Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, and All Lives Matter — three true statements nobody should need to say. But they’ve all been said, and for Black Lives in Blue, it’s All complicated.
by Mauve Maude
January 11, 2021
One piece of video has aired repeatedly for the last few days, of a Black police officer in the United States Capitol, being backed into a cornered stairway by insurrectionists on January 6. He’s armed (some officers were not), but we certainly don’t see him pulling his gun, as he tries singlehandedly to force back a piece of the mob, lead by a white man in a QAnon T-shirt, who certainly makes it look like the officer could fear for his life.
We can only imagine what he heard coming from the mouths of those particular rioters, but other Capitol police officers reported “patriots” hurling epithets at them. Other officers were injured that day, at least one on video. One officer died in the hospital Thursday. Another died by suicide over the weekend. Before Wednesday, many who claimed themselves to be patriots rallied under the cry “Blue Lives Matter”, hurried to the defense of police officers, and were outraged by last year’s protests for Black lives, especially when rioters damaged property. Now it appears that outrage hinged on something besides police officers and federal buildings. And seeing as the statements that “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” were in response to the controversial statement that “Black Lives Matter” (and not in response to the loss of Black lives), I wonder what it all looks like to Black police officers, since Wednesday and long before.
Black Americans and the police have a long, troubled past, because the American police force as we know it today had its earliest roots in antebellum slave patrols. But almost as soon as slavery was abolished, Black men were also joining newly formed police forces in the Reconstruction-era South. Bass Reeves became the first Black U.S. Marshal in 1875 and made himself a legend, serving for more than thirty years in the Indian Territory (though when the territory became the State of Oklahoma, he was forced to retire and become a city officer, because the new state’s laws didn’t allow Black marshals). And this abbreviated list of accomplishments in Black policing even tells us when the first Black woman joined a force (the LAPD, in 1916). Unfortunately, resistance to Black police officers–from Black citizens, white citizens, and white officers–was more common than recognizing their achievements, from the beginning. And the existence of Black police officers didn’t save America from Jim Crow.
Black Americans and the police have a long, troubled past.
But none of that has stopped Black officers from signing up, or leading. In this NPR interview, Ari Shapiro hears the stories of three officers who joined the force during three very different decades. The eldest, a retired chief, joined after he was beaten by officers as a youth in the fifties, and was called “the ‘n’ word” his first night on the job. Black officers have never had an easy time in their roles. Officers have always told stories like those of these three: of being harassed or discriminated against on the job, being profiled by other officers and even having guns drawn on them in uniform, and enduring all of this when they’re out of it too, as any Black civilians would.
Now police are serving and protecting during the most tumultuous times most of them have seen. Much of the nation has decided it’s had it with police killings of unarmed Black people, consistently going unpunished. Many others have decided they’ve had it with hearing about it. Outrage from both sides exploded in 2020, and naturally, Black officers found themselves right in the middle of the heat. When one piece of identity takes opposition to another, inner conflict is inevitable. Our nation’s history has caught up with itself, and being a Black police officer in America has split the sense of self like never before.
It seems reasonable that any discussions of police reforms, regarding racial issues, should take significant input and weight from Black officers. Of course, the utmost precaution would be necessary. History has shown us that could easily lead to Black officers bearing all the responsibility. It would be irresponsible, lazy, and just plain wrong to suggest they would, could, or should have all the answers.
Some people have suggested that maybe our country just needs more minority officers, at least in minority neighborhoods. But that may be an oversimplification. This article from NPR reports studies done after the Ferguson (Mo.) Police Department, disproportionately white in comparison to the city’s majority-Black population, inspired this question, after the murder of Michael Brown in 2015. So far that theory hasn’t been supported, and complicated reasons for that would owe directly and exactly to the dual world Black officers find themselves living and working in.
After all, Black officers, and other non-white officers, even those who joined the force to help improve the system, have been involved in some of the highest-profile cases of police brutality in America, including George Floyd’s. No doubt they’ve been involved, and will continue to be involved, in cases we’ve never heard of as well.
Black officers have been involved in some of the highest-profile cases of police brutality in America.
The reality is that Black police officers, like all Black Americans, have come to be where we are, right alongside everybody else. Racism is deeply ingrained to our society as a whole, and it’s always made its way into Black skin as well as it’s made its way into whiteness–just with different consequences. It can be pulled out of both. The deadly mistakes surrounding race in law enforcement–where Black Americans in and out of uniform find themselves on the losing end of those consequences–are an immediately urgent issue. But as those mistakes and consequences, and the circumstances in which they occur, all stem from the deeper issue, law enforcement reform simply won’t fix everything. Especially now that we know it was never about blue lives.
Black police officers know that. They also know very well what needs to be fixed.
What do you think? We would like to hear from you, but you won’t find the typical Comments section here. If you have given the issue some thought or have an experience to share, please enter it here, or send your response to Maude@mauvereport.com. We would like to share viewpoints from all sides.