MOST OF AMERICA’S SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE IS BUILT ON RACISM

[N'Zinga Shani]

No one should be surprised that the Task Force that investigated the Chicago Police Dept. found that it is also “Plagued by Systemic Racism.” That’s true of most police departments in the USA.  It is certainly true in the Northeast and in Connecticut.

“The report, issued on Wednesday, was blistering, blunt and backed up by devastating statistics. Coincidentally, it was released as city leaders were installing a new, permanent superintendent for the Chicago Police Department. (This calls for more than a little skepticism)

“C.P.D.’s own data gives validity to the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color,” the task force wrote. “Stopped without justification, verbally and physically abused, and in some instances arrested, and then detained without counsel — that is what we heard about over and over again.”

Chicago Police Dept. Plagued by Systemic Racism, Task Force Finds

By MONICA DAVEY and MITCH SMITHAPRIL 13, 2016

• The more important question is: Will anything, beyond superficial measures, be done to effectively address the problems found as well as those that exist at every level in Chicago and elsewhere?

• It’s time for the US Justice Dept to take strong and permanent measures on police departments across the country, starting in Chicago. Rahm Immanuel should resign.

• When Rahm Immanuel took over as Mayor of Chicago, he knew those problems existed. What has he done to address them? When black people react to the constant barrage of racist behaviors hurled against them, the ‘system’ either condemn the behaviors of blacks, or it takes a few steps to hide the racist behaviors and policies a little more deeply. There are no systemic changes that will eliminate and prevent the behaviors going forward.

• There is not much that a black police chief can do to really make fundamental changes unless the very foundation of the system is changed.

• How will that happen? When will it happen? Who will lead and maintain the charge?

• How many more black lives will be taken, ruined, or maligned daily before “REAL Changes” take place? Three out of four people on whom police used Taser Guns are black!

Here are excerpts from the report:

• "The report reinforces complaints made for decades by African-American residents who have said they were unfairly singled out by officers without justification on a regular basis, then ignored when they raised complaints.
• It comes at a pivotal moment for the nation’s second-largest municipal police force, which is being criticized by residents and is under scrutiny from the Justice Department. And, coming from Mr. Emanuel’s own appointees, the findings intensify pressure on him and other Chicago leaders to make substantive, swift changes.
• The report makes more than 100 specific recommendations for change, and task force members called on the mayor and the City Council to take action. After formally receiving the report, Mr. Emanuel had no immediate public reaction.
• The task force amassed data that shows the extent to which African-Americans appear to have been disproportionately focused on by the police. In a city where whites, blacks and Hispanics each make up about one-third of the population, 74 percent of the 404 people shot by the Chicago police between 2008 and 2015 were black, the report said. Black people were the subjects in 72 percent of the thousands of investigative street stops that did not lead to arrests during the summer of 2014."   
• How truly frightening?!!!  This is 2016. America seems to have gone backwards!  Or maybe, Chicago police-- like so many others-- want to demonstrate that having a black president in the USA did not and cannot stop them from being racist and and from practicing overt racism.

¨ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/us/chicago-police-dept-plagued-by...?