tomwaits
Frontier Psychiatrist
Offline
how do you imagine they are separate discussions?
modern policing has roots in slave patrols and jim crow enforcement
the FBI has demonstrated for decades that white nationalists have infiltrated polices forces of all sizes across the country
how do you imagine police reform is a separate conversation from race relations?
Easily
The problem is the government has agents who violate people's rights through violence and are not held accountable. They have been shown that they violate right of people of any race.
Why would you want to focus on race? If racism in the police was magically gone, they would still be violating people's rights, nothing is solved.
The only answer I could see you having is that you are ok with police violating people but you want it in the exact same ratio to match demographics.
I am not ok with them doing it at all. That should be the focus.
If someone with no power is a racist, sure it sucks but they don't have power to do much about it.
Police have unchecked power, so if they are racists then it has a big consequence. The fix is to check the power, but it seems to get lost and bogged down with the race issue. Its to a degree that "anti-racists" attack a senator who is actually proposing bills to check police power. So you can't say its not getting bogged down by the race issue, because it clearly is.