FBI Director discusses race and law enforcement

"We are at a crossroads."

WOW! That was quite a speech by FBI director James R. Comey about race, bias and police at Georgetown University on Lincoln's birthday. 

READERS: I've included the video (above) of the whole speech and its worth 23 minutes of your time to hear it. There is also a transcript of the entire speech if you're like me and like to read, ponder, read and ponder some more.

I applaud the director for this thoughts, words and courage. It's a huge leap for one of the top law enforcement officers in the country to address the problem law enforcement faces in this country. 

To be clear, he didn't put the entire blame on our individual police officers. He pointed fingers at America's social climate and the institutions that breeds discrimination, the poverty that brews desperation and the education that tiptoes around the topic as if it was a thing of the past.

"With the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, the ongoing protests throughout the country, and the assassinations of NYPD Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, we are at a crossroads," said Comey. 

"As a society, we can choose to live our everyday lives, raising our families and going to work, hoping that someone, somewhere, will do something to ease the tension—to smooth over the conflict. We can roll up our car windows, turn up the radio and drive around these problems, or we can choose to have an open and honest discussion about what our relationship is today—what it should be, what it could be, and what it needs to be—if we took more time to better understand one another."

And it took guts for him to say:

"Much research points to the widespread existence of unconscious bias. Many people in our white-majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face. In fact, we all, white and black, carry various biases around with us."

FBI director Comey

"... police officers on patrol in our nation’s cities often work in environments where a hugely disproportionate percentage of street crime is committed by young men of color. Something happens to people of good will working in that environment. After years of police work, officers often can’t help but be influenced by the cynicism they feel.

"... The two young black men on one side of the street look like so many others the officer has locked up. Two white men on the other side of the street—even in the same clothes—do not. The officer does not make the same association about the two white guys, whether that officer is white or black. And that drives different behavior. The officer turns toward one side of the street and not the other."

Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama have made similar statements in various speeches across the country. The significant difference here is that Comey is a white man. For some reason, when Holder or the President, both African Americans, speak about race, they haves already lost the attention of the people that need to hear them and who refuse to listen to a black man (even if one is President) who - in their eyes - by the color of their skin, is already biased.

Corey's speech was hugely significant and a long step in starting an honest conversation about race, police relations and the environment of distrust between police and the communities of color.

Not surprisingly, Comey drew lots of criticism - not all of it from the conservative corners we would expect. ThinkProgress said Comey's remarks were not groundbreaking. The Atlantic was lukewarm towards his comments, but did say Comey was bold for diving into the dialogue on race..

Overall, though, Comey was praised for his boldness and his candidness.

"We—especially those of us who enjoy the privilege that comes with being the majority—must confront the biases that are inescapable parts of the human condition," Comey concludes. "We must speak the truth about our shortcomings as law enforcement, and fight to be better. But as a country, we must also speak the truth to ourselves. Law enforcement is not the root cause of problems in our hardest hit neighborhoods. Police officers—people of enormous courage and integrity, in the main—are in those neighborhoods, risking their lives, to protect folks from offenders who are the product of problems that will not be solved by body cameras."

"America," he says, "is hard work." Amen, to that.

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