Echoes of 1968 Part 2: No Justice, No Peace

In my last post I described some of the seminal events of 1968. There is, however, one date I omitted, a date which is very pertinent to 2020 and the murder of George Floyd. On February 29, 1968 a Commission appointed by President Johnson in 1967 to uncover the causes of the urban riots of 1967, presented its report. This was the Kerner Commission.  In fact, there were two Kerner Commission Reports. The first, was written by social scientists. According to the Marshall Project, “The first draft of the commission’s report was penned by a group of social scientists hired to synthesize weeks of hearings and scores of interviews with witnesses of the violence.”

“But the commission balked at the scientists’ first draft, entitled, “The Harvest of American Racism.” It offered a searing indictment of white racism toward black Americans, implicating the police as both a symbol and enforcer of white power. The scientists asserted that racism was a direct cause of the violent rebellions and urged the federal government to take action to prevent more unrest.

“But the bipartisan commission balked at the draft and compelled the scientists to tone down their findings before submitting a report to the president. They ordered the initial draft destroyed, and the second version put segregation and economic inequality at the center, shying away from the previous criticisms of the police. Today, the original draft rests in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the word “DESTROY,” emblazoned across the front page.”

According to Julian E, Zelizer, “Commission staffers had produced a blistering and radical draft report on November 22, 1967. The 176-page report, “The America of Racism,” recounted the deep-seated racial divisions that shaped urban America, and it was damning about Johnson’s beloved Great Society programs, which the report said offered only token assistance while leaving the “white power structure” in place. What’s more, the draft treated rioting as an understandable political response to racial oppression. “A truly revolutionary spirit has begun to take hold,” they wrote, “an unwillingness to compromise or wait any longer, to risk death rather than have their people continue in a subordinate status.” Kerner then nixed the report, and his staff director fired all 120 social scientists who had worked on it.”

What do the data tell us about police violence today?

• As in many other areas, America is exceptional. American police forces killed three people per day in 2019, for a total of nearly 1,100 killings; by contrast, there were 55 fatal shootings by police of civilians in the United Kingdom between 1990 and 2014!  About four police shootings per year in the UK in contrast to 1,100 shooting in the US in 2019.  Likewise Germany saw 15 police shootings total in 2010-2011.

Police are almost never charged in these shootings. (see chart below) In fact, between 2005 and 2019, only three officers were found guilty of murder and saw their convictions stand.

But police killing is only a small, though highly visible, part of the problem. Police violence is often used to break up peaceful demonstrations. But the most serious problem is the devastation that the justice system visits on African-American households.

Incarceration. The following observations were made by the New York Times:

“For most white Americans, interactions with the police happen rarely, and they’re often respectful or even friendly. Many white people don’t know a single person who’s currently behind bars.  In many black communities — and especially for black men — the situation is entirely different. Some of the statistics can be hard to fathom:

• Close to 10 percent of black men in their 30’s are behind bars on any given day, according to the Sentencing Project.
• Incarceration rates for black men are about twice as high as those of Hispanic men, five times higher than those of white men and at least 25 times higher than those of black women, Hispanic women or white women.
• When the government last counted how many black men had ever spent time in state or federal prison — in 2001 — the share was 17 percent. Today, it’s likely closer to 20 percent (and this number doesn’t include people who’ve spent time in jail without being sentenced to prison). The comparable number for white men is about 3 percent.

The rise of mass incarceration over the last half-century has turned imprisonment into a dominant feature of modern life for black Americans. Large numbers of black men are missing from their communities — unable to marry, care for children or see their aging parents. Many others suffer from permanent economic or psychological damage, struggling to find work after they leave prison.

A recent study by the economists Patrick Bayer and Kerwin Kofi Charles found that 27 percent of black men in the prime working years of their lives — between the ages of 25 and 54 — didn’t report earning a single dollar of income in 2014. “That’s a massive number,” Charles, the dean of the Yale School of Management, told me. “Incarceration, including the aftereffects, was a major reason.”

To me dealing with this issue requires our unpacking the problem into two separate issues–the racism in our hearts and the racism in our institutions.

Racism in our hearts.  I believe, and this may be wildly optimistic, that we are less racist as a individuals than we were in the past. For example, The Institute for Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois in 2016 published Trends in Racial Attitudes, which documents long-term trends in racial attitudes of both whites and blacks. They found that change was profound in many ways (See chart below).

“One of the most substantial changes in white racial attitudes has been the movement from very substantial opposition to the principle of racial equality to one of almost universal support. For example, in 1942, just 32 percent of whites agreed that whites and blacks should attend the same schools; in 1995, when the question was last asked, 96 percent of whites agreed. In 1944, only 45 percent of whites agreed that blacks should have “as good a chance as white people to get any kind of job,” but by 1972 almost all whites agreed with this statement on equal opportunity (97 percent). Finally, in a question that taps whites’ feelings about a black person holding the highest office in the U.S., Gallup found that in 1958, only 37 percent of whites said they would vote for a black candidate for president; by 1997 that figure was up to 95 percent.” And, of course, eleven years later Barak Obama was elected President of the United States. Similarly, whites’ approval for interracial marriage went from 5% in 1955 to 86% in 2011. 

Importantly, note the recent change in attitudes towards Black Lives Matter (BLM) (see chart below). Those supporting BLM rose from 37% at the time of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in August 2017 to 50% today; similarly. Opposition to BLM fell from 41% at the time of Charlottesville to 26% today. We have a remarkable opportunity.

Racist Institutions.  The corona virus epidemic revealed dramatically the social differences between blacks and whites which are a result of a history of racism that persists today. Blacks get covid-19 in higher proportions and are suffering disproportionately from the economic carnage of covid-19 because they have less education, lower wealth and income, worse access to health care, live in more crowded conditions and have jobs that put them at greater risk. These are all extremely important, but today I want to concentrate on the racism blacks encounter in their interactions with police.

The George Floyd murder is only the latest in among a string of fatal confrontations between blacks (mostly men) and law enforcement. It’s a result not only of racism but also of a certain culture among some police officers that allows them to act with impunity. There already exists a playbook for police reform. In May 2015, President Obama’s 21^st Century Policing issued its final report outlining specific improvements that can make policing more just, safe, effective and constitutional — and work better for everyone. The report addressed six “pillars.” The very first pillar was building trust and legitimacy — in recognition that they are not just prerequisites for police reform but for policing itself.

For example, “the group recommended that police departments have clear, specific policies on when officers can and cannot use force. With the courts for the last 30 years telling officers that they may only use force whenever reasonable under the circumstances, officers are left to their own judgment. Individual police agencies and cities must step in to provide clear, precise guidance and real-world training on when force is appropriate. In helping to fashion reforms in places like Sacramento, we outlined a policy that expressly prohibits any physical maneuver that runs a reasonable risk of cutting off blood or oxygen to the brain. Following that policy would have prevented Mr. Floyd’s death.”

Some specific reforms suggested by Carlotte Rampal writing in the Washington Post :

• “Social science evidence argues for “demilitarization. This makes sense: Outfit cops with tanks and other weapons of war, and they will use tanks and other weapons of war.
• “Similarly, studies suggest that outcomes are improved by greater community oversight, reduced barriers for reporting police misconduct and other accountability measures. That includes striking language from police union contracts that shields officers from facing consequences for misconduct. If officers are told they can act with relative impunity, some will.
• “More important, explicit limits should be placed on the use of lethal force, including bans on chokeholds and other tactics that restrict oxygen or blood flow to the head or neck. Protocols should be established for the very few occasions when force may be deployed.
• “alternatives to armed police interventions should be used when possible, particularly in confrontations involving mental illness. Such measures have been modeled successfully in some police departments around the country.”

While ending institutional racism in this country will be a long slog, improving police behavior and saving both black and white lives can be done. There already exists a clear set of policy recommendations that are broadly accepted by both police and civil society; they need to be implemented.  We should all use this moment to make sure it happens.