Is America Racist? | Stately McDaniel Manor

Is America Racist? | Stately McDaniel Manor

Is America, and particularly, are America’s police, racist?

To believe that, one must ignore the last 60 years of American history. One must ignore Brown v Board of Education (1954). One must ignore the Civil Rights Act (1964). One must ignore all of the laws, and the sacrifices of the civil rights pioneers, and every advance, every accomplishment, that changed America for the better. One must ignore the inherent decency and continuing good will of Americans. One must ignore the black female and male Secretaries of State, cabinet officers, captains of industry and business, and men like 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, a brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon. One must ignore black Attorneys General, male and female, and the first black President of the United States.

The civil rights movement was a brilliant success, and every American of good will acknowledges and celebrates it. Every sacrifice so dearly bought bore glorious fruit. Actual racists are rare, and are justly treated as the social pariahs they manifestly deserve to be. Goodness, truth, and justice won! People of all races work together, attend the same churches, schools, patronize the same businesses, date, intermarry, serve together in the military, socialize and live in the same neighborhoods. This is a nation about which Martin Luther King dreamed, a nation where his children–all children–would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

America is not racist. Above and beyond all nations, America is accepting of all, and equality of opportunity is denied none, but equality of outcome depends on individual effort.

America’s police officers are drawn from the American public. Police agencies, in fact, are even less likely to harbor actual racists than the public at large, because, in recruiting and hiring, they specifically screen for that trait, as well as other troubling psychological disqualifiers. In addition, supervisory practices are established to detect and deal with such damaging personality faults.

In reality, identifying racists is not difficult. They generally identify themselves. They’re proud of their beliefs and are compelled to share and act on them, just like the Dallas killer.

Even in the Baton Rouge shooting, and the Minnesota shooting, there is no actual evidence of racial animus. The investigations into those shootings are only a few days old, and what little information is available seems to indicate that the officers fired not due to racial animus, but because they believed themselves to be in deadly danger.

Just as very few police officers are actually racists, there is no national police conspiracy to kill young black men. There is no regional conspiracy; there is no local conspiracy. To think otherwise is to descend into dangerous, truly racist, paranoia.