Disliking cops is nearly a national pastime. Over the last decade, cops have become the face of racial discrimination. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has overtaken social media as citizens across the country protest police treatment of minorities.
On Monday, Oct. 27th, a video of white deputy Ben Fields’ forceful classroom arrest of a black South Carolina high school student went viral. The video clearly shows Fields flipping the 18-year-old girl out of her chair and dragging her across the room for refusing to put away her cell phone. Fields has been suspended without pay and is facing an internal investigation.
Even presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton has responded to the event, tweeting “There is no excuse for violence inside a school.”
But as my sister, a criminal justice major, reminds me, not all cops are bad. Just two days later, 17-year-old Aaliyah Taylor posted a video of her confrontation with an unnamed police officer. The Washington D.C. officer arrived on the scene to break up a fight between Taylor and another woman. When she spotted Taylor dancing the Whip/Nae Nae, she reportedly told the girl she could dance better. The teenager challenged her to a dance-off, and the officer accepted.
The dance-off ended in a tie. Taylor told the officer, “we need more cops like you” and shared the video on Facebook.
Cops serve an important role in our society. And while I in no way excuse any form of police neglect, brutality, or discrimination, we shouldn’t concentrate our frustration and anger solely on the police. Yes, we need to hold corrupt cops accountable for their actions, but we should view this abuse of power as a symptom of larger cultural issues, such as pervasive racism and the criminal justice system’s emphasis on punishment and revenge.
By limiting our efforts solely to addressing the racial discrimination of minorities perpetuated by police, we overlook other sources of discrimination. Institutional racism—racism perpetuated by the institutions which make up our society—can be found in the education system, the health care system, religious organizations, and the workplace, to name a few. Everyday racism can occur at home, online, in public, and in the media. Both types of racism can be difficult to name and even more difficult to correct.
The point is, police officers don’t have a monopoly on racism, and we can’t concentrate only on the bad apples in the police force. Discrimination can’t be isolated to the men and women in blue. Not all cops are bad, just as not all white people are racist. Perhaps naively, I hope that for every officer who violently arrests a student, there’s another officer who resolves conflict through a dance-off. If we can accept that officers like Fields are the by-product of a culture of racism, then we finally address the cause of the issue in the hopes of ending discrimination.
