Why We Fight: Protesting, Police Brutality, and the Straw Man of “Black-on-Black Crime”

As the streets once again fill with the fury of thousands protesting yet another round of Black deaths perpetrated by the police who more often terrorize communities than protect them, returning as well is the discussion about what must be done to put an end to this terror. While this time around, there seems to be even more support than ever from outside the Black community (which I’d like to take a moment to appreciate) sadly, but not surprisingly, there remains a vocal cohort both inside and outside the Black community that takes issue with those who attempt to something so bold as hold the police accountable for committing murders, because these supposedly constitute only a small fraction of the violence present within these communities.

A favorite rebuttal among these dissenters when confronted with screams of “STOP POLICE BRUTALITY!” is “STOP BLACK-ON-BLACK CRIME!”. (Black-on-Black crime, if you aren’t familiar, is one of the three types of crime, along with white collar and blue collar. It is, strangely, the only type that is specific to one race. If there exists such a thing as white-on-white crime or Asian-on-Asian crime, I have yet to hear of it.) This argument is a go-to for a reason: not only does it serve to skirt around the issue at hand, but it also places the onus of justice on the people who are clamoring for it to begin with. How can we, they ask, complain about the cops killing us when we are killing ourselves? Well, rather easily, I’d say. But before we do, it’s first necessary to explore what exactly we’re talking about.

Let’s get it out of the way: “Black-on-Black crime” is white supremacist terminology. For evidence of this, look no further than the fact that the term “white-on-white crime” is virtually nonexistent in the American popular lexicon. Why is it nonexistent? Because the term “white-on-white crime” does not serve an agenda. A “white-on-white” crime does not tell us anything about white culture or white communities. Which is to say, when white people commit crimes (just like at any other time), they are just people. They are individuals; not representatives of their race, not representatives of their communities, not representatives of their upbringing. Just people.

Black people, conversely, have to be so much more, which allows us to be treated like so much less. When a Black person commits a crime against a Black person, both are representatives of their race — one a sympathetic victim and the other a villainous perpetrator robbing them of their innocence— , of their communities, and of their families, and thusly can be looked at as the catalysts of their own circumstances. Black people can not thrive, because Black people are preventing them from doing so. “Black-on-Black crime” shifts the blame for our socioeconomic, cultural, political, and geographic realities away from the system, and onto us. So then, our neighborhoods are dilapidated because of us. Our schools are under-funded because of us. Our situations cannot improve because of us. We, of course, know this to be false, but feeding us this rhetoric allows the people and systems responsible for our disenfranchisement to avoid discussing and acting upon the reality, which is that they are to blame.

But here’s where this discussion gets really interesting: let’s pretend, for a moment, that “Black-on-Black crime” truly is the biggest issue facing the Black community. I.e., crimes committed by Black people against Black people are the primary disruptor of Black communities. If this, for the sake of argument, is what we believe, then doesn’t the responsibility for policing this ultimately fall upon…police officers? When someone develops lung disease from a lifelong cigarette habit, a doctor would certainly point out that cigarettes are likely the cause, but they would also then prescribe treatment. But, for some reason, when so-called “Black-on-Black crime” is the issue at hand, the totality of the response is “stop killing each other”. This is solid advice, no doubt, but what comes next? Where’s the treatment? When do the police (whose job it is to protect and serve the communities that are apparently being torn apart from the inside) step up and do their part? When do they investigate the circumstances that make “Black-on-Black crime” such an issue? The answer is never, because the term “Black-on-Black crime” allows the powers that be to remove themselves from the equation. It allows the system to characterize Black people as inherently self-destructive and, thusly, inherently unable to be helped. So, the only way to police our communities, then, is to enact policies like “Stop and Frisk” and use militaristic tactics that treat every Black person as a threat and an enemy to be dealt with harshly, whether or not they’re committing a crime— do remember that of the dozens of people who we march in memory of, very few were killed or brutalized in response to an actual crime being committed. In other words, it allows the police to be exactly what thousands upon thousands of us are in the streets protesting against.

What must be understood is this: when we protest police brutality, we are not just protesting against against police shootings, or the knees on our necks and backs, or even just policies like Stop and Frisk. We are protesting undue aggression. We are protesting unlawful search and seizure. We are protesting being stopped in affluent neighborhoods for “looking out of place”. We are protesting the automatic assumption of our criminality. Beyond that, though, we are protesting disproportionate sentencing, and discriminatory hiring practices, and gerrymandering, and redlining, and environmental racism, i.e all the things that contribute to Black communities where crime (Black-on-Black or otherwise) is such a critical and perpetual issue.

It’s not merely enough to acknowledge the presence of crime, it’s also important to solve crime, and that starts with investigating why crimes are taking place. And when we investigate that, we find that the answer is most often a sociopolitical infrastructure that disproportionately places Black people in areas without access to jobs, without access to good schools, and without access to fair policing (among other things). This creates scenarios where committing a crime like robbery or drug trafficking is a far more viable pathway to economic mobility than any of the legal routes. Naturally, with robbery and drug trafficking comes violence, and now these communities are “dangerous”. This isn’t a way to excuse crime in any community, but it’s certainly a way to explain much of it. Would there still be crime in predominantly Black neighborhoods were these things changed? Absolutely; just like any other neighborhood, which is exactly the point. Then, there would be no need to speak of Black-on-Black crime as any sort of unique or novel phenomenon. It would simply be…crime; to be policed just like any others. (This isn’t even getting to the fact that police brutality, like any other form of racism, isn’t limited to just Black neighborhoods, and knows no class lines. Ask any Black celebrity, doctor, venture capitalist, etc. whose net worth exceeds the total payroll of their local police department if that makes any difference when the red and blues flash.)

Police brutality is perhaps the most aggressive symptom of a larger, foundational American problem: institutional racism. Is it any surprise that a country built on Black and Brown bodies, founded by slave owners, and governed by racists still faces many of the same problems it did when it was created? When you realize that fear, hatred, and savagery are baked into the primordial American identity, is it any surprise that people still fight so fiercely to defend systems and practices that paint the streets with Black blood? Police brutality and other forms of state-sanctioned violence, when looked at in their full context, are recognized not as flaws, but as intended outcomes. Killing George Floyd is what America was built to do. Killing Breonna Taylor is what America was built to do. Killing Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Ahmaud Arbery, Amadou Diallo, Atatiana Jefferson, Botham Jean, Sandra Bland, Kalief Browder, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, Oscar Grant, Laquan McDonald, Emmitt Till, Addie May Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Rosamond Robertson, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Sheperd, Walter Irvin, Ernest Thomas, Fred Hampton, Harry T. Moore, Harriette Vyda Simms Moore, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the thousands upon thousands upon thousands more (some we know by name, but many we don’t) is what America was built to do.

So, when we march in the streets and we say their names, we do so with the full awareness that we are protesting much more than just police brutality. We are protesting America. And they know it. And they hate it. Because to admit that police brutality is wrong is to admit that America is wrong. To admit that they are wrong. And nobody likes to admit they’re wrong. Least of all a racist. So, they build straw men like “Black-on-Black” crime. It’s time we burn them down.

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