Over-cop-fident

I recently checked out a book (more of a hardcover bound report actually) titled Racial Attitudes in Fifteen American Cities, published in 1968. Of particular interest to me was the chapter on "White Beliefs about Negroes" (their words not mine... remember this was published in the '60s). As I was skimming the chapter for information relevant to a particular research project I'm engaged in, I noticed Table III-c (p. 30) on White beliefs about how "Negroes" are treated by the police and it struck me that we have not come very far as this is still a topic that is widely debated in 2015, 47 years after the publication of this report.

The 1968 survey found that 9% of White survey respondents believed that their Black counterparts were definitely more likely to be treated with unnecessary roughness and disrespect by the police than were White people. Twenty-nine percent indicated that this was probably true, meaning that 38% of White survey respondents agreed to some degree. On the flip side, 30% said that it was probably not so and 26% said that it was definitely not so, meaning that 56% of White survey respondents in 1968 disagreed that police were more inclined to treat Black individuals with unnecessary roughness and disrespect. The remaining 6% responded "don't know."

Fast forward 47 years to the present day, Pew Research surveyed non-Hispanic White and Black individuals about their confidence that local police treat Whites and Blacks equally. Here are the results:

Although the scales and survey questions are not identical, they are similar. The 1968 survey asked, "It is sometimes said that the things we have just been talking about, such as unnecessary roughness and disrespect by the police, happen more to Negroes in (Central City) than to white people. Do you think this is definitely so, probably so, probably not so, or definitely not so?" To compare this to the August 2014 Pew survey responses above, would look something like this:

1968 Survey		2014 Survey
Definitely so	9%	Very little	12%
Probably so	29%	Just some	14%
	38%		26%
Probably not so	30%	Fair amount	36%
Definitely not so	26%	Great deal	35%
	56%		71%

Looking at the bolded numbers, 38% of White respondents in 1968 believed that Black individuals were more often treated with unnecessary roughness and disrespect by police; whereas, in 2014, 26% of White respondents had very little or just some confidence in local police's ability to treat White and Black individuals equally. In 1968, 56% of White respondents did not believe that Black individuals were more likely to be treated unfairly by police, compared to 71% of White respondents in 2014 having a fair amount or a great deal of confidence in local police's ability to treat people of different races equally. 

Realizing I'm comparing apples to oranges, as a group, White people's confidence in the police when it comes to racial justice issues has increased in the past 47 years. This may make sense given the racial progress our nation has supposedly made between 1968 and 2015; however, considering the recent police killings of Black individuals (see http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/ for an extensive list), I'm leery of this increase. My lack of confidence is not to say that ALL cops are bad (absolutes of any kind are usually inaccurate). I acknowledge that their job is incredibly difficult and dangerous and appreciate their service in keeping our nation, cities, and community safe. However, as an institution, the criminal justice system is rife with injustice. Police brutality is a serious problem, and it's past time that White people listen to people of color as they tell their side of the story. It's time that we believe them, instead of complaining that police killings of people of color get too much coverage in the media (a complaint that, according to Pew, decreased in prevalence after Michael Brown's unfortunate, untimely death... that said, I still hear it quite often). I'm willing to guess that the majority of Americans (even those who watch.read the news regularly) haven't heard all of the names on the Mapping Police Violence site linked above. This phenomenon is not getting too much coverage, rather it is not getting enough coverage. 

Nobody's expected to know it all (I definitely don't), or to be perfect (I'm definitely not), but educate yourself before you start complaining about media coverage of Black lives being taken by the institution that is meant to protect us all. Educate yourself before you criticize the #BlackLivesMatter movement (e.g., it's not implying that White lives don't matter). Educate yourself before you like, favorite, retweet, share, etc. dehumanizing pictures like this one:

It's not a matter of being politically correct, it's a matter of being human. Black skin shouldn't be a death sentence and someone being shot shouldn't be a joke. Would you be laughing if it was a white person face down, bleeding on the pavement?