Stop Vilifying the Police in the Murders: Start Changing Narratives

As I listen to the friends, relatives, and love ones of the victims in police shootings, I cannot help but be appalled by how they all seem to demonize the officers. That is not to say that I believe the officers who shot Alton Sterling and Philando Castille are innocent, far from it. They should be held criminally responsible for their actions, which seemed to be a blatant execution of two Black Americans. What I am trying to say is that the actions of these officers are a symptom of a greater problem in how North American sociopolitical narratives are produced. Moreover in how we as citizens of a diverse society view and compartmentalize race in tight container of understanding. Where movies like American Sniper make evident that the Caucasian is the eternal hero, and the “other” looking human is the eternal terrorist. Where movies like Breakfast at Tiffanies infamously portray Mr. Yunioshi as an obnoxiously churlish character who is antithetical to the norm. Where African Americans are consistently represented as thugs, criminals, and gang bangers. We as citizens are inundated with specified representations of races and cultures we begin to inevitably prescribe certain traits and attributes to people when we see their skin color.

I have always disliked the discussion around racism, as it always seems to reduce into a hypersensitive discussion of color blindness and overt objectivity, when in reality neither of these things is possible. We need to be very candid about the fact that we look different, come from different backgrounds, and are still equals. All those aforementioned stereotypes do exist and are not falsifications but rather oversimplifications of racial cultures. That is, we naturally seem to gravitate towards wanting to understand foreign cultures with clean-cut single dimensional definitions, when in reality these identities are fluid and cannot be completely understood. Violence is a trait that exists in all races, cultures, and ethnicities. The Italians have the mafia, the Japanese have the Yakuza, Latin America has Cartels, Irish Americans have Mobs, and African Americans have Gangs, and the list continues. Change must from through a form of equity when it comes to how we represent race on the big screen, small screen, and news outlets. Though I cannot claim to have done any formal research on the subject, it seems to me that in many fictional imaginations of criminal organizations we tend to root for, and empathize with, white criminals, whether that is Walter White in Breaking Bad, Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, or The Irish Mob in The Departed. Yet to my knowledge we hardly treat imagined black criminals with the same endearment. Shows like The Wire are brilliant in its accurate portrayal of African American criminals, but does this veracity serve as a form of narrative inequality to African Americans? Media representation of race, cultures, and ethnicities are the bedrock in which the majority of people develop their narratives of people who are foreign to them. How much have we let these images and narratives corrupt and oversimplify how we view and treat African Americans?

Tying back to the recent police shootings, part of what led to the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille is how black lives have been represented across medias. How much of rap music and rap culture has been dominated by a narrative of, drug dealing, sexuality, and violence. How many in shows like The Walking Dead allow black characters to be killed off first. How the constant antagonizing of fictional African American Gangs is contrasted with the “protagonizing” of White criminals. The problem is that not only are these narratives perpetuating these violent police norms, outsiders (anyone who is not black) is participating in this systematic institutional racism by passively accepting the narrative.

The issue comes down to what narrative is being produced for people of certain skin tones. What comes to our subconscious mind as we see someone with darker skin, dressed as certain manner, and talks a certain way? For many cases of police violence it is this perception that is the culprit of the incidents. We must stop viewing the issue of “racism” and police violence as an issue of black versus white, or police versus public, rather it is a fight against the ideas and narratives that all of us have towards certain peoples. As society we must be able to see past the stereotypical perceptions innate within all of us. As of this article, the Freddie Gray case has produced no convictions, and as things stand, there never will be any. What many people forget is that 3 of the 6 officers charged are black, the District Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who oversaw the case, is black, and the Mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is black. If you watch the video of Philando Castille getting shot you can hear the turbulent nervousness in the voice of the officer and the sheer look of freight he was going through. After he shot Phlando he was instantly filled with angst and remorse. Not all cases are like these, but at the very least, we must acknowledge that most police officers are not belligerent by nature, but suffer from the narrative of police confrontations that echo throughout entertainment and news alike. They cannot help but be effected by what they see in media, and subconsciously embody traits they see in television, movies, and the news.

Police brutality should not be reduced to a race war but rather should be understood in a more complex and unfamiliar way. Not only must we think deeper into issues of police training, media representation, and demographically equitable police forces, we must also re-evaluate how we come to understand race in general. I have been using terms like “black” and “African American” thus far in a very loose manner but it is important to recognize that we cannot come to understand any race or culture in tight boxes of definition. Therefore the crux of concern for advocacy groups like Black Lives Matter should lie in how we as a nation must re-examine the latent messages being sent by media (both through news and entertainment). We as citizens can no longer stay as passive bystanders but must come to admit own roles in these acts of violence. That is to say, how have our personal attitudes (produced by media consumption) contributed to the psyches of these officers that lead to these needless acts of fatal violence.

An example of this would be how America as a whole views guns. There are millions of left-wingers who believe that America should have stricter gun control and subsequently a less militarized police force. My question to any citizen is: how do we contextualize guns in our entertainment, and our nightly newscast? In movies we see guns as a symbol of power, control, and thrill. We cheer when protagonists uses a gun to blast and kill his way out of a problem. There is furthermore a glorification of rogue cops, who take the law into their own hands and use, frankly, illegal forms of extreme violence to “save the world”. This lack of consequence extends to video games, music, and even books. Without getting into matters of the first amendment, I simply want to help establish that regardless on your opinions of the effects videos games, movies, and other entertainment sources has on violence, racism, and sexism, it is hard to refute how it fundamentally shapes our narratives on these subjects. While still assuming that these medias have no effect on our (the polices’) actions, my argument would be more succinctly that these media driven narratives conflict and contradict many of the ideals we may hold. So although we might be pro gun control and in favour of very strict regulations, we at the same time are enamoured when protagonists wield and shoot guns without care. So although we decry the police injustices that happen throughout the country, we at the same time are exhilarated with cops that are willing to do anything even if it means bending some laws. How are we able to take a strong stance against police violence towards African Americans when we so willingly ignore their abuse on media? How much are we to blame for how these cops reacted?

There are countless factors that contribute to these tragedies, and as many of us remain bystanders it may seem like we are powerless. However there is one place where we can start, and that is by critically analyzing the narratives we consume and being aware of their inherent tendencies to misguide and over simply. Let us further think of the upbringings of the police officers, how the media they have consumed contributed to their gruesome actions. How their training in a policing institution that is fundamentally flawed has led to the blood on their hands. Let us hold news channels and journalists responsible to bringing attention to other sides of the issue and not just sensationalizing the problem with the race card. We are not helpless, and we can all be responsible for changing not only the metaphorical narrative of this epidemic, but further inflict real reform in how African Americans are treated by police officers.