obscure the racial character of police violence
Cops are also prejudiced against dope irrespective of ethnicity, Latin-American gangs (especially MS-13), and neo-Nazis...
I want to see cops largely go to community policing so that they can have better knowledge of who the good guys and bad guys are. Poor black people who have some moral compass will gladly feed those thugs in their midst to the police. Effective law enforcement is a desirable, and it need not be brutal or corrupt.
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - David Horn - 04-24-2021
(04-23-2021, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Einzige is using a class narrative to obscure the racial character of police violence
... but his data are right. The system is biased against anyone not in the preferred class -- moreso for some than others. That doesn't mitigate our responsibility to address those other groups too. Narrowing a much wider argument creates focus but dilutes support. It's Hobson's choice, but the wider focus may be the smart one.
That shouldn't mean that racial bias should be subsumed in a greater cause. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - pbrower2a - 04-24-2021
It is often difficult to fully separate "race" and ethnicity from class in a plutocratic society with a legacy of racism. If the Republican Party does not take back the House and/or the Senate in 2022, then I will ditch the "plutocracy" label, recognizing that the neoliberal era is dead once and for all as one might expect from the Skowronek cycle.
Money does not talk in American politics: it shouts, and it usually dominates.
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - Einzige - 04-24-2021
(04-24-2021, 07:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: It is often difficult to fully separate "race" and ethnicity from class in a plutocratic society with a legacy of racism. If the Republican Party does not take back the House and/or the Senate in 2022, then I will ditch the "plutocracy" label, recognizing that the neoliberal era is dead once and for all as one might expect from the Skowronek cycle.
Money does not talk in American politics: it shouts, and it usually dominates.
Of course, the neoliberal era can just continue in the form of a left-neoliberal Democratic hegemony (less tax cuts, more public-private partnerships etc.).
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - pbrower2a - 04-25-2021
Low corporate taxes have encouraged monopolies, cartels, and vertical integration. It is my preference that the public-private partnership disappear, as any confusion between the public and private sector encourages corruption.
RE: Biden is using a racial narrative to obscure the class character of police violence - David Horn - 04-25-2021
(04-25-2021, 06:10 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Low corporate taxes have encouraged monopolies, cartels, and vertical integration. It is my preference that the public-private partnership disappear, as any confusion between the public and private sector encourages corruption.
The idea of public-private partnerships (PPPs in the common parlance) is valid for cases where the expertise lies entirely in the private sector but the needs are all or mostly in the public sphere. Very few PPPs live up to those ideals. Most are just crony capitalism. But on the rare case where the idea makes sense, we shouldn't throw the idea away because it's been abused in the past. We can simply do better.