• Marc Chalufour

    Editor, Senior Writer Twitter Profile

    Photo: Headshot of Marc Chalufour. A white man with brown hair and wearing a red and blue plaid shirt, smiles and poses in front of a dark grey background.

    Marc Chalufour is a senior editor/writer responsible for print and digital magazines for the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Communication. Prior to joining BU in 2018, he spent a decade editing AMC Outdoors, the Appalachian Mountain Club’s magazine, where his feature writing received multiple awards from Association Media & Publishing. Profile

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There is 1 comment on A History of Racial Discrimination and the Fight for Change

  1. “But, Austin says, one thing has changed this time.” No actually not just one thing has changed. Everything has changed as far as systemic racism in policing. In the 21st century this is a very different and more complicated issue then it was in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. This point cannot be overstated.

    For anyone truly interested in approaching the true nature of racism in policing today – rather than 50 years ago – please look at several recent studies on this topic and also Washington Post’s annual statistics on police killings. These suggest that no, racism does not play a big role in FATAL police incidents, and that actually and somewhat surprisingly cops are more likely to shoot at white suspects than people of color for fear of being labeled racist and/or prosecuted for misconduct. (However, to complicate matter these studies do show some bias in non-shooting incidents if my memory serves correctly. Sorry I do not have time to find the reference links, so I’ll leave it to the interested reader to do their own research).

    The reason people know only about black people being killed by police is simply because whites killed by police under questionable circumstances almost never become major news stories. It is simply ignored, because racism – as far as mainstream news is concerned – sells.

    Police brutality is a serious and disturbing issue and it is extremely important to improve policing and accountability for atrocious behavior and restore community trust in police. At the same time, please note how damaging and deadly the mindless call to defund the police has been since George Floyd’s death. In cities where the police departments have been most under attack, shootings and murders and violent crime have gone way up. We are talking about countless more lives taken and destroyed as a result of the spike in crime due to police demoralization, retreat and defunding than the number incidents of police brutality or questionable police killings. In many cases, such as in Chicago and poor neighborhoods of NYC, this is happening in the most crime-ridden communities with the greatest need for policing.

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