Month: December 2015

Police Killing of Unarmed Black Men in the United States—A Bigger Picture

Short version:

Too many unarmed black men are killed by law enforcement officials in the United States. There is no getting around the fact that this phenomenon represents—at least statistically– the definition of institutional racism. The bigger picture, however, is that law enforcement officials are trained to shoot to kill when they believe themselves to be threatened.

Post-9/11 America has seen a tremendous expansion of armed law enforcement bodies; in most cases, these entities’ self-defense protocols permit officers the use of deadly force if and when they determine that they are in danger. Absent stricter rules on the use of force, many officers will thus feel that they can or should shoot when they feel threatened. And, due to ingrained societal racism, even if unintentionally or subconsciously, many Americans, police officers included, are more likely to believe themselves to be threatened when confronting black men.

In short, the many varieties of armed law enforcement personnel in the United States, operating under self-protective and subjective rules of engagement, shoot a lot of people. A disproportionate number of the people they shoot are unarmed black men. This is a direct result of America’s creation of many and varied layers of security personnel with abundant power and prerogatives. Until and unless law enforcement rules of engagement require greater moderation in use of force, black men will continue to die at the hands of security officers who may or may not be acting from racist motives.

Take a step back to see the bigger picture: if law enforcement personnel were not allowed to shoot those they encounter—white or black or other—on the subjective grounds of perceiving a threat, they would shoot fewer people. Establishing tighter national consensus rules on the use of deadly force would save the lives of numerous harmless black men—and many other lives.

Momentum is building in the United States for change. That change will happen within a year.

Longer version:

Every week, many thousands of people visit the food court at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. Loud tribes of middle school students on field trips to the capital, smaller family groups, and tired clumps of tourists roam the food court, seeking lunch, dinner, a snack, or, perhaps, just a break from the heat or cold.  The Ronald Reagan Building and its Federal Triangle neighborhood are home to many U.S. government agencies and offices, so hundreds of government workers are also part of the churning mix at the food court.

As it happens, many of these government officials are in uniform and armed as they stroll around with their trays or cups of coffee. In fact, pretty well any time the food court is open, dozens of armed Customs and Border Patrol, Federal Protective Service, and other uniformed, sidearm-wearing workers are present in the food court. During the course of the day, therefore, many hundreds of armed men and women who are not on duty for protective security reasons pass through or sit in the food court.

Why are they armed when most of them are working desk jobs? The simple answer is that most law enforcement agency personnel are armed at all times on duty, wherever they happen to be. Why? Because they are, because it’s considered part of their job, perhaps because that makes people feel safe. That is the way it is at this moment in American history.

Yet is it more strange that so many unnecessarily armed officials mingle in a food court in Washington, DC, or that nobody notices? Americans have become accustomed to seeing armed law enforcement officials everywhere. When they pass through airports, they encounter scores of armed officers from several different agencies—even the officials inspecting passports or customs forms wear weapons. Look around the baggage claim area at any major airport and you’ll see a large number of armed personnel in a variety of uniforms. Why are they all armed? Because law enforcement officials are almost by definition armed in the United States.

Under what conditions are these armed men and women allowed to shoot their guns? Not all agencies and departments have the same rules of engagement or policies on the use of deadly force, but it’s fair to say that all permit the officer to shoot if s/he believes that her/his life is in danger. Imagine for a moment what could happen in the food court at the Ronald Reagan Building if a significant number of armed officers from different agencies suddenly believed themselves to be in danger at the same time. Where would the true threat to public safety lie? Would it be whatever triggered the concern or would it be the potentially uncoordinated gunfire of so many armed officials reacting to the threat– real or perceived?

Black men don’t have to use their imagination much to consider this scenario. By now, they understand that a simple encounter with armed law enforcement officials might devolve into a situation in which the officials believe themselves to be in danger and start shooting. Everyone in the United States—not just black men– is aware of this phenomenon by now, and many decry the racism that surely motivates it.

But is racism the fundamental problem? The United States is full of armed racists who don’t just shoot others on the basis of their race. Do law enforcement officers shoot black men so frequently because of individual and institutional racism, or because they are simply taught to shoot if they calculate that they are confronting a valid threat? The families and friends of black victims of police shootings may find little comfort in examining this difference, but understanding it holds the key to saving black—and other—lives.

Law enforcement personnel shoot people according to the rules that govern their use of deadly force. That a disproportionate number of these people happen to be black men should be no surprise to any American. No serious person would deny the carapace of historic inequality that covers American society or claim that the U.S. public and/or public institutions are now magically color-blind when it comes to certain underlying assumptions based on race. As a demographic subset, black men are widely considered more threatening the United States. That’s all there is to it, and it’s silly to pretend that does not remain a generalization, stereotype, and, sometimes, default position in American society.

The police, just like other Americans, are thus, consciously or subconsciously, more likely to consider black men threatening. If they have been trained to shoot when they believe that they face a worthy threat, the probability that they will shoot black men in disproportionate numbers is a logical, if unacceptable, result of this combination of training and cultural context.

However, whatever the motive might be behind a police officer or other security official shooting a black man—and the case-by-case explanation might be genuine threat or racism or inexperience or something else—law enforcement would shoot far fewer people of any demographic subset if the criteria by which security personnel are allowed to shoot were more stringent.

A broader illustration of this principle of self-protective use of deadly force is that many persons– of any race– shot and killed by police were armed with nothing more than a knife. Americans frequently employ the metaphor “bringing a knife to a gun fight” to describe putting oneself in a vulnerable position, yet American law enforcement officials routinely shoot guns to kill those who brandish knives. And they are taught to do so, since someone waving or refusing to drop a deadly weapon is considered a lethal threat, even if that someone is at a distance that makes the threat represented by a blade less than acute.

Similarly, many police shootings result from an escalation of tension largely provoked by the officers themselves. Is catching a suspect in a minor crime worth high-speed car chases, sometimes through densely-populated areas, that raise adrenaline on both sides and magnify the sense of threat? At what point does failure to obey repeated, angrily shouted orders to drop a knife become a reason to shoot? These are not easy questions, and law enforcement’s job is precisely to prevent crime and confront criminals, but it is time to reevaluate tactics that create an environment in which harmless people are shot dead because what they do during a charged encounter is interpreted as a threat.

It is asking too much to suggest that armed law enforcement officials embrace danger and never shoot their guns. That might mean turning the other cheek to bullets, not just insults or fists. Yet it is clearly time for a course correction toward greater restraint on the use of deadly force. It is clearly time for the rules of engagement to change. And it is well past time for the American public to consider the consequences of its unquestioned support for all-but-unfettered law enforcement.

This will happen soon.  Institutional and—more importantly—public momentum toward reform of use of force in the United States will lead to significant change within the next year.

 

British Invasion- Soccer/Football- “Side”

More than a few explicitly British football (soccer) terms have perniciously crept into U.S. soccer commentary, despite the precedence of perfectly serviceable American alternatives.

Side: In a word, “team.” There is no reason other than the British say it that an American would choose to refer to a soccer/football team as a “side.” The word is, of course, a longstanding reasonable secondary or alternate for “team,” but it is not a reasonable primary word. It should be left aside in broadcast commentary.

NB:

The British Invasion is when– unbidden and unneeded– explicitly British words and expressions infiltrate American public commentary and journalism. This is alarming because the resultant multiplier effect could cause an epidemic that infects ordinary Americans’ healthy vocabulary.

Although I strive for tolerance, for the purpose of this series of posts, my fundamental assumption is that American is better than, not just different from, British. This is– mainly, if not exclusively– because American is newer and made improvements to its dialect of origin. I do, however, confess to frequent unfair extrapolation from this arguably reasonable approach to almost wholesale– and borderline unfair– derision of British compared to American. I beg the reader’s forbearance for having fun with such a solemn topic. I’m just taking the mickey– or whatever it is Americans say.

Why Trump Appeals to Americans– D’oh!

Americans spend a lot of their time on entertainment and on keeping up with entertainers. Along with sports stars and pop music royalty, TV and movie actors have, for many decades, been the public figures the average citizen cares about and follows most. And– in key ways– the public figures Americans emulate.

A much-admired trait of some of the most popular and influential cinema and television heroes is that they get away with saying and doing things that normal people do not get away with in real life. They are people who thumb their nose at authority and laugh about it. These characters appear constantly in American popular culture: The smart-aleck kid mocking teachers and other grown-ups, the smooth-talking charmer who has a handful of lovers at the same time, the sassy secretary who can openly talk back to her boss because he’s so clueless, the cop who is contemptuous of authority and plays by his own rules, the overburdened hero who explodes in the most dramatic way possible because she simply won’t take it anymore, or the loser who somehow ends up on top because of others’ overconfidence or vanity.

These are beloved fixtures of American entertainment. They are the furious colleagues who stand up in a meeting to tell off the boss and the unjust company he represents before striding off in righteous anger. They are the wives who instinctively know how to put down their meddling mothers in law with a well-nuanced barb. They are the cops who care about fighting crime more than they care about burdensome laws and regulations that might let the bad guys get away. They are the smooth kids who con bullies into getting beat up or humiliating themselves.

More than anything else, these well-known character types in American entertainment always seem to say exactly the right thing. They are not like the rest of us, who might be afraid of saying something factually wrong or stumbling or mumbling through the big delivery or—worse– getting in trouble for airing an opinion that many think but that nobody dares voice. How often do we anxiously run back the tape of an encounter and fret about what we should have said? How often do we kick ourselves for thinking of something clever that would have put that guy in his place if only we’d come up with it then? Why are we so slow and afraid to speak up when what we long to communicate seems so clear and reasonable when others say it?

After all, TV and movie characters routinely ace those encounters, and we’ve had enough practice repeating their famous lines, many of which have become part of the American vernacular. Yet when we ask ourselves, “Do I feel lucky? Well, do I?” we don’t. We feel like punks. We need our TV and movie stars to channel these emotions for us.

Much of Donald Trump’s appeal to those in the American electorate who support him is based on this dynamic. Trump is popular because, like our movie and TV characters, he gets away with saying and doing things that normal people do not get away with in life. Trump’s whole life is thumbing his nose at authority and laughing about it. Trump is the smart-aleck. Trump is the sassy secretary. Trump is the womanizer that women still love. Trump is the cop whose idea of efficient justice is a bullet shot true from his gun, followed by a shrug, snarl, or wry smile.

Trump is a sitcom/action hero, and his supporters are reacting to him in the same way Americans have reacted to so many before him. They admire him for getting away with saying and doing things they believe they cannot get away with. That’s the fact, Jack.

British Invasion- “One off”

One-off: This means either “one of a kind” or “once.” And it should not replace those superior terms. Those who have erred by employing “one-off” should pledge that its use was a solitary occurrence.

NB:

The British Invasion is when– unbidden and unneeded– explicitly British words and expressions infiltrate American public commentary and journalism. This is alarming because the resultant multiplier effect could cause an epidemic that infects ordinary Americans’ healthy vocabulary.

Although I strive for tolerance, for the purpose of this series of posts, my fundamental assumption is that American is better than, not just different from, British. This is– mainly, if not exclusively– because American is newer and made improvements to its dialect of origin. I do, however, confess to frequent unfair extrapolation from this arguably reasonable approach to almost wholesale– and borderline unfair– derision of British compared to American. I beg the reader’s forbearance for having fun with such a solemn topic. I’m just taking the mickey– or whatever it is Americans say.

Roll Tide: Global Jihad and/or Alabama Football

ISIS jihadists, Aryan Nations white supremacists, US Marines, Arsenal supporters, Crips and Bloods, Mafia criminals, IRA militants, and die-hard fans of the Alabama Crimson Tide might seem to have nothing or very little in common. In fact, they are all manifestations of the same universal motivation and aspiration: young men searching for meaning in life. Many young men seek enthusiasm, excitement, and action– and value being part of organizations that they perceive to be in pursuit of an honorable mission. Each of the above affiliations– and others– provides a ready-made package to address that longing. All of the above groups demand devotion, loyalty, and respect for ritual. All provide association with power, a sense of accomplishment or achievement, and the assurance that whatever members do on behalf of the organization is worthy and useful.

In the wake of a terrorist incident claiming the lives of innocent persons targeted on the basis of their ascription rather than their actions, experts and ordinary news consumers alike often give voice to a fundamental and frustrating question: Why do they do this? What makes young men (and they are, overwhelmingly, young men) shoot up sidewalk cafes, blow themselves up at military checkpoints, or behead captives? How is it that they have slipped the bonds of normal human decency?

These young men have been caught up in the romance of belonging, affiliation, loyalty, and—most importantly—the glory of being part of a movement that is doing something “important.” They have gleefully abandoned the normal, ordinary drudgery of being a student, farmer, clerk, apprentice, small-time crook, or unemployed layabout and have answered the call to join the throngs of similarly inspired young men at Emirates stadium. For these zealots, Arsenal football is the strongest motivational factor in their lives.

Or they joined the U.S. Marine Corps to shout slogans in unison as they surged through the early morning mud on a basic training run. Or they reveled in the secrecy and tradecraft of collecting money from sympathizers, and finding complicated and mysterious ways to procure random weapons here and there for the IRA. Or they showed everyone in their neighborhood who was a real player by making sure all noticed the blue bandanna tucked in their back pockets. Or they justified extortion, violence, spells in prison, and mortal sin by reassuring themselves that the cosa nostra was a respectable way to engage the world. Or they painted their faces red every Saturday to demonstrate unquestioned allegiance to the Crimson Tide, and shouted themselves red repeating the sacred mantra, “Roll Tide.”

But back to the unrelenting tide of global jihadism. Who ARE those guys and why do they do this?

They are young men motivated by the dramatic and romantic appeal of inspirational videos, identifying apparel, chants, slogans, and other rituals of belonging to a rite that reminds its adherents that they are part of a much larger mission—a mission with resonance far beyond whatever their explicit role in its realization may be. Like heroes in video games, they are on a quest, and that pursuit requires nothing short of unalloyed allegiance and commitment. They are, after all, the few, the proud, the Marines.

Or they are child soldiers in African conflicts who come to believe that belonging to a mystical and murderous rebel movement is, in the end, much easier and more fun than helping their parents with subsistence farming. Or fraternity pledges at almost any U.S. university sent out on a hazing errand.

What makes these jihadists so angry and aggrieved? How can they justify what they do in the name of revenge or self-defense?

They are men who believe that their way of life has been assailed on all sides by oppressive governments, military forces, and followers of other religions. They point to the many ways in which people they claim to represent suffer, and believe that they are both the last line of defense and the point of the spear in violent offensive confrontation with the many evil forces aligned against them and determined to wipe them out. They are the true believers– the Aryan Nations.

These groups are, of course, not the same, and, clearly, there should be no attempt to establish or condone any presumption of moral equivalence between the actions of all these groups. Trying to blow up a passenger plane in midair by igniting your underwear is worse than swatting a sedentary older guy when you drunkenly miss the high-five your fellow fanatic proffers at the game. It is worse than participating in a ground battle as part of a trained military force. It is worse than a gangland revenge killing. It is worse than adoration of a grossly overpaid coach with a history of recruiting violations and laughable player graduation statistics.

Just as clear, however, are the patterns of motivation that lead young men to follow such disparate but, in many ways, similar demands on their devotion, direction, and energy. It is not to excuse those who choose violence to point out that the motivational factors that led them to that choice might have, in another set of circumstances, steered them toward a more benign outlet for their energy, aspirations, and quest for self-esteem.