Racial Relations in America Ignored

By James Gilmore

But regardless of whether race relations have gotten worse or stayed the same, both perceptions have devastating implications for policing in America. African Americans have always been underrepresented in communities where they are over arrested, over stopped and come into contact with police more times than their white counterparts. For this trend to stay the same, it would be just as harmful to the progression of race in America as if the trend worsened.

But despite the numbers and overall perception by Americans, some seem to be naïve as to how prevalent the issue of race truly is. On Wednesday, June 17th, Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old Caucasian male entered an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, opened fire and killed nine people with his 45 caliber pistol. The Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina immediately opened a hate crime investigation suspicious that the massacre was motivated by race.

Despite DOJ’s suspicion, media outlets immediately challenged this notion and began considering Dylann’s mental condition as a mitigating factor.

* Steve Doocy of Fox Network said “Extraordinarily, [DOJ] called it a hate crime” challenging federal authorities and their assessment.

* A Washington newspaper cited age and biological factors as an attribution to violence claiming “young men experience elevated testosterone levels that, in some circumstances, can make them aggressive and violent. And late adolescence is a time when a host of other problems typically emerge, like drug dependence and mental illness.”

* Even a presidential candidate called the shooting an “attack on Christians.”

The Federal Order of Police (FOP) of Louisville Kentucky released a threatening letter to the public calling activists “liars” and “race-baiters” and accused them of spreading hate, twisting truths and pushing political agendas. In this letter that came in the wake of another killing of an African American by a police officer, FOP members went so far as to blame activists and community leaders for the destruction in Ferguson, Missouri.

These statements made in the midst of a nationwide crisis in policing show a clear and distinct disinclination to discuss why Blacks killed by police are twice as likely to be unarmed as whites or how officers so easily made a clean arrest of Dylann Roof while he was armed with a 45 caliber pistol yet fired 46 shots at Milton Hall, a Black man, when he was armed with a pen knife.

The misconception that America doesn’t have an issue of race is the true culprit behind the hatred and destruction cited by FOP. In communities across the nation, residents want to know that federal and state and local authorities will act in the interest of individuals who continue to suffer from disparities in criminal justice as well as education, employment and housing. When those issues are ignored, tensions rise and residents are forced to act, sometimes with civil disobedience to call attention to a critical dilemma.

Media spokespersons and federal authorities should focus more on race and explore its relevant implications on safety in America.

I commend the White House on its collaborative effort with the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency in hosting a webinar on protecting houses of worship against active shooters and other emergencies. While these protections are needed, without a larger discussion on the underlying issue of race, the effort would be like providing a pyromaniac with a fire extinguisher. It is time for our country’s top leaders to focus on the source of the fire that burns our most sacred houses of worship and continues to send our country’s most vulnerable communities up in flames. It is time we focus on race in America and the implications and realities of justice and equality for minorities.

James Gilmore is a public policy analyst with Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and co-convener of the Civil Rights Coalition on Police Reform.

This article is Fifth of an op-ed series on behalf of the Civil Rights Coalition on Police Reform. The coalition, convened and led by the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is comprised of over 30 national civil and human rights organizations, faith and community leaders working to address the nationwide epidemic of police brutality and lethal shootings, claiming the lives of Black men, women and youth; and provide necessary reforms to change the culture of policing in America. For more information, please visit www.lawyerscommittee.org.

Photo: James Gilmore