A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in what was billed as a “reverse ride along.” A “ride along” is when average citizens ride along with police officers to get a bird’s eye view of what life is really like on the streets and what cops have to deal with as they strive to make our cities safe. A “reverse ride along” is an idea put forth by the very bright and dedicated citizen Jan Thorpe.
She, along with others (she eschews ever taking credit for all of the fine works she does throughout the community), devised a program whereby members of the recently graduated police cadet class “rode along” with docents from the community to visit sites in neighborhoods where they would soon be patrolling.
Our vineyard and BioCellar was one of the sites the cadets stopped at. I explained to the cadets what we do (and how and why we do it) and they all demonstrated an appropriate degree of genuine interest and some even posed questions at the end of the presentation.
They all seemed like fine young men and women, and I’m sure they are. The only problem is — and it’s not their fault they’re just looking for jobs that fulfill their childhood dreams — the cadet class was overwhelmingly dominated by white males. There were four or five females, two or three black males. But the rest were white males.
In a city that’s made up predominantly of persons of color this is a recipe for disaster. When the cops patrolling a community are not reflective of said community, it becomes an army of occupation.
And if history hasn’t taught us anything else it has taught us that female and black male cops are less prone to take deadly aim at black suspects and pull the trigger when there were other options available.
This kind of racial insensitivity is in no way exclusive to cops. Even in the medical profession studies have shown that doctors are more sensitive to the needs of patients that are of their race. And other studies have proven this propensity towards bias in many other professions.
While some posit that this type of prejudice is just an innate human tendency, I believe — and other studies have proven — that it’s an acquired behavior something that’s handed down from generation to generation, like stained and chipped china. This is the America that has been created for us by years upon years of untrammeled racism, something that stalks us like bad credit.
So it’s not the cadets’ fault; it’s truly not their fault that once they get out of the police academy and into a patrol car with some old-timer, all of the sensitivity training they received will soon go right out the window as they are told lurid tales of how dangerous it is to work in inner city communities and are inculcated with recounts of horrible experiences designed to make them suspicious of people of color. If many of the rookies are not bigoted by the end of their first day on the job, they soon will be as they are forced to adopt the “us versus them” mentality that has been the governing principle in policing in this country for the last half century.
I really do wish these newly minted officers nothing but the best: I pray they go home safely every night and retire after distinguished careers. But I also hope and pray they never become calloused and trigger-happy.
But I also wish that better efforts are made to attract more females and cops of color, not just here in Cleveland, but around the country, since studies have also shown that this is the most effective way of reducing the level of police brutality and officer-involved killings.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.