Officers: What practical steps do you think can be taken by you and citizens alike to repair the perception of police and minority relations?

I don't know, man.

I may be inherently biased because of my background but I genuinely don't see the racism in law enforcement.

My dad was a cop and I didn't know race was a thing until I was 9. My dad's friends were all cops and every different ethnicity you can imagine. They weren't white, black or Mexican they were Ross, Rock and Manny. My neighbors were all different colors and they weren't white, black or Mexican they were Jimmy, Candace and Mike.

My first experience with race was when our black neighbor's mom accused me and Jimmy of being racist because we didn't want to play with Candace. It wasn't because her skin was black... Hell, Jimmy's real name was Diego, it was because she was an asshole and we didn't like her.

One of my dad's friends was actually a black federal agent, like your dad, and he said that people's insistence on self segregation was the real problem. The politically correct term, "African American" pissed him off to no end. He said, "I wasn't born in Africa, I wasn't raised in Africa, I've never been to Africa. I'm a damn American like anyone else and my skin is black."

Maybe I don't have the experiences or frame of reference to understand the problem but, from where I sit, it seems like the whole thing is self imposed and fueled by the media because it sells more ad space than, "everything is actually, pretty chill".

/r/ProtectAndServe Thread