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After 3 white cops beat a Black man named Robert Hall to death, a panel issued a 178-page report on America's police "failings" which found that while both white and Black people suffered from police brutality "the dominant pattern is that of race prejudice."
The report found that Black Americans "have been shot, supposedly in self-defense, under circumstances indicating, at best, unsatisfactory police work in the handling of criminals, and, at worst, a callous willingness to kill.”
Sadly familiar, right? But one small surprise...
Sadly familiar, right? But one small surprise...
That report was issued in 1947, released by a panel commissioned by President Truman. It changed nothing. The sheriff who killed Hall won his re-election as the case moved through the courts. So begins our long history of releasing useless reports on racist police brutality.
In 1968, a new report was commissioned by President Johnson in an attempt to figure out why America had so many so-called "race riots." The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders became known as the Kerner Commission, named for the then-governor of Illinois.
The Kerner Commission found that “white racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II" and that the police had “come to symbolize white power, white racism and white repression."
The Kerner Commission had a plan that they believed would cut down on the protests: reform the police, desegregate housing and invest in job creation in the public sector. Didn't happen.
You may have heard of the Kerner Commission but there's one super sad line at the end...
You may have heard of the Kerner Commission but there's one super sad line at the end...
One author wrote that he was fed up with the data gathering. They knew what the problem was. They'd studied this over and over again. Countless reports had been commissioned to study racist police brutality. They'd all found the same thing: It exists. It's a crisis. It's fixable.
“I must again in candor say to you members of this Commission—it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland," he wrote. "With the same moving picture re-shown over and over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, and the same inaction.”
Again, this was 1968.
Again, this was 1968.
1968 was after Emmett Till. But it was before Trayvon, Tamir, Sandra, Alton, Philando, Freddie, Eric, Breonna, George, Elijah ...Daunte, of course. Hundreds more.
So, no more. No more reports to tell us something everyone already knew during the Truman Administration.
So, no more. No more reports to tell us something everyone already knew during the Truman Administration.
We're not hurting for data. Anyone who cares to know already knows what's happening. We're not hurting for solutions either. We know what needs to happen. What we need is the moral and political will to act.
Anything else is just repetition.
Anything else is just repetition.
