"I don't believe that Black people are less privileged than White people in terms of the law enforcement system."

It’s not something you choose to “believe” or not. It is a blatant fact that White people are far more privileged than Black people in this country, and this includes the law enforcement system. If you are a White person, it can be easily stated that you have never feared for your life because of the color of your skin. You have never had to think about whether or not you might get killed for simply purchasing something at a convenience store. You never had the looming fear of being shot as a young child because you were playing with a toy in a park. You never had to tell your children that they shouldn’t wear hoodies outside the house because they might just get a gun pulled on them for it. These are all things that have happened to Black people, but they have never and they will never happen to you.

 In addition to that, here are some quick statistics that will help put things into perspective:

• Black people are nearly 3 times more likely than White people to be killed by the police, up to 6x more likely in some areass

• Black Americans are nearly 1.5 times more likely to be unarmed before their death than White people

• D.C. has a population of nearly 50% Black people, but 88% of all police killings were against Black people (a discrepancy of 38 points) (2019 study)

• Similar to the prior statement, Rhode Island had a discrepancy of 44 points (2019 study)

• Mapping Police Violence (MPV)’s 2019 study shows that 99% of all officers involved in all police killings had no criminal charges pressed against them

• 13% of the US population is Black, while 24% of all police killings were of Black people, which is an 11 point discrepancy. Overall, police killed 1,000+ people in 2019 alone

• Minneapolis police use force against Black people at 7 times the rate of White people

• About 20% of Minneapolis’ population is Black, but when police use force against civilians (kicking, neck holding, punching, shoving, takedowns, Mace, Tasers, etc), it is against a Black person 60% of the time (Reminder: the Minneapolis population is 60% White)

• Less than 1% of police officers involved in police killings have charges pressed against them, and even less than that are convicted

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WRITTEN BY:

Amelia Aversano

GUIDE WRITING TEAM