Institutional racism is a colonial hangover

The police in the United States of America must be reformed as the police are fundamentally and systemically racist. This stems from institutional racism as a colonial hangover, setting a historical precedent that carries through to this day. Therefore, the current policing structure is unsuccessful due to its racist characteristics and must be reformed. Historically, modern policing finds its roots in the slavery of the American south. ^[1] White “patrollers” would police slave communities in an effort to crush any perceived threat. This effort became institutionalized in Virginia and the Carolinas through connections with county courts, state militias, and general local government. These precedents trickle through to the modern day, imposing fear on Black slaves and today’s Black Americans. This trickle-down effect from colonial and enslaved America ensures the modern police cannot be free from its inheritance. Furthermore, the Jim Crow laws following the Civil War also ensured that the policing effort of the entire United States, but especially the South, were based on racial divisions.^[2] Lynching, the unlawful murder of those perceived guilty of a crime, ran rampant through the South through the nineteenth and early twentieth century, often with the permission or support of police. The modern police force is built on the foundation of hundreds of years of racist legacy, connecting policing to victimizing Black individuals. There is no solution but to reform the police.