← The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Race Relations in America
00:18:35
Jelani Cobb and John Cassidy join Dorothy Wickenden to discuss race relations in the United States.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:14]
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- [01:49]
Dorothy Wickenden
This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about Politics. It's Thursday, May 28th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. Last week, a white police officer was acquitted of manslaughter in the 2012 shooting of an unarmed black couple. This week, after an extensive civil rights investigation, the Justice Department announced that it had reached an agreement with the city about reforms to abusive police practices. U.S. attorney Stephen M. Dettelback made the announcement.
- [02:20]
John Cassidy
We have signed and are filing this 105 page comprehensive consent decree that, once approved by a federal judge, will not only serve as a road map for reform in Cleveland, but as a national model for Any police department that is ready to escort a great city to the forefront of the 21st century.
- [02:45]
Dorothy Wickenden
Jelani Cobb and John Cassidy are here to discuss how cities and the federal government are coming to terms with disproportionate police violence against African Americans. Jelani let's look first at the acquittal in the Cleveland case. It involved a high speed car chase that ended when one officer, Michael Brilo, climbed onto the hood of the suspect's car and fired 15 times through the windshield. How did Brillo get off, not to mention the hundred or so other officers who were with him?
- [03:13]
Jelani Cobb
It's probably best understood what happened in Cleveland is best understood in the context of what happened just recently in Chicago as well with the officer Dante Servin, who shot Rekia Boyd in the head. And she was an unarmed young woman, and he believed that her boyfriend had a gun, which actually was a cell phone, and he was acquitted. And he said kind of chillingly, you know, I did what any officer would have done in this circumstance. There's a national hesitance to second guess decisions that police make in what seems to be the heat of the moment.
- [03:49]
Dorothy Wickenden
The agreement, Jelani, between the Justice Department and the city of Cleveland includes new protocols for internal review, data collection, training, and use of force. They're barring everything from firing at vehicles to pistol whipping and shooting at people running away. How promising do those measures seem to you?
- [04:06]
Jelani Cobb
I think it's a matter of enforcement and the commitment that Cleveland puts to making actual change. But again, it's difficult, and I don't want to be cynical here, but it's difficult to imagine that there's going to be substantial change. If the outcome in cases like this is to say that officers have not done anything wrong. What is the real incentive? Is it kind of better police community relations? Well, you know, that's kind of a nice ideal, but it seems that absent a real uproar or concerns about mass unrest in the cities, I don't know how eager the police force would be to comply with that.
- [04:44]
Dorothy Wickenden
The Obama administration has opened two dozen civil rights investigations of police departments, finding violations in Ferguson and producing settlements in Albuquerque and Newark. How effective have these mandates been so far? Body cameras are now being used in many police districts.
- [04:59]
John Cassidy
I mean, I think the Cleveland deal was probably the most significant so far as the administration claimed. I mean, it is true that a lot of this stuff was very obvious. I mean, telling cops not to shoot at moving cars. New York City did that in 1972, I think, or 73 record gun incidents. That's also done, I think standardly in most big cities it is important to get these things on the books. One thing the Obama administration has done is use the sort of power of the Justice Department and these consent agrees to sort of standardize policing to some extent. One of the big problems in the US for decades now has been that the local police authorities basically run themselves under Holder. Attorney General Holder, to his credit, the department did use the powers it has on the box to get these consent decrees.
- [05:46]
Jelani Cobb
What's interesting to me about that is this, and I think this is possibly where my cynicism comes from, that New York had high profile instances of the use of chokeholds that created in some cases financial settlements. But certainly a lot of discord in the city and a lot of protest. And it was Michael Stewart in the 1980s and Anthony Baez I believe was in the 1990s. And out of this came this commitment to not using police chokeholds. And then, you know, we encounter 2014. What happened with Eric Garner. It doesn't appear that there's really any repercussions forthere may be a civil settlement that comes out of this. But aside from that, there's no actual repercussions for someone violating this protocol, which was supposed to have been the hard learned lesson from these other incidents.
- [06:35]
John Cassidy
I think Jelani is exactly right. The cops on the street, unless they think they're going to pay a big price for using these tactics, will probably just carry on using them.
- [06:43]
Dorothy Wickenden
Also, Jelani, I think you've written about this. Ferguson has a largely white city government and police force and a largely black population. So to a certain extent you can understand the dynamic there. But Baltimore has a long history of electing powerful black leaders. How do you explain the persistence of the problem there?
- [07:00]
Jelani Cobb
Well, I think that these are institutional problems and I don't think that when people looked at Ferguson, they said that, you know, they only have three officers of color out of 53 officers on the police force, which was, you know, perhaps suggestive, but it certainly wasn't conclusive in terms of how that police force operated because there are lots of other police departments in large cities with large black populations and black leadership that still have the same kinds of concerns. And if you recall, there was a black officer on the scene when Walter Scott was shot in the back in South Carolina. I don't think that simply the racial background of the officer and there's actually social science around this, the racial background of the officer may make some improvement or some difference, but it doesn't conclusively resolve the problem. And, you know, beyond this, when we look at this idea of kind of how Ferguson was operating, using their police force to raise revenue, that is a dynamic that doesn't require race to operate in that kind of way.
- [07:59]
Dorothy Wickenden
Yeah, and let's talk a little bit about that, because I think you're talking about maybe a piece that I read recently, too, that appeared in the Washington Post last year, which where the reporter Radley Balco looked at St. Louis county, which includes Ferguson, and found this epidemic basically of fining people by more racially representative governments for petty crimes and then jailing them when they can't pay. So in these wrecked areas where most African Americans now live in the wake of white flight, there's a need for tax dollars from poor residents just to keep basic services going.
- [08:32]
Jelani Cobb
Right. And I think this also has something to do with our contempt for taxes is part of that samean outgrowth of that same phenomenon. Politically, if we don't want to pay for anything, that money has to come from somewhere. So I had a conversation with a police officer who said that he felt a certain kind of resentment that he knows that the work that he's doing, the citations he issues are being used mainly for fundraising purposes. And this generates a good deal of public contempt for him. And what he said to me was, the public never sees the person who sent me out here to raise money in this way. And they never see the people who say we don't want to pay taxes for anything. They only see me. And this was, you know, an African American officer and they think that I'm being the arm of exploitation here. But he was clear, he understood in, you know, his own way as well, that this was a way, an end run around not paying taxes.
- [09:31]
Dorothy Wickenden
Let's take a break here.
- [09:33]
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- [10:17]
Dorothy Wickenden
I want to ask you. Many have been arguing that the Department of Justice's civil rights investigations in effect give political cover to City hall and the police Commissioner's office. So the Justice Department does all the work. The city looks compliant, but then officers get off scot free again.
- [10:33]
John Cassidy
It goes back to, you know, how do you bring charges against officers? That's not. The Justice Department can bring a sort of human rights case. But, you know, local criminal justice system is under the jurisdiction of local prosecutors. And, you know, it always comes down to these grand jury issues. We saw that. We've seen that on numerous occasions. Why don't the grand jury indict these officers? Are they led by the local prosecutors? Is there a big legal issue here? My feeling is you need political leadership at the local level. We can rely on Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch. They can do some things in imposing national standards, but I think it's got to be a local initiative.
- [11:18]
Dorothy Wickenden
Interestingly, bringing up Loretta Lynch, I want to hear a little bit about what you think of her, the new attorney General in Baltimore this month. She, you know, this is a very difficult political line she has to walk. Holders had to walk. She met with officers and told them that they had chosen a noble profession. But she also opened a formal investigation in the city the day after she was sworn in.
- [11:38]
John Cassidy
The cops, the copper institutions, the unions, et cetera, are much more fond of lynch than they were of Holder, who they think they accused of playing politics. And as you say, I think it was very notable that she went to Baltimore and she spoke to cops on the beat. One of the raps on Holder was that he never used to actually go around and talk to the cops who were walking the streets. She did go there and do that. She also gave a big speech at the National Police Week convention in Washington, which was another sign that she's sort of on the side of the, you know, law enforcement. I mean, it's not surprising given her background. I mean, you know, she was a prosecutor in Brooklyn prosecuting drugs and violent crime cases. So she is seen by, you know, the police establishment as a sort of somebody who's in their corner that may give her. That may give her a big advantage in that she's not seen as a sort of politician like Holder was. So that may give her the sort of authority and sort of moral standing in places like Baltimore to actually get tough on police wrongdoing. So far, I think, though, it's fair to say that she's sort of trying to bolster the sort of police side.
- [12:47]
Jelani Cobb
Of it, she is walking this tightrope and she's a federal appointee. And so if this is a difficult balancing act for someone who is the attorney general, imagine the kind of pressures that are brought to bear on someone who is at a municipal or local level. One of the things that was interesting that came out of Baltimore has been this renewed emphasis on people thinking that there should be independent third party prosecutors brought in whenever there's an investigation or a charge is brought against a police officer, simply because the relationship between police and prosecutors is almost necessarily a conflict of interest here. And so for lynch, you know, I think her difficulties are most illustrative of the much bigger and much more intense problems that people on the local municipal level would face.
- [13:35]
Dorothy Wickenden
And I want to ask you, Jelani, you've been pretty critical about President Obama for his inability to deploy what you describe as the moral capital of civil rights in parts of the world with compromised foreign powers, let's put it that way. But what more could he have done, given what we've been talking about, about how some of this just needs to be resolved at the local level, or what can he still do to address a problem that started with slavery, you know, hundreds of years ago?
- [14:00]
Jelani Cobb
The great difficulty with assessing President Obama is recognizing what he could do versus the context in which he's operating. For someone who, you know, just recently we saw his foreign policy with Iran undercut by Republicans in the Senate, and you start saying, well, you know, is this person really wielding the type of power that you expect or that you associate with the presidency? It's difficult to say that, you know, that said, I do suspect that a good deal of Eric Holder's, you know, aggressive investigation of police forces for racial profiling, for instance, was consistent with Obama's own priorities. What could be done beyond that, I really have a hard time knowing. I can't say.
- [14:47]
Dorothy Wickenden
John, this brings us to the big political question, and I would argue that Holder and Obama have played a big role on raising issues about racial profiling, income inequality, mass incarceration, police brutality. They've spoken out forcefully on this, and they've become major political issues in recent years. So we're seeing Republican governors in states like Texas and Florida and others working on reducing prison populations, for instance. But these are really incendiary issues that don't exactly unite the Republican Party. How are Bush and Rubio, just to take the two from Florida, dealing with this on the campaign trail so far?
- [15:30]
John Cassidy
Well, I think they've largely been avoiding it. I haven't seen Rubio for example, I remember looking to see what he said after the Baltimore riots and he basically didn't say anything. He was talking about Iran that week. Bush hasn't said very much either. It is a very tricky issue politically, this. I mean, Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side has come out and given by far the most forceful speech on the issue in which she said there's something wrong with criminal justice in America. She called for the end of mass incarceration. She called for changes in policing laws which went beyond what the Obama administration has recommended. On the Republican side, there's been a large silence, as you say, at the local level. There has been a move towards reducing prison sentences that's largely cost driven in places like Florida and Alabama and Texas. It's incredibly expensive, obviously, to keep so many people locked up. And some of the Republican governors have come to the conclusion, conclusion that it's cheaper and more effective to use alternative sort of treatment programs, etc. So there is, you would think, politically, a deal that could be done there. But at the same time, there's always the temptation if you're a Republican, to sort of play the law and order card. And I think it's going to be fascinating as the campaign goes on how and whether the Republicans do deal with this because, you know, let's face it, a lot of their constituents still take a very tough law and order attitude. And I think, and most African Americans, if we're talking about policing in black areas, don't vote for the Republicans. So just in strict political calculus terms, what's in it for the Republicans to get a bit more liberal on criminal justice system?
- [17:13]
Jelani Cobb
I think one thing that's also worth noting, we think about this historically, is that George Bush the elder was criticized in 1992. We would think about this. The Rodney King riots, which happened in June of that year, occurred in the context of a presidential election. And people criticized him for being a sitting president and taking a very kind of lethargic approach to addressing what happened in Los Angeles then kind of notably, I think there is a certain degree of political jeopardy that's implicit for anyone who's going to touch this kind of issue. When Hillary Clinton was running for the Senate seat in New York, as a matter of fact, that was the same timearound, the same time that the Amadou Diallo shooting happened in the Bronx. And kind of famously, this was the person who was shot 19 times. There were 41 bullets fired, and he was in the vestibule of his apartment building simply reaching for his wallet. And when Hillary Clinton referred to that as a murder. There was a huge outcry in which people said, oh, this is a terrible accident. But murder seems to imply something deliberate and something pernicious about what happened between the police and Mr. Diallo that night. And so I don't think that this is something that anyone is really eager. No person running for higher office really looks at this and says, yeah, I want to jump in and weigh in on this issue.
- [18:33]
Dorothy Wickenden
It's interesting, though, Jelani, that Hillary has taken such a strong stand on this so early. She's been so reticent in other ways. It seems as though she's staking out her position quite forthrightly. Do you think she'll continue to keep that up as the campaign goes on?
- [18:48]
Jelani Cobb
Well, it's interesting. I think that there's the kind of shadow non campaign of Elizabeth Warren that has motivated a lot of how Hillary Clinton has been or what we've seen thus far from Hillary Clinton. I think there's still a lot to be said about what political direction she'll take, what tack she'll take, you know, as the campaign goes on. But certainly early on, I think that there is this progressive wing of the Democratic Party that shethat is very active and very vocal, and she's seeking the support of that group right now.
- [19:20]
Dorothy Wickenden
Thank you both very much. John Cassidy and Jelani Cobb are New Yorker staff writers. This has been the political scene from the New Yorker. I'm Dorothy Wickenden.
- [19:30]
John Cassidy
You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts in the itunes store. The weekly audio edition of the New Yorker is available@audible.com this podcast is produced by Jill Duboff and Alex barron of new yorker.com.
- [19:51]
Katie Drummond
I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.
- [19:54]
Jelani Cobb
I'm Michael Colori, Wired's director of consumer Tech and culture.
- [19:58]
Dorothy Wickenden
And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired.
- [20:01]
Katie Drummond
And our show, Uncanny Valley, is all.
- [20:03]
Dorothy Wickenden
About the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.
- [20:07]
Katie Drummond
At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech.
- [20:17]
Jelani Cobb
Right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you.
- [20:27]
Katie Drummond
Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
- [20:38]
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