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Monday, November 24, 2014

Chidike Okeem - Do Mainstream Conservatives Support Police Brutality?

The conservative writer takes on what he sees as an indifferent attitude within mainstream conservatism when it comes to police brutality in urban and minority communities.



"One of the principal talking points that is enduringly trotted out by the mainstream conservative movement is that police brutality is not the primary cause of black problems in America. We hear this talking point dutifully repeated by right-wing mouthpieces whenever a story of police brutality against a black male hits the news cycle. However, this talking point is an utterly meaningless straw man that solely exists for conservatives to avoid holding disreputable police officers accountable for their wanton displays of violence against black American citizens. The notion that a negative action has to be theprimary cause of trouble in a community in order for it to be a serious issue worthy of being addressed is perfectly illogical.
Mainstream conservatives know that if they are forced to address police brutality as an issue, they are going to have to concede some points on stop-on-frisk, which artificially and dangerously elevates thenumber of encounters between black men and police officers—and undoubtedly heightens the likelihood of police brutality occurring. Curiously, mainstream conservatives who loquaciously preach about their devotion to small government also enthusiastically protect the big-government fraud that is stop-and-frisk—a policy that is as unconstitutional as it is inefficacious.

Read complete article here