Black Chiefs And Black Cops Cannot Change Racist Police Culture

A for­mer African-American police chief was fired for try­ing to dis­man­tle what she char­ac­ter­ized as racial pater­nal­ism, misog­y­ny, and nepo­tism. RaShall Brackney lost her job when the city of Chorletsville decid­ed to allow racism and cor­rup­tion to con­tin­ue rather than address­ing the sys­temic issues eat­ing away at the com­mu­ni­ty, accord­ing to for­mer chief Brackney.
Yes, this is the same Chorletsville, Virginia, that became infa­mous for the unite the right tiki-torch ral­ly in which counter-pro­test­er Heather Heyer was mowed down by a white ter­ror­ist and killed.
“They would rather con­spire to oust me than dis­man­tle or con­front cor­rupt, vio­lent indi­vid­u­als in CPD and city government.”
(Rashall Brackney).
The for­mer chief told the media that her attempts to change the good old boy cul­ture got so dan­ger­ous that she felt the need to have her ser­vice weapon in her hand when she left the sta­tion­house out of fear that she would be killed by the offi­cers under her command.
Brackney says she was fired in part for dis­band­ing and rep­ri­mand­ing the SWAT team and its mem­bers after an inci­dent in which videos of the team sur­faced using pro­fan­i­ty. This fol­lowed an inde­pen­dent release that found group chat texts between offi­cers con­tain­ing “nude videos of females and them­selves” and texts in which they said they want­ed to “kill” City staff mem­bers.
The for­mer chief filed a $10 mil­lion law­suit against the city of Chorletsvilles and sev­er­al city-employed indi­vid­u­als because she was wrong­ful­ly ter­mi­nat­ed based on her race and gender.
A fed­er­al judge dis­missed her case on the motion to dis­miss filed by the city despite all of the evi­dence of cor­rup­tion and crimes sub­mit­ted by the chief’s attorneys!!!
The assault against chief Brackney did not come from the police alone; city offi­cials and cit­i­zens opposed to the changes she put for­ward band­ed to have her removed.
Here is one peti­tion start­ed by one gun-mon­ger who decid­ed the chief attempts to rein in the pro­lif­er­a­tion of guns was an assault on his whiteness.
Audio Article: Listen.

Former chief Brackney’s state­ment speaks to the smoke being blown up the col­lec­tive rear end of this coun­try’s forty mil­lion black people.
It is just as dis­re­spect­ful to our com­mu­ni­ty as sug­gest­ing that hir­ing a few black cops will change the cul­ture of impuni­ty that has char­ac­ter­ized police response toward the African-American com­mu­ni­ty. The morons who mur­dered Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennesee, demol­ish that myth. In instance after instance, we see evi­dence that black cops are either (a) too scared to speak up when white cops abuse blacks or (b) they are more com­plic­it in the crim­i­nal con­duct than the white cops.
We see what hap­pens when peo­ple who nev­er had pow­er are giv­en pow­er. Black offi­cers who, in many cas­es them­selves, were vic­tims of police vio­lence as young­sters, feel­ing they are pow­er­ful because they have a gun and badge, become just as bad as white cops. Unfortunately, the rules of the game as to police account­abil­i­ty are dif­fer­ent. They are just too stu­pid t real­ize it.
The killers of Tyree Nichols are now com­ing to terms with that reality.
But it is not just about black cops. Most police offi­cers are not the most for­mal­ly or oth­er­wise edu­cat­ed indi­vid­u­als. And so vest­ed with the sud­den infu­sion of pow­er after a few weeks of train­ing can be dan­ger­ous to the defense­less public.

The idea that hir­ing a few black cops to lead depart­ments or hir­ing a few token blacks into a cul­ture of polic­ing steeped in racism, misog­y­ny, and lack of account­abil­i­ty is tan­ta­mount to stick­ing a band-aid on the entry wound of some­one shot in the gut. To begin with, the band-aid will most like­ly do noth­ing to stop the bleed­ing. Secondly, it will cer­tain­ly not help the like­ly organ dam­age inside the per­son­’s body, not to men­tion the need to repair and recon­struct vital organs and tis­sues and remove the bul­let from the body.
“Getting offi­cer buy-in can be a big chal­lenge … par­tic­u­lar­ly, white offi­cers are like­ly to get defen­sive,  Jacinta Gau, pro­fes­sor of crim­i­nal jus­tice at the University of Central Florida. “We need diver­si­ty of all sorts, but we need it, par­tic­u­lar­ly in those high­er ranks,” Gau said. “It is not enough to have a Black chief.”
The caus­tic and dan­ger­ous cul­ture that per­me­ates police depart­ments has noth­ing to do with peo­ple of col­or who may hap­pen t lead them. It comes from an ill-con­ceived belief that white peo­ple are inher­ent­ly supe­ri­or to every­one else and are enti­tled to estab­lish the rules by which every­one else lives.
It is a cul­ture on which the very nation was built. It per­me­ates every branch and stra­tum of nation­al life. Policing is mere­ly the enforce­ment arm of it.
No one should be sur­prised that the courts, from the high­est to the low­est, side with the police over the cit­i­zens they are sup­posed to serve, even when they are wrong.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.