The Facts or The Narrative?

    Most of us have seen the video of a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. In even the most extreme circumstances, which this wasn’t, the police’s actions seem careless, cruel, and just wrong. Although there is some debate over what exactly killed George Floyd, the reason necessarily what is important? There has been quiet points made, on both the left and the right of the political spectrum that the numbers and facts do not quite match up to the narrative being pushed by the protests or the Black Lives Matter movement. For example, the police have killed around 1000 people each year for the past several years according to both the Washington Post, and Mapping Police Violence. I will always admit that these are the deaths we know about. However, I am not willing to engage in conspiracy theories and will only add at most 10% to any total before it gets ridiculous. Another fact is that police killings of black people was at a seven-year low in 2019, at 259. Other studies done by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine showed that in 2015, black Americans were 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police. However, this study consisted of only 812 people over three years in 17 states. This I do not consider very exhaustive.

    My point, after pouring over all of this data is the narrative of an epidemic of police violence exclusively against the black population of the US does not seem to match the available data that we have. In other words, the evidence of rampant racism in the police community resulting in thousands of deaths does not seem to be true.

    But does that matter? Does that instantly undermine the message of the tens of thousands of protesters in over 100 cities to end police violence? I do not think so.

    Symbols are more important than ever in our advanced human society. That the protestors believe there is a problem of racism in the police force is an important indicator that must be solved. That the police, who have supposedly been sworn to “protect and serve”, have killed anyone in our country, means there is a problem. We have grown and achieved so much in our society that that which is intangible has been given extremely powerful pedestals in our society. Donald Trump was perhaps not elected because of his concrete ideas, but because he made people feel like they had achieved something. Companies lose billions in value because the stock market feels there is something wrong. The numbers we have do not support a widespread issue of racism when it comes to police killings, but there is a feeling, supported by video evidence, that they use more force when it comes to the black population.

    The systems we have built as a society are answerable to we the people. That any part is too “sacred” to be questioned, is a strong indication that it should. The lazy and alarming defense of the conservative right exclaiming “how dare you question this [insert military/police/republican president here]!” is the final option when they have run out of excuses. The narrative of what the people think and believe of these systems is just as important as the facts. Any belief is never entirely based on false premises. That the videos of each person killed by the police exist, make me shudder to think of all the killings we are not seeing…

#FitzFile