Opinion: Confronting Racism & Violent Policing in New York

In the last several days, millions of Americans have seen striking videos that brutally capture the reality of how White supremacy operates and festers in our country’s liberal communities. Here in New York City, we watched Amy Cooper call the police and falsely claim that her life was being threatened by an “African-American man” in Central Park, so that she could avoid personal accountability for breaking rules about dog walking.

Cooper’s reliance on the police to reinforce her status as a White woman had sinister overtones that are deadly elsewhere. Just hours before in Minneapolis, Minnesota, three police officers watched without protest as another officer drove his knee into George Floyd’s neck for over five minutes, while the man begged for mercy and humanity, before ultimately losing consciousness and dying.

I am writing today with a simple message for my White neighbors and cousins: We have a problem. Our everyday actions - and inactions - don't exist in a vacuum. When we engage in racist abuse, and then raise the stakes by enlisting the police as our personal privilege enforcers, we invite lethal violence on our Black and Brown neighbors

As a lifelong resident of nominally “progressive” communities in and around New York City, I know that many of our White neighbors think of racism as a thing that happens “somewhere else.” But what about the fight here at home? The battleground against racism exists here in New York City, in our parks, apartment buildings, offices, sidewalks, restaurants, boardrooms, Zoom calls, and yes, our police precincts

Amy Cooper’s invocation of the police harkens to generations of racial terror. In 2014, then-NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner on Staten Island, helping to spark the global Movement for Black Lives. There were echoes of his dying words, “I can’t breathe,” in Mr. Floyd’s final pleas. Since 2014, at least 21 other people have been killed by police in Brooklyn alone, including Saheed Vassell, who was murdered down the street from my house in 2018. The officers who killed him were never charged, and their disciplinary records remain opaque.

This violence continues to happen not just because many of us are complicit when it happens, but because we invite it to happen. When Amy Cooper called the police on a birdwatcher in Central Park, she knew that she was using her race as a weapon. She also suspected that she could depend on the police to prioritize her personal well-being, and why shouldn’t she? More than 90% of social distancing arrests, and over 80% of summonses, in NYC have been given to Black and Brown people, while most 311 calls about violations have come from predominantly White, wealthier neighborhoods. It’s the same reason we see videos of police brutalizing Black moms in Brownsville for not wearing masks, while handing out free ones like swag to White folks in Manhattan’s riverside parks.

We can, and must, do better. It can start with changing how our state uses the police to violently enforce our worst racist tendencies, or just as perniciously, to protect our sense of entitlement and safety. At the state policy level, we need to change New York’s “use of force” laws to curb violence in police conduct, which is an ingrained part of the NYPD culture. We should legally curtail the violent enforcement of social distancing and repeal New York’s police secrecy law - section 50-A - which hides conduct records from the public, shielding officers from legal accountability. We also must put a moratorium on the construction of jails in prisons in this state, as expanding incarceration creates pressure to fill cells, necessitating the arrest and incarceration of more and more of our neighbors. Preventing New York state and local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with ICE should also be a priority, to protect our immigrant communities. I will fight for all of these things and more when I am elected to the state assembly.

At the local level, New York City needs to radically rethink its budgetary priorities. The Mayor’s most recent executive budget is a dangerous joke. He cut nearly a billion dollars from our public schools and eliminated the summer youth employment program; in the meantime, he’s proposing to increase the budget for the NYPD and spend billions of dollars on jail construction. This is a recipe for disaster in a city that has just experienced the worst economic and health shocks in our lifetimes. In this budget, the Mayor’s message to our youth is simple, emphatic, and clearer than ever: the police and jails are our social safety nets.

That said, even if we made every single one of these policy changes, we would still have to confront the problem of “Amy Cooper.” There are Amy Coopers in every single New Yorker’s life: in the apartment unit on the next floor, in the HR department at the bank, teaching in the local school, and yes, unfortunately, holding a sign at a progressive march.

Amy Cooper’s behavior is a problem that White people must own and take steps to fix. There are many ways that Black and Brown folks have advocated for community safety outside of policing. By leaning on the state to reinforce racist power dynamics, our inner-Amy Coopers not only undermine the agency of our neighbors, but also hasten the erosion of communities, while deepening resentment fueled by gentrification and generations of displacement. These dynamics are particularly critical to address in Brooklyn’s rapidly changing communities, like Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, where there are distinct correlations between the influx of new, White residents and demands for violent policing.

I am asking all of my White friends and neighbors to reach out to their White cousins, today. Talk to them about what you saw in those videos, and how it is connected to these broader, violent trends. And please, don’t retraumatize your friends of color by asking them to watch these videos and explain them to you. Talking to White people about racism is work that must happen within the White community.

If you’re mad and confused, admit you’re mad and confused, but don’t let that stop you from doing the work. The most important step you can take, if you’ve never discussed these issues before, is to start the conversation. If you’re worried about saying the wrong thing, please let go of the need for perfection. You will definitely make mistakes, and in the pursuit of never saying the wrong thing, you will end up saying nothing. I’ve been having these conversations for years, and I still say dumb things, just about everyday. These are the chances we must take. The risks of us making mistakes in talking about racism are far less deadly than the consequences of our silence.

Justin Cohen is an activist and organizer in Brooklyn. He is running for New York State Assembly in District 56, which includes Bed-Stuy & Crown Heights.