African-Americans suffered through periods of extreme injustice in our country. Slavery was followed by segregation, where Black people were treated as secondary citizens, couldn’t vote and were discriminated against by the police and in the courts.

Civil rights laws in the 1960’s gave Black people equal rights to White people and declared all races equal. Since then, Black people have been mayors of major cities, lawyers, police officers, judges, CEO’s of major companies, our current Vice-President and recent former President.

A future where we can all move on from racism is in sight, but not everyone wants it. Media companies are businesses, and for many of them racism is a topic that makes them a profit. Many politicians use racism to gain support and votes as well. They create problems and offer themselves as solutions.

Black communities are being manipulated and exploited with the belief that “the system” is still against them. Since it WAS true in the past, it’s not hard to believe that it still is, especially if it comes from supposedly reliable sources.

The truth is that the police force is interracial and there are thousands of Black police officers. Some cities even have POC majority police forces. It is also important to remember that our entire judicial system is diverse, with POC as judges, prosecutors, jurors and lawyers.

The disproportional crime statistics that show Black people as the majority of inmates in jail, are easily explained by the below statistics:

West Garfield Park is a neighborhood with the highest crime rate in Chicago. 87.3% of its residents are Black.

Brownsville is a neighborhood with the highest crime rate in New York City. 61.4% of its residents are Black. White people are 2.4% of its residents by the way.

Tioga-Nicetown is a neighborhood with the highest crime rate in Philadelphia. Black people are 91.25 % of its residents.

Roxbury is a neighborhood with the highest crime rate in Boston. It is 48% Black. White people comprise 15% of its population.

Model City is a neighborhood with the highest crime rate in Miami. It is 82.69% Black.

It’s basic logic that the higher crime a neighborhood has, the more arrests it is going to have. It’s also basic logic that if the majority of people living there are of a particular race, then people of that race will be arrested the most. There are no laws or leaked memos indicating that police officers prioritize arresting Black people.

Are there racist police officers? Unfortunately yes, however people with hateful beliefs are a minority in many different professions. There is no evidence that most police officers are biased against African-Americans.

What about George Floyd? During the killer’s trial, Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Attorney General said: “I wouldn’t call it that [“hate crime”] because hate crimes are crimes where there’s an explicit motive, and of bias. We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.”

The question is why do those neighborhoods have so much crime? The solution is working with Black communities to make sure that they know that “the system” is not against them.

The idea that the multiracial police force is biased against African-Americans, is a divisive conspiracy theory not supported by facts.

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