Category Archives: Policing

MLK, BLM, Glenn Loury, Donald Trump

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Flawed human beings can do good. 

This morning, I read a moving article by Angel Eduardo on the FAIR website. It made the case that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a saint, but he was the right man at the right time to bring our attention to injustices that we needed to address. King was a powerful orator who made masterful use of non-violent tactics to bring attention to Jim Crow laws in the south and Jim Crow sentiments in the north. Yet he wouldn’t pass muster today with people who expect leaders of both the past and present to have no earthly flaws. 

BLM employs powerful rhetoric and surely has a winning slogan, “Black Lives Matter.” Yet it clamors for justice for individuals who have somehow gotten the message that only “the system” is wrong, that their own actions cannot be scrutinized, that no one needs to obey a cop, that admitting mistakes will fail the cause. Rosa Parks was primed for her role in the fight against racism. A less sympathetic woman was passed over. Yes, the system was unfair to both, but we benefitted from the decision to use Rosa Parks to advance the cause. When individuals can readily be discredited, advancing the cause is more difficult. Knowing this, MLK hid his flaws. And he made sure to focus on people who were undeserving of the ill treatment they received.

Glenn Loury: Flawed. Intelligent. Honest about his struggles. And barely getting the attention he deserves. I look forward to the release of his memoir this spring, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. Glenn posts on Substack, and every other week, he and John McWhorter do a podcast on race issues in which they speak heresy and challenge each other to clarify and justify their thinking. Thomas Sowell might be more famous, but Loury is absolutely the real deal in terms of a flawed person who has overcome many struggles (drugs and infidelity in addition to poverty) accomplished a great deal, and is now sharing his insights and wisdom. Admitting his flaws elevates Loury’s message that individual responsibility is still a vital element in individual achievement.

And then there’s Donald Trump. One thing I learned when I began reaching out to Trump voters is that his supporters are able to overlook his flaws because they like his message. Or they like some of his policies. Or they like the way he stands up to elites. This lesson is why I think it’s vital that we not vilify his supporters if we feel that Trump is dangerous or is too flawed to be President. If someone tells me that MLK was a womanizer, I’m not going to let that fact drown out his important message. 

No. I do not think Trump is of the same stature as Martin Luther King, Jr. No, I do not equate Trump and King in any way. I’m not even sure that Trump has a message for America. To me, he’s all about Trump, and he’s latched onto victim status in a way that true victims can only watch with amazement.

Here, I am just addressing the fact that people who support Trump are able to overlook his character flaws, so we might do better to address issues rather than character flaws when discussing Trump. There are some, you know: No plan for health care; no follow-through on infrastructure; no understanding of America’s role in global trade and global affairs; appointment of cronies to important agencies; insistence on gutting government rather than right-sizing it. 

And lest you think you’re right about everything, here’s a nifty (short) commercial that challenges that idea. From the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression: FIRE commercial

Unlearning Fear

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Tyre Nichols. Philando Castile. Two men, just trying to comply with police instructions, end up dead for no good reason. How do we put an end to this disgrace?

Some deaths at the hands of police are just wrong. Some deaths at the hands of police seem unnecessary, but investigations reveal reasons for police use of deadly force. Sometimes the police are clearly the good guys, and the bad guys are truly out of control, dangerous to the public, and need to be stopped. When any police shooting is caught on video, the only thing we know is that we don’t know the whole story.

Here are a few things we do know: people, liberals especially, vastly overestimate all killings by police and especially the killings of black men.* Black Lives Matter leaders have pushed the narrative of out of control police departments targeting black men. This narrative only increases fear of police to the point that more men resist and/or flee which only increases the risk that force, perhaps deadly force, will be used on them. 

The prevailing narrative ramps up fear to what might be an irrational level, but the deaths of Nichols and Castile illustrate that some amount of fear is rational. Many police departments are trying to train and retrain officers to interact in ways that reduce the violent and intimidating tactics we associate with anyone being arrested. The goal is for everyone to come out alive at the end. Ideally, black men would know that this is happening, understand that the goal is for everyone to chill, cooperate with police, and end up alive, either released when appropriate or working their way through a justice system that is fair to all. 

The recent death of Tyre Nichols helped me understand why fear is still rational if you’re stopped by police. The question is when is it rational to let go of rational fear, that is fear based on reasonable evidence that police just might kill you? 

We, as humans, are not that good at judging risk, yet we do it all day every day. What’s truly challenging is recalibrating our level of fear when the calculations change. Yet, we can do this. Even I, with my long-standing fear of flying, flew on four airplanes in 2022 without any white knuckles. Somehow, the safety record for flying became so compelling that I had to dial back my fear, especially when it was obvious that the only way I could get where I wanted to go was to fly. Fortunately, no recent disasters occurred that would have interfered with my new-found confidence.

This is not the case however, when it comes to interactions between police and the public, especially the black and brown public. I can only imagine the emotions that ran through police departments that were making a serious effort to alter the tone of interactions with suspects in non-violent situations. Decent cops must surely have been devastated to see the videos of the beating of Tyre Nichols. Decent black men may surely have thought that things are never going to change. 

Fear can absolutely be rational. It can also be irrational. One of the challenges young women face is learning to calibrate their level of fear to the social situations they encounter as they enter the world outside their home. (I’m skipping the fear some children learn at home for now.) We’ve all heard about “the talk” that black mothers give to their sons in hopes that they will emerge unscathed from encounters with police. Calibrate your fear. Your best bet to emerge alive is to follow instructions.

And then, Tyre Nichols. Was Nicholas an exception? Yes. But how much of an exception? Were other examples simply not filmed for our viewing? How many examples? How long will it take for young black men to begin to let go of rational fear? If deaths as senseless as those of Castile or Nicholas happen only once a year, or once every two years, or five years, it will be enough to sustain the fear that lingers. Police must intervene to stop their peers who overreact. Young black men could benefit from recalibrating their fear of police, knowing that change is happening. Dialing back the violence and the rhetoric could occur at the same time from both sides. No, the burden shouldn’t be on young black men to unlearn their fear. But the reality is that their chances of sustaining permanent injuries or being killed are low enough to take a chance on compliance. I get why everyone might disagree with me, but I hope both sides will give peace a chance. 

* Sources:

Washington Post Data Base

Roland Fryer studies of use of force

Public estimates of police use of force