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We Can’t Have Police Reform Until We Understand The History Of Policing
America’s reckoning is needed more than an executive order.
I’ve been pulled over a few times in my life. Each time, as I waited for the police officer to approach my car, I could feel my heart racing with fear. Thankfully, I’ve never experienced an inappropriate or violent police stop.
I’ve been fortunate.
However, as the parents of three, black sons, my husband and I have had to sit them down for “The Talk” — a difficult yet potentially lifesaving conversation that no parent should ever need to have with their children. On top of that, I often find myself weighted down with the kind of worry that no mother should ever have to carry.
If we are to understand America’s policing problem — why too many of our country’s black citizens see officers as foes, not friends, and why too many officers don’t see any humanity in black faces — we have to go back to the awful beginning. Back to the original role of policing in the South.
Ready? Here we go.
“The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the Slave Patrol.” — Dr. Gary Potter
