John McWhorter writes about police abuse of white people which parallels the abuse of black people but gets much less attention.
He isn't coming at this from a conservative point of view, more of a human rights point of view. Police impunity isn't just about racism, it's about a lack of decency toward people in general.
1) There are systemic problems in policing with respect to abuse, corruption, accountability, toxic culture, and transparency that can victimize anyone.
2) In many parts of the country, policing is also plagued by systemic bias that causes the problems in (1) to disproportionately harm Black and Latino people.
I think McWhorter's basic conservatism shines through if you compare his writing on the subject with actual leftwing scholars/activists who also stress the fundamental threat of the carceral state to people of every race and ethnicity and who call for a broad based, multiracial coalition to oppose police violence. I'm thinking of people like Marie Gottschalk, Barbara Fields, and Cedric Johnson. If you're interested sampling what they have to say about the matter and how it differs from McWhorter, a great place to start is with the Fields co-authored 2020 piece in Dissent, The Death of Hannnah Fizer (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-death-of-hannah-fizer/). You might also check out Gottschalk's Caught (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I2M8SO/) and Johnson's After Black Lives Matter (https://www.amazon.com/After-Black-Matter-Cedric-Johnson/dp/1804291676/).
https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2021/nov/15/racist-police-violence-reconsidered/
John McWhorter writes about police abuse of white people which parallels the abuse of black people but gets much less attention.
He isn't coming at this from a conservative point of view, more of a human rights point of view. Police impunity isn't just about racism, it's about a lack of decency toward people in general.
I think two things can be true at the same time:
1) There are systemic problems in policing with respect to abuse, corruption, accountability, toxic culture, and transparency that can victimize anyone.
2) In many parts of the country, policing is also plagued by systemic bias that causes the problems in (1) to disproportionately harm Black and Latino people.
I agree that both are true. I'm not sure how possible it is to emphasize both at the same time.
Nancy,
I think McWhorter's basic conservatism shines through if you compare his writing on the subject with actual leftwing scholars/activists who also stress the fundamental threat of the carceral state to people of every race and ethnicity and who call for a broad based, multiracial coalition to oppose police violence. I'm thinking of people like Marie Gottschalk, Barbara Fields, and Cedric Johnson. If you're interested sampling what they have to say about the matter and how it differs from McWhorter, a great place to start is with the Fields co-authored 2020 piece in Dissent, The Death of Hannnah Fizer (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-death-of-hannah-fizer/). You might also check out Gottschalk's Caught (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I2M8SO/) and Johnson's After Black Lives Matter (https://www.amazon.com/After-Black-Matter-Cedric-Johnson/dp/1804291676/).
Thank you. I've read the Rothman/Fields essay and I agree.