A story this week in Politico authored by Marianne LeVine lazily reinforces the false narrative that cops everywhere are just itching to pull their firearms on a black person.
It’s a complete myth but, hey, those Black Lives Matter riots won’t instigate themselves, you know.
LeVine wrote uncritically Wednesday that Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey “can still vividly recall the first time a police officer drew a gun on him” and other “negative experiences with the police,” which, Levine said, are “an unfortunate rite of passage for many Black Americans.”
She went on to share the time Booker claims to have been suspected by police of trying to steal his own car. “It seemed like half the police force came out, and they kept me, sitting in my car, screaming at me commands.”
I’m going to call bs on this one and not just because Booker has a reputation for dreaming up weird stories that play up negative racial stereotypes, such as the tale of “T-Bone,” Booker’s black drug dealer friend who never existed. But also because such an incident between the police and, not just blacks, but anyone, is exceedingly rare.
The Police-Public Contact Survey conducted every so often by the Justice Department asks respondents about their interactions with law enforcement. The latest survey is from 2018. Just 6.5 million blacks said in that year they had had any type of contact with police. Within that set, just 251,000 blacks said that they experienced a threat or use of force by law enforcement.
The latest U.S. census data put the total black population in the United States at 42,640,000. That would mean that barely above half of a percent of the entire black population claims to have experienced a threat or use of force when interacting with police.
Does less than 1% sound like an epidemic that “many Black Americans” are suffering?
To be fair to Booker, though, less than 1% isn’t zero. Maybe he really was one of the unlucky few. But whatever he experienced was nothing resembling a “rite of passage.”
That’s just a myth perpetuated by lazy reporters like Marianne LeVine.
