As far as I can grasp the ongoings there overseas, I get that it's a general problem of police violence, not just racism or police violence against people of color. It "only" tends to show most often through examples of black people who have been harmed or killed, because statistics and the latent racism within the US society (which is still treated like a personal opinion) formed the prejudice that black people aren't very wealthy - at least not as rich as to be able to show up on the next day with an expensive lawyer and file a lawsuit against the cops which harmed that person, which may potentially cost them their jobs. But on the whole, you can also do this to white people - as long as this component of missing wealth stays in the game and the potential consequences from maltreating a person while one duty are low.
In this context, I also keep coming back to the several changes in law made after 9/11, which handed a lot of might and decision-making power straight into the hands of the cops on the street in the name of "eleminating terrorists quickly". I don't think anything of that ever was really taken back ( = made invalid), and, theoretically, you can use these competences against more groups of people than just suspected "terrorists".
I would guess, that is what comes together there. Cops equipped with the lawful right to act as they please if they can only reason it well enough to their superiors - and then groups which have always been vulnerable, known in their ways to be "easy prey" and to be very limited in options how to fight back in case of unjust treatment. On the side of the people in uniform, enough of them seem to take that as an invitation to act out their personal inadequacies - with exemption from punishment.
no subject
It "only" tends to show most often through examples of black people who have been harmed or killed, because statistics and the latent racism within the US society (which is still treated like a personal opinion) formed the prejudice that black people aren't very wealthy - at least not as rich as to be able to show up on the next day with an expensive lawyer and file a lawsuit against the cops which harmed that person, which may potentially cost them their jobs.
But on the whole, you can also do this to white people - as long as this component of missing wealth stays in the game and the potential consequences from maltreating a person while one duty are low.
In this context, I also keep coming back to the several changes in law made after 9/11, which handed a lot of might and decision-making power straight into the hands of the cops on the street in the name of "eleminating terrorists quickly".
I don't think anything of that ever was really taken back ( = made invalid), and, theoretically, you can use these competences against more groups of people than just suspected "terrorists".
I would guess, that is what comes together there.
Cops equipped with the lawful right to act as they please if they can only reason it well enough to their superiors - and then groups which have always been vulnerable, known in their ways to be "easy prey" and to be very limited in options how to fight back in case of unjust treatment.
On the side of the people in uniform, enough of them seem to take that as an invitation to act out their personal inadequacies - with exemption from punishment.