The uprisings against
police brutality across U.S. cities
came after police officers killed
46-year-old
George Floyd.
But the anger you see
is also
in response to a
history of police violence.
A history
that has left
Black people more scared about
being a victim of
police violence,
than being a victim of violent crime.
Now, there are growing calls
to defund or even
abolish the police.
The relationship between
African Americans
and the police is a very tense one.
To understand
American policing today
is really to tell a story
that comes out of
slavery in the United States.
Let's take look at that history.
From slave patrols,
to enabling lynchings,
crushing protests
and shooting to kill.
My mental health suffers
tremendously
when my children
are out and about.
There are stats to back up this fear.
Black Americans are
2.5 times more likely
than white Americans
to die at the hands of police.
Police use of force
is the sixth leading cause of death
for young Black men.
Minneapolis police
used seven times more force
against Black people
than white people
over the last five years.
Such force includes
kicks,
neck holds,
tasers
and takedowns.
In America,
three Black men
or more is
deemed a threat.
This is a problem.
Almost 80%
of the Minneapolis
police force is white.
And that's far from unusual
in the United States.
On top of this,
U.S. police forces
have become
increasingly militarized.
Heavy-handed
police tactics were used
to suppress recent protests
and enforce curfews.
The 1033 program
funnels excess
military equipment
into police forces
at a fraction of the cost.
Police forces around the country hold about
$1.8 billion worth
of military gear.
But this brutality
and militarization
doesn’t
come out of nowhere.
Dr. Keisha Blain
is a historian
specializing in
African American history.
The early roots of American policing
begin within the context of slavery.
Before the Civil War
African Americans,
particularly those
living in the U.S. South,
were enslaved.
One of the things that developed
throughout various parts of the South,
was the creation of slave patrols.
Slave patrols were made of white volunteers.
They would stop, question and punish
enslaved people
caught without a permit to travel.
They used vigilante tactics
and terror to deter slave revolts.
South Carolina set up
the first slave patrol in 1704.
Well, the white volunteers
who joined the slave patrols
felt empowered to control
the lives of Black people.
And this is where we begin to
talk about how whiteness functions
within the historical lens.
Then came the Reconstruction era
after the American Civil War.
It’s during this time
the U.S. starts seeing
organized and uniformed police officers.
By the end on the 19th century,
all major U.S. cities had police forces in place.
They are made up of predominately
white men,
and they are functioning
in a very similar way
as the earlier
slave patrols,
in that they are continually
targeting Black people.
The 13th Amendment
abolished slavery in the U.S in 1865.
Yet Black codes were introduced
immediately after.
These laws controlled the lives of Black people.
Restricted Black people’s movement.
Restricted Black property ownership.
And punished African American men
out of work under vagrancy laws.
Police forces were very much
part of the story.
Their job was to uphold these codes.
Jim Crow laws legalized racial segregation.
Southern white supremacists
systematically used lynching
to terrorize African Americans.
There were over
4,000 racial terror lynchings
in at least 12 Southern states
from 1877 to 1950.
White officials and police
watched and rarely did anything.
By the time we get to
the early 20th century,
within the context of the Jim Crow South,
what we see are police forces actually
making it possible
for white vigilantes to
murder Black people,
to lynch Black people,
rather than arrest people
for acts of violence.
The painful history of police brutality
continued during the Civil Rights movement.
There all these moments where
as activists
are marching, marching peacefully,
they encounter local police
who attack them,
who beat them up,
who arrest them for
all kinds of
minor offenses or actually no offenses.
Police forces during the Civil Rights era
generally stood against protesters.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
ended segregation on paper.
But uprisings triggered by
acts of police brutality continued.
From the urban uprisings in the late '60s
to the LA uprisings of 1992:
Violent policing
of African Americans persisted.
Then in 2014, a police officer fatally shot
18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson.
That galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement.
No justice. No peace.
- I see so many parallels even to the 1960s,
and not solely that the ways
that people are organizing,
the kinds of strategies
they're employing,
but even to the issue of police violence.
There have been repeated attempts
to reform police departments.
There were calls for all cops to wear body cameras.
They didn’t deliver.
Officers were trained to use more nonlethal force.
But the training hasn't stopped killings.
Thousands of cops have been investigated for misconduct.
Police violence
hasn’t stopped.
So people are recording police brutality.
And people are sharing it.
And in 2020,
a white police officer in Minnesota
will face criminal prosecution for the death of a Black civilian.
I am happy that all of the officers
have been arrested.
My father should not
have been killed like this.
We deserve justice.
That's all I have to say.
It’s rare for cops to ever face trial,
much less conviction.
The officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck
had worked as a police officer for almost two decades.
This is despite being involved in a fatal shooting of a suspect,
and having multiple complaints filed against him.
So protesters are calling
to defund the police.
and some are even calling for abolition.
Campaigners want massive police budgets reduced,
and want funds reallocated toward social services.
The movement certainly brought the issue of police violence,
to the national spotlight.
They will talk about how activists organize on the ground,
and they will talk about some of the resistance
that activists face,
they'll talk about the surveillance
that activists face.
I think the current moment is very much
a part of the larger narrative
of the Black freedom struggle.