Like many of you, I’ve been thinking about the recent deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers in Missouri, New York, and Ohio quite a bit, mostly looking back at my own interactions with the police (almost entirely positive) and those of my darker, but still very educated and relatively well-off siblings (again, overwhelmingly positive) after a friend commented that she was ‘worried over her older brother’ who lived and worked in a relatively poor area in St. Louis.
So I asked myself, “Would I be worried if my older brother Darryl (who likes to wear his ‘Homie Don’t Play That’ t-shirt and jeans) got pulled over by police?" "Why am I not feeling that same sense of dread my girlfriend is feeling about her brother?”
My brother is a visible minority. He has no police record, but neither does her brother, and it’s not like the police would immediately know whether a person has a record or not. So why wasn’t I all that worried for him?
And then, as these things tend to do, it all became pretty clear; Darryl lives in a beautiful home in a well-off neighborhood, drives a Volvo, and in spite of his love of silly t-shirts, speaks with the discernible dialect of someone who is a member of a higher class. While this might not keep him safe against an overtly violent racist attacker, I have no doubt in my mind that this person would face the full force of the law because of my brother’s socioeconomic status.
Which brings me to the point of this note; While I DO believe race played at least some role in what happened in Missouri, Ohio, and New York, I think it might have actually been a secondary one, and a smaller one than many would lead you to believe. I doubt that any of these officers think of themselves as racist, and I think attributing these incidents entirely to racism is to oversimplify them. I believe what we’re really seeing on the front page of all the newspapers now is the result of another insidious social ill - our overwhelming disdain for the poor.
You see, the one thing Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Gardner all had in common that has seemingly gotten lost in the sea of articles examining this country’s racial divide is that all of these men were first and foremost, poor. And in this country, to be poor is almost a crime.
Nearly everything in our culture promotes the stereotype that the poor and lower income class people in this country are unintelligent, criminals, lazy, dangerous, and inherently unworthy of respect while the rich are intelligent, hard-working, honest, non-violent, and worthy of the full rights of citizenship. And in this country, your race or sexuality can generally be overlooked so long as you’re wealthy or well connected. If the poor steal from the rich, they’re thugs. If the rich steal from the poor, they’re sometimes (but rarely) held accountable and almost always given a chance at ‘redeeming’ themselves. We show open disgust for welfare recipients, but the biggest recipients of welfare – corporations – are given a pass. We treat poor people as less than human in this country and repeatedly deny them due process and justice, yet we are shocked when they riot in anger and desperation and 'tut tut' at them when they 'mess up' their own neighborhoods, forgetting that those neighborhoods are already very much 'messed up' even if it's not obvious to the outsider. There is so much enmity toward the poor right now that there are almost ubiquitous calls from elected officials to cut food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid, Head Start and we feel like it's only 'fair' to subject them to indignities like fingerprinting and drug testing before receiving any of this begrudgingly offered charity. What I find to be both sad and ironic is that those I've witnessed directing their hatred and lack of sympathy towards the poor the most are usually only a step or two away from that level of poverty themselves.
So how do the police factor into this? The police are a reflection of our society. They enforce our laws and they behave much like society does as a whole. There’s a reason you don’t see a bunch of people in Volvo’s getting pulled over on ‘Cops’, and it’s not because they’re not speeding or doing anything illegal. It’s because they’re not likely driving through the poorest neighborhoods where the cops place the most scrutiny. It’s because people in Volvo’s have lawyers. It’s because people in Volvo's have friends in the force, they have resources, and most importantly, they know politicians who can put the squeeze on the captain and get these officers reassigned to guarding the Apple Store on weekends if they cross the line.
Darren Wilson, Timothy Loehmann, and Daniel Pantaleo all knew that being in law enforcement granted them a certain amount of power, but they also knew (if only subconsciously) to only abuse that power when it came to poor people. Because, let’s face it, there would likely be no repercussions so long as they continued to ‘protect and serve’ the upper class, the only group of people more powerful than themselves. It feels blasphemous to those of us who fall into that category to question the testimony of those officers. They’ve earned our fealty. Some of them have died protecting us. When we call them for help, we’re certain they’ll come within minutes – not hours. When we’re ticketed for speeding, they’re professional and respectful. Even if we’re under duress, and we typically don’t end up face down on the ground because of a headlight being out. They are our friends and our relatives.
Poor people generally don’t trust the police. They’ve learned that when they call them, many of them don’t come right away – if at all. If they talk to them, they’ll be targeted for ‘snitching’ by members of their own community, preyed on by violent offenders who are desperate themselves to have power. The justice system for those without money or influence is so broken and dysfunctional that these people have little to no defense whatsoever from those who seek to exploit them. The under-resourced and potentially corrupt law enforcement officers assigned to their communities cannot - or will not – effectively arrest and charge criminals or gather evidence to help them. Their trials move at a sluggish pace, their files are lost, and they often suffer far more systemic absurdities for abuses they DO report to the police than members of the upper class. It’s easy to see why so many poor people don’t seek protection through their police and court systems and rely on other means to protect and defend themselves.
We’re not wrong in regards to offering praise to the majority of law enforcement officers who work tirelessly to enforce our laws and protect us from harm. But we need to be careful not to automatically dismiss accusations against them – against ANY person who has influence or power - based on our own interactions with them. With power comes responsibility and along with that comes accountability. We need to strive to always hold them – and ourselves – accountable for our actions. Because the poorest people in this country, people who are desperately vulnerable to violence from both those who offend against them AND those who are tasked with protecting them, need us to do so.
The talk of racism and valuing black lives must continue - after all, racism contributes to economic inequality - but all of our efforts will be fruitless if we don't take a hard look at how to start to bridge the ever-widening gap between the ‘have’ and the ‘have nots’ and at our tendency to regard poor people like we're somehow immune to ever finding ourselves standing in their shoes.
"If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” - Charles Darwin