“Officers’ Race Matters Less Than You Think”

“Even more intriguing is the the demographics of the officers doing the shooting: It’s not only white officers shooting black suspects, but all officers.

According to the report, white officers and black officers were involved in the same number of officer-involved shooting incidents with black suspects — 10 — attributed to threat perception failures.

In fact, when looking at shootings by officer and race, white officers’ threat perception failure rate for black suspects was 6.8 percent, while for black officers it was 11.4 percent.

In a way, these findings should shatter the simplistic narrative that the recent discussion about policing and communities of color is only about white officers and minority suspects. It is broader than that: It’s about policing writ large and the use of force against people of color. It is about how sophisticated — and complicated — biases can be, how they inform and activate our fears and how they do not respect rigid racial barriers… There is a simple yet profound truth that must be accepted and considered if we are to move forward honestly and productively in these discussions: The race of the officer matters far less than the race of the suspect.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/charles-blow-officer-race-matters-less-than-you-think.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0

Yes. It’s remarkable how people can internally invalidate bias when it is coming from a person with the identity that is the subject of the bias. If a man tells a sexist joke and a woman laughs, BAM, it’s not sexist. If a white person uses a racial slur, and then a member of that racial group uses that slur as well, WHAP it’s totally chill. In fact, if that prejudiced moment leads to violence, it’s really the fault of the person who laughed.

When I take an implicit attitude test, I find that I have biases against women and black people. And this shouldn’t be surprising – I grew up in the same social environment as all the biased dominant-identity people, with the same media and the same history classes and the same literature.

The difference is that I just have to struggle with it more daily – and be very careful about when I seem to accept or endorse things.

Also, can we talk about how Charles Blow is in this “Dear White People” role? Can we have more than one POC commentator, NYT? Can we have more than one anti-racism commentator?

Related: “Is It Time To Reappropriate Pink?” [about little girls’ internalized bias]