Cornell West is on CNN/Don Lemon. He says it's apparent that...

[brush]

policing has obviously failed Black people and we need to figure out ways to protect ourselves. He mentions Robert Hicks and the Deacons for Defense and Justice, an African-American self-defense group in the south in the '60s who helped protect MLK Jr. At the same time the Black Panther Party arose on the west coast.

Sooner or later such movements should be expected to arise in response to the continued killings and qualified immunity.

I don't normally agree with West but he's got a point here.

[tulipsandroses]

1. Policing was never meant to work for us, The system is not broken,

As Ava Duvernay pointed out, its working the way it was designed to work. Whether we have the will to finally fix it to work, is a different story. Over policing, under protection of black bodies has always been the case. I don't know what the answer is. My son sends me a text message every time he gets pulled over. He's been pulled over twice this year. Its only April.

[Solly Mack]

2. The history of police in America is one of attacks on minorities, immigrants, labor/unions

- all for the protection of the wealthy and white.

The South had slave patrols. The Northern wealthy wanted to "police" immigrants.

Police were used to attack workers and union organizers - to keep workers in line and obedient. All workers. Regardless of color. Though paid workers were overwhelmingly white - because of slavery and not hiring black people because of structural racism.

The police served the wealthy and the wealthy have been predominately white in America throughout America's history.

It would strain credibility to claim that police departments have somehow escaped their beginnings in a country where systemic racism was part and parcel to its founding and which continues still. Allowing slavery from the get-go and not stopping it after the Revolution meant slavery, and all the racism that goes with it, was baked into all structures of government and life in America. Social, economic, educational, legal, cultural, etc. - all of it.

The Civil War didn't change it either. Ending slavery and the changing of laws helped but did not eradicate the systemic racism that continued to thrive. The structural racism was still holding up the entire system of racism in America.

Police departments have evolved but they have not evolved away from its own founding structural racism and biases and that of the judicial system as a whole.

Systemic racism refers to the whole of society, whereas structural racism is what exist within that racist framework that makes up the economic/social/institutional customs of limiting power to wealthy white and even not-so-wealthy white people through ownership of property/owning homes, renting homes, educational opportunities and quality of education, jobs, the vote, ability to run for office, owning businesses - the entire range of socioeconomic, cultural, and political opportunities. The words (systemic/structural) can be used interchangeably, however.

Police were used against people considered undesirables by a system set up to believe white, male, Christian and straight should hold the power. (and the wealthy of all those checked boxes above all)

Police were used to attack women who wanted to vote. LGBT people that wanted to exist. To attack black, brown, Asian people, First peoples - everyone not white - that wanted to exist. All the powerless that wanted equality were attacked by the police for standing up for their rights.

Police were called to protect the peace - but whose peace?

Not those oppressed by a racist/sexist society.

The peace of those in power.

Those who owned businesses. Those who owned slaves. Those with vast properties and commercial interests.

And today? What neighborhoods get more protection patrols compared to more policing patrols? Who gets stopped for being out of place in certain neighborhoods, even when they live there? What's the response times between varying neighborhoods?

There are disparities between how the wealthy and poor are treated by police.

There are gross disparities between how white people are treated compared to how black, brown people are treated by the police. Even white suspects get better treatment.

There are disparities for women and how they are treated. And those disparities are even more so at the intersections of race and gender and socioeconomic status. Being poor, a woman, and a woman of color - bottom tier justice.

There are disparities for the LGBTQ community in how they are treated. Think Stonewall for a not-so-distant example. There is a long history of police brutality against the LGBTQ community.

And none of that is new. Those disparities have always been a part of policing in America.

None of that has changed.

None of it.

Police in America serve and protect wealthy white males first and foremost. White males overall. Wealthy white woman next. White women after. White people, overall, get the benefit of the doubt.

And the rest? Especially black women and men, both young boys and young girls.

They get the excuses and the blame. The boot and the stick. The knee and the bullet.

Existing while black is deadly in America and the police are a primary component of the racist system that makes it so deadly.

But that's just my 2.5 cents.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

3. Very well said.