"A young nigga got it bad because I'm brown and not the other color/so police think they have the authority to kill a minority...searching the car looking for the product/thinking every nigga is selling narcotics."
-N.W.A. 1988-
Because we depend on authority figures to provide a certain level of protection, reliability, consistency, understanding, care, honesty, justice, etc., mistrust can quickly develop when any one of these expectations is not met or is abused. Instead, an expectation that the authority figures will hurt, abuse, humiliate, cheat, lie, manipulate, or take advantage develops. This mistrust often involves the belief that the harm is deliberate, that one always ends up being cheated or getting the "short end of the stick."
In the black community, both their historical and present-day experiences with racism and oppression greatly influence their attitude towards authority figures in general. This has led to a cultural mistrust that is passed down from generation to generation. Probably the most prevalent example of this is the mistrust of police officers.
Any one of us that has never had to worry about being told to get out of the car and "assume the position" after being stopped for a burned out tail light most likely do not, and can not, truly understand the affect this sort of behavior has on a person. Having not experienced this sort of stereotype-generated policing, white people in America generally have a positive view of the police. They do not question the level of force used to subdue a suspect, believing that the police were justified in their actions, that the suspect had to have been "asking for it." Yes, force is sometimes required when dealing with certain behaviors in certain situations, however the level of force used when dealing with the black community in general is often times disproportionately excessive. Unfortunately, this is nothing new.
Rap music of the late '80's and early '90's thoroughly captures this tension between the black community and police. Lyrics like those in "Fuck Tha Police" and "911 Is a Joke," expose the level of racism, persecution, disregard, and abuse experienced day to day. If you had to guess when the following lyrics were written, what would your guess be?
"How the fuck do you figure/that I can say, 'peace' and the gunshots will cease?/every cop killer gets ignored/they just send another nigga to the morgue...they kill ten of me to get the job correct/to serve, protect, and break a nigga's neck. " 2014, 2015, 2016? Not even close. These unnerving words are from a song by Ice Cube, featuring Chuck D, entitled "Endangered Species" and was released in 1990. That's more than two decades before Michael Brown was shot and killed by police (August 2014), before Freddie Gray died from a broken neck while in police custody (April 2015). Still, this type of behavior by police was mostly ignored, covered up, or kept hush hush. Rap had yet to achieve it's full potential as a platform for change or the wide-spread acceptance/audience that would prove necessary for an adequate level of awareness. Now, when the message in rap seems to stray further away from one of empowerment, social media has stepped up to take its place.
With campaigns like the Black Lives Matter movement exploding on social media, white America can no longer turn a blind eye to the frequent abuse of black Americans by the police. Videos of unarmed black men being shot and killed by cops with itchy trigger fingers shoves reality down the throat of anyone that has been ignorant of this reality.
Cultural mistrust is real, it is legitimate, and it is based on the experiences of generations of black people in this country. Mistrust does not happen over-night and neither will a solution. The first step is to admit there is a problem, to admit ignorance, and come face-to-face with someone else's reality. Only then can we start to learn from one another. We have to work on being nonjudgmental when it comes to a different cultural perspective, on both sides. White American has to learn to respect, explore, and validate (when warranted) the cultural mistrust that is so prevalent in the daily lives of black Americans. Together we can make a change.
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