White people are automatically protected and given the benefit of the doubt when confronted by the police by having white privilege. White privilege works in our world in many ways; it provides white people with many advantages and immunity to challenges people of color face. The protection of whiteness shapes the world we live in and is not easily deconstructed in any system. For example, a person of color, especially a black person, is not guaranteed the same treatment by cops that are given to white people. In Philando Castile’s case, he did everything the officer asked of him. Officer Yanez pulled Castile over because Castile fit the description of a suspect in a convenience store robbery that happened closeby the incident a few days earlier
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Some cops may not have racist intentions in their line of work but their job is to protect and serve without racial bias. It is undebatable that there are no possible reforms that will eliminate all evil in American policing. Similar to Ta-Nehisi Coates reaction, seeing a picture of a black boy hug an officer does not inspire hope but masks how people of color really feel towards officers. Explaining to people who do not see police officers as a threat why they are a threat is uncomfortable and should be obvious. “There is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or even in this moment. The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. This legacy aspires to the shackling of black bodies” (Coates). He emphasizes that it is apart of American heritage to be anti-black. American law enforcement is an institutional racist system that when calling a cop “good”, it ignores them being apart of such a system that kills and incarcerate mainly people of color. Many cops abuse their power, protect each other, and never critique cops from the same or different police departments. After the history black people have in America, people still preach nonviolence and obedience with authority is still a possible alternative. Many people fairly see the police as oppressors protecting the interests of the white community. Years of abusive treatment, physiological manipulative, and false hope, the least America can do is take accountability of how the police department was never designed to protect them and why acts of violence committed by white people is treated different―the answer is simple. Things have not changed in the radical way they should have; racism has been allowed, been tolerated and been normalized to the point where it is frowned upon to act with
Some cops may not have racist intentions in their line of work but their job is to protect and serve without racial bias. It is undebatable that there are no possible reforms that will eliminate all evil in American policing. Similar to Ta-Nehisi Coates reaction, seeing a picture of a black boy hug an officer does not inspire hope but masks how people of color really feel towards officers. Explaining to people who do not see police officers as a threat why they are a threat is uncomfortable and should be obvious. “There is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or even in this moment. The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. This legacy aspires to the shackling of black bodies” (Coates). He emphasizes that it is apart of American heritage to be anti-black. American law enforcement is an institutional racist system that when calling a cop “good”, it ignores them being apart of such a system that kills and incarcerate mainly people of color. Many cops abuse their power, protect each other, and never critique cops from the same or different police departments. After the history black people have in America, people still preach nonviolence and obedience with authority is still a possible alternative. Many people fairly see the police as oppressors protecting the interests of the white community. Years of abusive treatment, physiological manipulative, and false hope, the least America can do is take accountability of how the police department was never designed to protect them and why acts of violence committed by white people is treated different―the answer is simple. Things have not changed in the radical way they should have; racism has been allowed, been tolerated and been normalized to the point where it is frowned upon to act with