In 1919, Chicago erupted in violence after the police refused to arrest a man who’d just stoned a young Black boy for swimming on the “wrong” side of the lake. More than a century later, 74 percent of the people injured or killed in officer-involved shootings in Chicago between 2004 and 2015 were Black. And the city’s police budget per capita has tripled since 1964, even though crime has gone down.
Governor Frank Lowden appointed a commission, six Black men, six white men to answer these questions. Three years and 672 pages later, what did they find? "Negroes are more commonly arrested, subjected to police identification and convicted than white offenders.” But policing was just one facet of white supremacy that they found in all areas of existence – in housing, in education and in employment. What change did the report lead to?
92 years later, Chicago police officers shot Laquan McDonald 16 times in the back. Between 2008 and 2015, 74 percent of the people injured or killed in officer involved shootings were Black people. And yet, the Chicago police budget per capita has tripled since 1964. We've known the problem and we've known the solution. Now we need to do more
Use this comments section to ask any questions that you may have on these films, policing or racial justice in the U.S. We will answer those questions in a live-streamed event with Jeff Robinson and the ACLU’s policing experts.
And if you want to see more on the history of racism in policing, check out the rest of this series “100 Years of Racism in U.S. Policing.”
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