'PATHOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO COLOR AND CULTURE

'PATHOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO COLOR AND CULTURE
OF THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT'
Reproduced from NYStreet News Jan-Feb. 2004 p9

"If the government of the United States cannot/will not bring the murderers of Negroes (Blacks) to justice - then it is up to us to bring the murderers to justice" - Malcom X, "The Ballot or the Bullet"

Some 30+ years ago, the answer to continuing murders of our Black Folk was given to us by Brother El Haj Malik Shabazz, Malcom X . (Need we refer to the Florida elections to know what that choice should be?)
One of the Oxford Dictionary definitions of insanity is: to take leave of one's senses - dementedness, absurdness.
Unfortunately, all of the above definitions describe the acutely hostile behavior toward people of color of some of the police officers employed by the New York City Police Department who are paid by the taxpaying citizenry of New York City. Moreover that a large portion of that citizenry paying the salaries of those policer officers is of color is an unpleasant irony not to be overlooked.
For over twenty years now, the Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. a 501(c)3 organization - motto: "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned," has been requesting that the NYPD, in the face of its ever-rising rate of inflicting bodily harm and death on people of color (interestingly enough by mostly white male Catholic police officers) to test its officers with the R/CQ Test (see racismtest.org) with Follow-up psychological/psychiatric Ethnotherapeutic counseling where indicated.
In answer to these consistent requests, various NYPD staffers, including Chiefs of Police and other spokespersons have merely uttered, "Yes, we believe racism can't be condoned," and "Yes, we're concerned about it." And, in unbelievable ignorance from the Chief of Personnel of the NYPD, Markman, "We're only dealing with psychological concerns." DUH.
However, their statements, their denials, are constantly belied by the alarming rising numbers of police killings, mainly the killing of Black males. Another critical example of mental aberration, aside from the Keshawn Watson, Sean Bell on-the-street application of the 'death penalty,' is the color-profiling in the realms of vehicular ticketing and stops by the police. (I think the Sean Bell killers'll walk - judge-only verdict's on April 25, 2008)
A stark but telling illustration of that mental illness was the WOR UPN9 TV channel's cop-busting newscast, Nov.11, 2003. It clearly showed police in Nassau County color-profiling the TV station's Black male tester' and right afterwards, completely ignoring the station's white male 'tester' whose actions were exactly the same as those of the Black driver's actions.
The NYPD's standard tired reply that such instances are "isolated," cannot any longer be substantiated nor accepted when the Department is called into accountability by the public it is supposed to serve with 'CPR' (Courtesy, Politeness, Respect) and equity.
The fact that the ACLU, an organization quite separate from the Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. has found it necessary amongst its many other pursuit to issue 'ARREST THE RACISM' notices and to promote a hotline (1 877-6-PROFILE) for 'race'-based traffic or pedestrian stops and, in justifiable reaction to NYPD predation on communities of color, has mounted an internet site, www.aclu.org/profiling is telling indictment of the pathology exising within the NYPD.
The specter of inordinate and rampant police abuse based on color-targeting raises its intimidating and mordant head, especially when viewed in the light of the white-male-dominated media reports merely echoing police reports of the NYPD's alleged 'derring-do.'
The insanity of NYPD color-profiles mars the good police work that the NYPD does and is a continuing embarassment to the concerned citizenry of this great City.
In addition, the fears that increased heavy NYPD 'security' activity will implode disproportionately on communities of color are well-founded and foreboding. (fears in consideration of NYPD activities in the recent past and fears which will surely accompany the arrival of the "Fathers" of the retrogressive 'Patriot Acts, the Replublican Party Convention members) This can only add to the increased friction between the NYPD and those they are paid to contain.
In conclusion and in distressing memory of the victims of NYPD inanities and insanities, the late Amadou Diallo, Malcom Ferguson, Patrick Dorismond among the many, many others (and certainly with reference to the luckily-alive Abner Louima - brutally sodomized by NYPD cop Justin Volpe and other 70th Pct. thugs-in-blue) may this RED PAPER 2003 on The Pathological Responses To Color and Culture of the New York City Police Department serve to alert concerned communities and activists everywhere to the impaired mental health and real threat of untreated racism/colorism which continue not only to affect their own safety but actually the efficacy of the very NYPD itself.
Originally presented to: Afrikans United For Sanity Now!, 12th Annual Mental Health meeting, Chaired by Sister Jean W. Dember MHS, Saturday Nov. 22, 2003, Brooklyn, N.Y. U.S.A.
cc: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, National Action Network President: Rev. Al Sharpton, NYS Menal Health Association, I"I"H Inc. Psychologist, Dr. Mari Saunders