"Your silence is power to the savages"
-Abhijit Naskar
How does the quote above resonate with you?
Pause here for a moment and free yourself from distractions:
Take a deep breath in... exhale slowly... deep breath in... exhale slowly... deep breath in... exhale slowly... calm your mind and be present...
Silence speaks volumes, especially when discussing race in general, and the issue of police brutality specifically.
Police brutality or police violence is legally defined as a civil rights violation where officers exercise undue or excessive force against a subject. This includes, but is not limited to, physical or verbal harassment, physical or mental injury, property damage, and death.
What has your personal experience been with police brutality?
Think about this for a moment...
How might your privilege, (whether checked, or unchecked) influence your interactions with police?
Please spend some time here...sit with this question...
Ijeome Oluo, states in the book, So You Want To Talk About Race:
All across the country, in every type of neighborhood, people of color are being disproportionately criminalized.
Peole of color are more likely to be stopped by police, arrested by police, assaulted by police, and killed by police.
Our police force was not created to serve black Americans; it was created to police black Americans and serve white Americans
“I know that it's hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. But I'm not lying and I'm not delusional. I am scared and I am hurting and we are dying. And I really, really need you to believe me.”
-Ijeoma Oluo
What is your responsibility in insuring police departments provide the same level of service to all people?
“You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority.”
-Ta-Nehisi Coates, American Author and Journalist
In an Article on livescience.com, Stephanie Pappas shares 5 researched based methods to put an end to police brutality:
How to Stop Police Brutality According to Science:
1. Track the problem:
There is no comprehensive government clearinghouse for data on police killings or police use of force. After the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, several private and nonprofit groups began keeping their own databases. But the databases rely on media reports of deaths, not police department, city, state or government data, for the simple reason that many police departments are not forthcoming with this information.
Police department data should be accessible through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which allows citizens to request records from public agencies. But FOIA requests often come up empty, in many cases because police decide they simply do not want their department's data scrutinized.
2. Demilitarize:
For decades, police departments have been gradually adopting more and more gear from the U.S. military. Departments get this gear in a variety of ways, but one common route is the 1033 program which provides free surplus military gear to departments for the cost of shipping.
In a paper published in Political Research Quarterly in 2018, it was reported. all 50 states between 2014 and 2016, the number of police-involved deaths rose with militarization, as measured by the value of the equipment sent to a department via the 1033 program.
In 2015, President Barack Obama put some limits on the program via executive order. President Donald Trump repealed that executive order in 2017. Now, Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), has said he plans to introduce legislation to end the 1033 program entirely.
3. Change Police Culture: There are regulatory ways to change police culture.
A report by Sinyangwe released in 2016 for the Use of Force Project found that in departments that adopt more of eight policies that limit how police can use force the police kill fewer civilians. These policies include:
Requiring officers to de-escalate before using force
Using guidelines defining the types of force that can be used to respond to specific situations
Restricting or banning chokeholds and strangleholds
Requiring a verbal warning before using deadly force
Prohibiting officers from shooting at moving vehicles except in extreme circumstances
Requiring officers to exhaust other options before resorting to deadly force
Establishing a duty by officers to intervene if one of their colleagues is using excessive force
Requiring officers to report all uses of force or attempted use of force.
Departments with four or more of these policies in place had 38% fewer police-involved killings per arrest than those with one or none, Sinyangwe found.
4. Invest in Alternatives: Research shows that more comprehensive investments in communities pay dividends.
A 2017 study published in the journal American Sociological Review found that across more than 250 cities, a greater number of nonprofit organizations was linked to declines in crime.
For every 10 organizations in a city of 100,000 people, the murder rate dropped 9% and the violent crime rate went down 6%, the researchers reported.
5. Instill Oversight: Independent and civilian oversight of police departments can go a long way toward reducing bad behavior.
A 2015 study in the journal Police Quarterly found that departments that had citizen complaint investigations reviewed by an outside citizen agency were more likely to find that the complaints had merit, rather than dismissing them without consequence.
The study also found that Black complainants were more likely than those of other races to have their complaints dismissed.
What are you willing to do to put an end to police brutality and support justice and equality for people of color?
Don't miss your opportunity. Be intentional, encourage other to do the same and watch what happens?
You got this!
Coach Tavia
#responsibility, #leadbyexample, #standup, #speakup, #learnandgrow, #focus, #leverageyourprivilege, #leadershipdevelopment, #starttheconversation, #justdoit, #levelup, #lifecoach, #leadershipcoach, #changeiscoming, #blacklivesmatter
Related References:
How to Stop Police Brutality According to Science.
So You Want to Talk About Race, New York Times Bestseller
by Ijeoma Oluo,
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