Why do activists say police began as slave patrols?

 

Last year I wrote a piece about systemic racism.

I linked the term systemic racism to the term institutional racism, a term coined by Stokely Carmichael. I pointed out Carmichael stated institutional racism and colonialism were one and the same. However, Carmichael also stated the analogy wasn’t perfect and gave examples as to why the analogy wasn’t sufficient. I simply agreed with Carmichael but went further and claimed that systemic racism was based on an inadequate analogy.

Well, I posted that piece on another platform and got a response.

The responder suggested that I expand my knowledge of colonialism in order to take into account the “full psychological, social, and cultural dimensions rather than superficial political economics”. I was also instructed to look into the term “internal colony/colonization” coined by Robert Blauner.

So, I followed through.

In a 1969 paper called: Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt, Blauner suggested that during the late 1950s black militants began to identify with African nations and other colonized people. As a result, black militants saw the U.S. as a colonial power and concluded black people were colonized in American ghettos.

Blauner said in the 1960s it was “almost fashionable” to analyze America’s racial conflict in terms of the colonial analogy. However, like Carmichael, Blauner admitted that the analogy was “problematic and imprecise” then he went on to demonstrate the utility of the analogy regardless of its flaws.

The first question a fair-minded person would ask is: Why not use a more precise and less problematic analogy?

Unfortunately, fair-minded questions like that missed the point because the goal of the analogy wasn’t to make an accurate comparison for better understanding. The goal of the analogy was to solicit and justify a specific response. The analogy here was to colonialism, and the specific response to colonialism is in the title of Blauner’s paper – ghetto revolt – or violence. (Carmichael used the analogy to predict urban guerrilla warfare.) Militants further justified the response to the colonial analogy by pointing out America was a colony of Britain, and the founding fathers led a violent revolt against “the system”.

As you can see, the analogy doesn’t have to be accurate, it just has to justify the extremity of the desired response.

Obviously, that anecdote is analogous to the title question. So, why do activists insist on saying police began as slave patrols?

At first glance, any fair-minded person would be skeptical of the claim that police began as slave patrols because it logically doesn’t follow. Slaves were chattel, bought and sold like chickens and hogs; the activists, themselves, complain that the US constitution called the slaves three-fifth human, with that being the case, it logically follows that a slave patrol has more in common with a dogcatcher than a police force. The only way a slave patrol is synonymous with a police force is if one believes “the police protect and serve white communities but patrol and control black ghettos.” (This was a phrase commonly used by Carmichael and members of the Black Panther Party) A lot of activists believe this remains true in the 21st century; therefore, the comparison to slave patrols isn’t used because of its accuracy, it’s used to demonize police forces.

Now, the Snopes online fact-checker declares the items it checks either: Mostly True, True, Mostly False, False, Unproven, Outdated, Scam or Legend. After Snopes checked whether or not police originated with slave patrols in the United States, the fact-checker declared it: A Mixture.

This is like Carmichael and Blauner admitting their analogy was “problematic and imprecise”, but once again, the slave patrol rhetoric isn’t used for its accuracy, it’s used to justify the extremity of the response – which is to abolish the police.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 5/26/21