Race Based Police Violence against Black Americans

Racism and Police Violence

Can’t you just shoot them? – Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump in response to Black Lives Matter racial justice protesters exercising their lawful First Amendment rights, Summer 2020

The epigraph above reflects one prominent, old white man’s longing for the “good old days” when white police officers in the United States could hurt or even kill minority members in general and African Americans in particular with impunity. Unfortunately, this view is still shared by far too many white Americans, including law enforcement authorities, who believe that the republic was founded on a white supremacist ideal that should remain firmly in place regardless of the Bill of Rights and Fourteenth Amendment. In order to determine the facts, the purpose of this paper is to 1) provide a review of the relevant literature to determine the antecedents of racism in general and among police officers in particular including statistical data, 2) to identify the current status of racism and police violence in the United States and 3) to describe what efforts are underway to address this nationwide problem. Finally, the conclusion of the paper is used to provide a summary of the research and key findings concerning the foregoing issues.

Antecedents of racism in the United States

It is impossible to completely erase the lingering legacy of 400 years of slavery in the United States or the Civil War that was fought to end the “peculiar institution.” Indeed, the Confederate States were founded on the fundamental belief that slavery was the proper station for black people, and many Southerners even maintained that slavery “was good for them” since it introduced them to Western civilization and the salvation in the afterlife that was promised by Christianity. Few black people, then or now, would agree with this view but the stereotypes that were forged during the early years of the American experiment would have long-lasting implications for the country’s race relations through the years.

In fact, enduring and powerful stereotypes about black people have led some authorities to believe that it is impossible for white people to grow up in America without being racist, at least to some extent, and white reaction to the introduction of critical race theory simply scares the bejabbers out them, even if they do not know exactly why. In this regard, Johnson and Lecci (2020) emphasize that, “There is evidence that stereotype-related beliefs play a central role in the racist treatment of Black Americans” (p. 753). While this observation is fairly intuitive, it does underscore the main antecedents of racism in the United States today.

Although some especially egregious stereotypes about black people have faded somewhat in recent years, these and other misguided beliefs among white people about blacks have resulted in generations of African Americans being subjected to second-class citizen treatment by the general population and law enforcement officers alike. For example, according to Johnson and Lecci (2020), “Race identity theorists have shown that perceptions of ‘acting Black’ include negative stereotypes such as ‘talking Black’, having a ‘ghetto’ mentality, ‘dressing Black’ (e.g., sagging pants), and living in a bad neighborhood” (p. 753). In other words, white police may not concede or even realize that they use racial profiling in the day-to-day exercise of their official duties, but the grim statistics concerning police shootings that are discussed in the next section clearly show otherwise.

One of the sources of the modern problem of racism and police violence, then, can be traced to the early days of colonial America, but things have not changed all that much when it comes to the use of violence, including deadly force, against unarmed blacks by white police officers. As Lemieux et al. (2020) point out, “The historic and current prevalence of murder and other violent acts against Black community members at the hands of law enforcement is a contemporary public health crisis. Police shooting homicides of unarmed Black men, in particular, has been deemed an extension of historically based White supremacy” (p. 664). As the far right continues to mobilize its national forces against any threat to the white supremacy ideal, it is not surprising that police violence against black people remains a major moral, political, social and economic issue for the country as discussed further below.

Current Status of Racism and Police Violence in the United States

As can be readily discerned from the recent trends depicted in Figure 1 below, police shootings of civilians in the United States have continued to increase in recent years, with unarmed black victims representing a disproportionate percentage of the totals.

Figure 1. Number of people shot to death by the police in the United States from 2017 to 2022, by race

Source: Statista, 2022 at https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

As of April 2022, a total of 241 civilians in the United States were shot by the police, and 14 of these victims were black (People shot to death by U.S. police 2017-2022, by race, 2022). Moreover, there were 1,055 police shootings in 2021 and 1,021 in 2020 that resulted in fatalities, and black Americans suffered a significantly higher rate of these fatalities than any other demographic segment of society. In fact, although the totals of fatal police shootings are lower for blacks compared to the general population, the percentages are much higher. For example, black Americans currently have a rate of 38 fatal shootings by police per million of the population, the highest percentage in the country (People shot to death by U.S. police 2017-2022, by race, 2022).

The foregoing figures for the first 4 months of the year and the past 2 years are especially alarming given the increased scrutiny of police violence that occurred following the death of George Floyd in May 2020. The nationwide and then global outrage that Floyd’s death caused have galvanized attention on racism and police violence as never before in American history. Consequently, there have been a growing number of initiatives that are specifically intended to address this public health threat in recent months and these are discussed below.

Ongoing and Planned Initiatives to Address Racism and Police Violence

Although precise figures are unavailable at present, it is reasonable to suggest that virtually all law enforcement jurisdictions in the United States have undergone some level of review concerning their use of force policies in general and with respect to black Americans in particular following the death of George Floyd, but this interest is not new. For instance, one authority points out that, “In recent years, particularly since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, police brutality has become a hot button issue in the United States” (People shot to death by U.S. police 2017-2022, by race, 2022, para. 5). More recently, a number of state-level and nationwide initiatives have been launched or are planned for the near future.