Police Tactics Matter

Police brutality has become a major part of the national conversation on race. You have seen the videos - Tamir Rice, Eric Garner. Philando Castile. Many others not caught on tape. The vast majority of video that goes viral shows unarmed African-Americans - particularly young black men - being shot by police after stops that are later put into question. This was the catalyst for Black Lives Matter, a national movement with a simple request: Please stop shooting innocent black people.

However, not everyone is convinced that police are acting in a way that is discriminatory or biased, a core belief that fuels the All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter responses. After all, unarmed white kids get shot, too - such as Dylan Noble last year and Zachary Hammond the year before.

So do police act in a way that suggests racism? Do the numbers suggest they target African-Americans? To answer those questions, we talk to two researchers who have taken a deep dive into the data, looking at millions of police encounters. Their answer? Unequivocally yes.

Rory Kramer and Brianna Remster are professors in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at Villanova University. Their research into this has been published in Contexts Magazine in an article “Black Lives and Police Tactics Matter.”

Activism in a New Era

Since the election, it might seem that more people are politically active than ever. Or at least since the 60s civil rights movement or the 70s anti-war movement. There are all those huge protests - the Women’s March, the March for Science, the March for Equality - in which millions of people took to the streets here in Washington and around the country. I had a chance to witness a few, such as the March for Women - identified as the largest single day protest in U.S. history.

But it didn’t end there and we continue to see activism at every level, on the street, on social media, even in the corporate boardroom.

This is what many are calling the resistance. Hashtag the resistance. Be the resistance. I am the resistance.

So who is the resistance? Our guest for the first part of the show is going to help us answer that question.

Dana R. Fisher is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland where she studies social movements and activism. She is part of a team that has been conducting field research into the various movements we are seeing take shape, interviewing activists. She is currently working on her forthcoming book titled “American Resistance.”