American Police Racism

© 2021 by Vernon Miles Kerr and VernonMileKerr.com  –  Posted as a rough-draft to Twitter on 11/17/2021

I seriously doubt that “racism” in America is REALLY about skin pigmentation. I’ve worked with people from India who are every bit as dark-complected as any American Black person. Those Indian acquaintances didn’t seem to be suffering from prejudice. (If I’m wrong, Indian friends please chime in, shukriya.) In this writer’s opinion, American racism is really classism.

Racists have this in common: their sentiments are with those who still cannot accept that the South, along with its strict class division between slaves and white people LOST the (un)Civil War. They are as whiny about it as Trump was (still is) over his ignominious defeat in 2020. So, why are Police Departments, all over America—not just in the South— infected with racism?  Being a salesman, I’ve been in Police locker-rooms. I’ve witnessed the sense of camaraderie, the “band of brothers” glue that holds a department together. Let’s admit it: they DO go into a war zone at the beginning of each shift, day or night.  Any single one of their comrades might come back in a county coroner’s van. 

Along with that tight police-society, comes tremendous peer pressure.  If one or more of their cohort holds these pre-civil war, disgruntled class views, one can imagine it is almost impossible for new recruits NOT to fall in line, in order to be accepted. 

Therefore, also in this writer’s opinion (If it is not already being done) we need a NATIONAL movement to do a deep-dive into the dynamics of every police locker-room in America. We need to fire or rehabilitate every officer-perpetrator of antiquated racist, classist, views.

I’ve advocated a Uniform Police Human Resources Code, similar to the voluntary  Uniform Commercial Code, which has now been accepted by all 50 states. But, vetting new recruits for non-racism and for psychological factors will do nothing, if those shiny new recruits are tossed into the peer-pressure cauldron of the current #PoliceLockerRoom.