Racism is an ongoing war between people of color and institutions who discriminate based on the color of one’s skin. Systematic oppression reaches back almost 200 years and continues to evolve into new, more subtle forms.
Until now, racism against people of color was allegedly the only kind of racism.
Recently the New York Police Department released a video claiming that “blue racism” discriminates against police officers, preventing people from seeing them as human. Blue racism is a concept that states police officers are being targeted and attacked because of the uniform that they wear, which is traditionally blue. The video is a response to the Charlottesville riots, speaking about the injustices and accusations against the police force that they claim are false and unwarranted.
The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, responded to the video, calling the wording “reprehensible”.
“This video demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of our nation’s sordid history of racism, including law enforcement’s role in perpetuating past and current discrimination,” said NAACP to CNN News.
SBA, Sergeants Benevolent Association, President Ed Mullins defended the video, claiming the wording was only to direct the media’s attention to alleged officer discrimination.
“The language to it — the uniform becomes a blue skin,” Mullins told CNN News. “We get to peel that off. People of color don’t, but when we’re in that uniform and we’re targeted and killed for what we do, enforcing the law, we’re being treated the same as a person who is a target of racism on a regular basis,”
Mullins agreed the word ‘racism’ was strong and should be replaced by a word similar to ‘bias.’
Officer Kneller, a police officer at Plainfield South High School, believes the relationship between the general public and police officers has always been tense.
“[Police discrimination] is a subconscious thing and it’s because of our upbringing,” Kneller said. “Everything happens to us because of the way we were brought up,”
The miscommunication between the public and police officers is wide and while the video created controversy, there has yet to be any effort to resolve concerns.