This was my lunchtime conversation with Rejoice, my wife:
REJOICE: I have an idea. What if all police officers in America had to be black? Then we would never have a situation where a white police officer killed a black man! Simple!
FRANCIS: True, but I'm sure that such a decree would violate anti-discrimination laws that prohibit employers from disqualifying applicants based on their race.
REJOICE: What percentage of police are black now?
FRANCIS: About the same as the overall black population: 13%.
REJOICE: So it would take time to make the police 100% black.
FRANCIS: True. A more feasible idea would be to have only black police officers patrol predominately black neighborhoods.
REJOICE: Yeah, that would help, but it doesn't solve the problem completely. With people talking about "abolishing the police," we can now do something radical like make the police force 100% black.
FRANCIS: Sure! I'd be fine with that. However, then we might have a new problem.
REJOICE: What's that?
FRANCIS: In 2019, 89 police officers were killed in the line of duty. That is much more than the 14 unarmed blacks who were killed by the police that same year.
REJOICE: Oh, I see what you're saying. If we had an all-black police, then we would be increasing the overall number of blacks who are killed.
FRANCIS: Yup. And it would be especially problematic when a white criminal kills a black police officer. Some will argue that the attack was racially motivated.
REJOICE: Ugh. Yeah, that would create a new problem. But, wait! Perhaps we could solve it with a new hashtag.
FRANCIS: What's that?
REJOICE: #CopsLivesMatter
The photo above: Our wedding day, March 10, 2016, in Zambia
What do you think of Rejoice's idea of having an all-black police force? Write a comment below!
