Race, Police Brutality, and Tyre Nichols
On Saturday, January 7th, 2023, a 29-year-old black man, Tyre Nichols, was subjected to a traffic stop near his home in Memphis, Tennessee. As seen on graphic body camera footage published by the city of Memphis, Nichols was brutally beaten by multiple officers. Three days later, he succumbed to the injuries that he sustained from the beating. This particular case of police brutality has become national news particularly because the five officers responsible for the death of Nichols—Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr., and Justin Smith—are black. Because of the intraracial nature of this incident, there has been much discussion about whether or not race motivated the beating. Much of this discussion throughout the media is more ideological than it is illuminating.
Most notably, social and political commentator Van Jones wrote a piece for CNN positing that white supremacy and racism played a role in the killing of Nichols. He argues:
Black cops are often socialized in police departments that view certain neighborhoods as war zones. In those departments, few officers get disciplined for dishing out “street justice” in certain precincts — often populated by Black, brown or low-income people — where there is a tacit understanding that the “rulebook” simply doesn’t apply.
Jones continues:
At the end of the day, it is the race of the victim who is brutalized — not the race of the violent cop — that is most relevant in determining whether racial bias is a factor in police violence. It’s hard to imagine five cops of any color beating a White person to death under similar circumstances. And it is almost impossible to imagine five Black cops giving a White arrestee the kind of beat-down that Nichols allegedly received.