Future Left Podcast Ep. 14: Race and Policing in America
Adam and Casey are joined by Future Left co-founder Michael Bufano to discuss the issue of racism within police work in the United States. With the recent killings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana, Philando Castile in Minnesota, five police officers in Texas, and now three more police officers in Louisiana, the issue bears some additional introspection from the Police Accountability episode we featured only weeks ago. We point to the institutional racism that manifests itself typically as quotas that police are expected to meet, in effect turning them away from public safety toward sites of public revenue generation.
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CORRECTION: The District of Columbia has a population of roughly 670,000 people, while Rhode Island has just over 1 million. DC does have a larger population than Wyoming and Vermont, however.
Things we mentioned:
MotherJones article about the “shakedown”: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/police-shootings-traffic-stops-excessive-fines
Mapping Police Violence: http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
A black former cop gives his take racism and police violence: http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer
NYPD officers signal institutional racism is a major culprit with respect to police quotas: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/8/12128858/police-racism-officers-admit