If you find it hard to believe that police would more or less consciously target minorities just for the hell of it, engage in this thought experiment:
Think back to the '90s, to the 1996 Olympics bombing, and particularly to Richard Jewell, who became a victim first of law enforcement and then - on a far more consequential and lasting scale - of its de facto accomplice the press.
Both pursued the wrong trail regarding a story/crime both deemed to be of major significance, with the result that the actual perpetrator initially escaped scrutiny and tracking.
But if you're like me, you look at a guy like that and not only find yourself initially and semi-consciously deeming him guilty, but also not having the usual empathy one might for someone in the same situation - because by default you despise fat bearded hicks on a level that has become intrinsic, and you also assume he's guilty of something you regard as being important as the press regards US law to be, somehow. You may not be justified even just in terms of the cold calculus of your prejudice by way of reliable facts; perhaps you don't even have anecdotal evidence or direct experience with such people. But for some reason you will never second guess yourself in attributing to him an array of tacky hick practices and are unlikely to feel any shame whatsoever even if you notice it - even if it's pointed out.
And if you're really like me, you don't care, because fat bearded hicks are your natural enemy and you have made peace with the fact that you cannot be fair to them; and to the extent you feel the need to justify it (unlike me), you know in your bones that the majority of them are guilty of something and at any rate bad for civil society simply by existing without a boot on their neck.
To put it another way, if I'm a cop in some no doubt very interesting alternate universe, I'm spending my time in the bearded fat hick neighborhoods, and I'm bringing in big fat hicks and showing up to court as a rule. It's not necessarily that I don't have any prejudice towards blacks or any other group that would lead me to profile them; it's just that I don't much care what the blacks have done wrong, because I have no particular animosity towards them and don't enjoy arresting them, whereas I love arresting hicks, both in this alternate reality and in our own future era when I shall have the power necessary to persecute them in such a manner as to serve the interests of civilization and my own appetites.
To some plurality of cops, blacks are like big fat white hicks from the south. Those of other races are just potential victims, with this to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Disarm and debrief them all.
⏭ Barrett Brown is a former imprisoned journalist and a current activist, essayist and satirist.
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