Q: I was on a train in South London recently when I saw a group of young teenage boys walking down the carriage brazenly trying to steal from people’s bags. Passengers were distressed. I spoke to the person next to me, a local schoolteacher, who suggested I call the police. I did so, but paused when the question came: ‘And what race are they?’ I am a person of colour so I know as much as anyone that London’s police force is institutionally racist and disproportionately targets dark-skinned people. Telling the operator that the boys were black would licence officers to profile all the young black boys in the area, possibly leading to violent and alienating encounters. At the same time, nobody should be a victim of this type of theft. In short: is it right to call the police when you can’t trust that they won’t act in a racist manner? – Concerned for South London
A: In the United States, to call the police on a black person – especially if they have mental-health issues – is to put them closer to death. It’s as simple as that. In London, we know from the MacPherson Report that the police force is ‘institutionally racist’, as you say, and that deaths in custody are at their highest for a decade in England and Wales. Across the world, it tends to be the poor, the marginalized, the indigenous who feel the brunt of racist policing, as the historical and essential function of the police is protecting the interests of private property.
