“Get the facts: systemic racism is a lie”

Latest in a series of posts about the Bethlehem Police

Over his transom Gadfly received a copy of an email titled “Get the facts: systemic racism is a lie” addressed to various City officials in response to this “Bethlehem City Council Doesn’t Want to Defund the Police. It Wants to Tackle Systemic Racism” article about the August 11 Public Safety Committee meeting.

This 4000-word email by a person (Gadfly does not know his or her name) with several decades of law enforcement experience is the most vigorous local attack on systemic racism that Gadfly has encountered. And deserves to be considered.

Gadfly has selected out the major points in the letter for better focus on the manifold arguments.

1) “Statistics do not support the ‘systemic racism’ narrative in policing.”

2) “The systemic racism issue is being created in communities where there currently is not one, a tactic used by many politicians, certain media, and domestic terrorist groups like Black Lives Matter (BLM) or Antifa.”

3) “There was not one single incident of fact provided at the meeting or in the article to support any claims of systemic racism.”

4) “The racism today is coming from politicians on the left and terrorist groups such as BLM and Antifa.”

5) “There are incidents of racism committed by all races against each other and that is something that will never go away.”

6) “Yet, when a white person is punched in the face by a black person or a Hispanic person shot by a black person, you don’t see the chaos and anger created as in certain black communities or with black ‘social justice groups’.”

7) “I have been in law enforcement at every level, for over thirty years, I have never experienced any act of racism, or knew of any decision made based on race, with any law enforcement officer I worked with, and I worked with law enforcement officials all over the world.”

8) “Even many black professionals have argued affirmative action hurts their community more so than it helps. When people do not work hard to earn things, they will never reach their full potential.”

9) “Before you go calling me a racist, let me say that I have a lot of black friends and many agree with what I am saying. In fact, several reviewed this letter before I sent it.”

10) “If there was a systemic racism problem in policing, or the ‘criminal justice system,’ I am certain that in my thirty plus years, I would have had at least one instance or indication of it at some point in time.”

11) “Police officers are being wrongly portrayed in the media based on the lies of certain politicians and radical terrorist groups like BLM. It’s a shame that certain media outlets only report one side and use lies to support the false narrative of systemic racism.”

12) “George Floyd died of a heart attack while being arrested by Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Yes, according to the official autopsy report I read in full, George Floyd had advanced and serious heart disease, was under the influence of numerous illegal drugs, which contributed to his heart attack/death, and died primarily of a heart attack.”

13) “George Floyd was a career criminal who did not follow orders and resisted arrest. No, he didn’t deserve to die, but he contributed to his own death.”

14) “The technique used by Officer Chauvin, the knee, was actually taught as a restraint tactic during their police training. The officer used a technique they were all taught and it’s a technique used by law enforcement officers in many jurisdictions. . . . When a police officer is in a struggle for his life, he is going to use whatever means possible to protect himself and others around him from death or bodily harm.

15) “Yes, Floyd’s death was a tragedy and in hindsight, some things could always be handled in a different manner. We all learn from mistakes.”

16) “At any time, things can turn deadly. What is happening today is that we are making law enforcement officers hesitate and second guess split second deadly force options, putting their lives in danger.”

17) “If only all subjects who interact with police would just follow directions and not resist. When a subject resists, law enforcement officer immediately go into a mind state to defend their life.”

18) “To this day, there has not been one single piece of evidence to support the claims of BLM, the politicians, or the media that Officer Chauvin did what he did, while arresting George Floyd, because of Floyd’s skin color.”

19) “We need to teach our youngsters early on to respect the police. We need to strongly suggest a push to educate all children, just like we do with the DARE program, on what to do when interacting with the police, stressing cooperation and the following of orders. It needs to be stressed during a class that the police officer is in charge at the time of interaction and any issue one may have with the incident or process is not going to be sorted out in the middle of an arrest or police action. There is a process for either a citizen’s complaint or an internal affairs complaint in the following days. Parents need to continually stress this notion to their children.”

20) “I can relay all sorts of statistics/facts, which dispel the systemic police racism claims. For example, there are more unarmed whites killed by police each year than blacks and of the approximate 7000 blacks killed in the U.S. each year, the vast majority of those killings are a result of black on black crime. If you look at the number of blacks killed by police each year, compared to blacks killed by other blacks each year, it’s approximately .2% of black homicides at the hands of police.”

21) “Dr. Shelby Steele says: ‘The oppression of blacks is over with’ and ‘blacks are free today.’ Dr. Steele says blacks need to individually pursue what needs to be done in order to excel in their own life and they should not keep falling back on this notion they are being oppressed, killed off by whites, and are victims of white privilege.”

22) “The ‘systemic racism’ narrative is a complete lie and that BLM is nothing but a bunch of criminal thugs doing more harm to the black community than good.”

23) “The censorship by the media and big tech on behalf of the left and certain Democrats is nothing but an attempt to hide the truth and protect their own agenda, and that is alarming.”

24) “Many BLM terrorists . . . as Dr. Steele related, they rather listen to the drug selling gangster ‘brother’ on the street corner instead of the ‘Uncle Tom.’ That’s really intelligent!

25) “Black Lives Matter or BLM is a criminal group, a domestic terrorist organization. . . .  it’s the reason why the Department of Justice currently has over 300 hundred active investigations focusing on these two groups.”

26) “Any person or business in Bethlehem, or anywhere, supporting BLM with signs in their windows or donating money is supporting a domestic terrorism group trying to overthrow our government and destroy people’s lives. Any support to BLM is an invitation for chaos and destruction to come to your area. . . . Get ready, because there is one restaurant business in town inviting BLM to come to Bethlehem and they should be condemned for doing so.”

27) “The entire BLM narrative is based on lies and has a long history of violence. Many of the lies are fueled by the media and politicians. Unfortunately, many people believe these lies because they fail to seek the truth or verify what they are force fed. Many can’t think for themselves and make their own decisions while some just don’t want to believe the truth.”

28) “I watched former First Lady Michelle Obama support the systemic racism narrative with lies. . . . Even the AP called out Michelle Obama’s lies in articles.”

29) “Can anyone tell me the names of unarmed black individuals in Bethlehem that have been ‘preyed upon by police officers’ and killed for no lawful reason? . . . The angry rants by politicians, celebrities, and BLM indicates it has to be occurring in Bethlehem every day.”

30) “There was then the Michael Brown (Ferguson, 2014) and Eric Garner (New York, 2014) cases which also turned out to be lies, as no charges were justified in either case. . . .In the Eric Garner case, we heard the ‘I can’t breathe’ lie and once again no charges warranted.”

31) “The founders of BLM are self-described ‘trained Marxists’ who have called for outrageous demands to be met or else. One BLM leader said in July 2020 that if demands are not met, ‘then we will burn down this system.’ BLM has also openly advocated for the killing of police officers (we all heard pigs in a blanket, what do we want, dead cops). . . . Do any of you have children who are in law enforcement who may be a pig in a blanket someday, killed just because of a bunch of lies?”

32) “Black Lives Matter (BLM) was founded by radical extremists who use rioting, looting, vandalism, and violence as tools. One of the founders, Patrisse Cullors, was ‘inspired’ and led by her ‘hero’ Assata Shakur. . . . Black Lives Matter (BLM) is also connected to a Susan Rosenberg, a convicted terrorist sentenced in the 1980’s to 58 years in prison for possession of explosives and machine guns. . . . Eric Mann, a convicted felon and member of the Weather Underground back in the day, has also ‘mentored BLM’ according to the founders.”

33) “The false narrative politicians and BLM want you to believe is that there are innocent people of color continuously being harassed and murdered by the police ‘every day.’ They can’t even walk outside or go for a jog without being killed (Lebron James Tweet). The facts don’t support that claim! . . . This is a fear tactic used by BLM. It is this fear, which blacks are led to feel by their own people and politicians, that lead blacks to act irrational and with an attitude during police encounters. Attitude controls outcome.”

34) “Remember, the important admonishment, and one that you all should be repeating to our youngsters, the police are in control of an incident and you should listen to and respect all commands during any encounter. An illegal stop, an illegal arrest, or alleged racism can be sorted out later and there should not be any escalation of the situation. The vast majority of people know this, comply with the police, and there are no issues with the encounter. Blacks however are four times more likely to resist arrest than whites and Hispanics combined.”

35) “Finally, for the white people reading this, stop becoming ‘woke.’ You are only exacerbating the situation for the black community who are looking for anyone but themselves to blame. Have some courage to stand up for the truth. Listen to Dr. Steele who is a well-educated professional who has studied this behavior for a long time. It will go a long way to helping blacks work hard, earn things, and realize they are free from oppression and can do anything if they really try.”

As usual, Gadfly invites responses.