"Liberal" columnist Sonali Kolhatkar wrote that — "Many police are barely distinguishable from racist vigilantes"

15 September 2020

A bridge too far?

Today, I pick on "liberal" opinion writer, Sonali Kolhatkar, for something that she wrote that seems to have little basis in fact.

Her recent essay — excerpted below — typifies the Democratic Party Establishment with regard to its apparently blanket support for Black Lives Matter and (possibly) Antifa.

Problematically (in my view), Kolhatkar makes fact-lacking generalizations that appear to favor the exercise of blatant racism, so as to cure racism.

In addition to implying that American police are "racist vigilantes" in her essay title. . .

. . . Kolhatkar goes on to say that:

Police in America, whose mottos claim to “protect and serve” us, have been openly declaring allegiance with the forces of white supremacy.

From California to New York and everywhere in between, police treat Black and Brown people like target practice at best, and animals at worse.

Against a well-armed police force linked to white supremacists, what chance do communities of color have at leading dignified lives free of police harassment, targeting, and killing?

I was curious where Kolhatkar was getting her facts

I noticed that she began her essay, without providing any statistics or definitions.

Indicatively cluelessly, she starts off with "vigilante" white guy Kyle Rittenhouse's videoed killing of two alleged BLM "activists":

Kenosha police officers were seen going out of their way to ensure that Rittenhouse and the vigilantes that had gathered in their city had plenty of water.

At the same time, they were enforcing the city’s curfew against someone else, announcing aggressively over a bullhorn, “You are a civilian. This area is closed to all. You are trespassing. Leave. Leave now.”

Seconds later, the same officer is heard saying to Rittenhouse and his colleagues, “We appreciate you guys—we really do.”

If ever there was doubt that police and armed white vigilantes see themselves as part of the same club, this interaction dispelled it.

We can infer from . . .

Kolhatkar's curiously broad generalization about vigilante police that she implicitly approves of (or tolerates) the BLM-associated arsons that Kenosha businesses had previously suffered.

Evidently, according to Kolhatkar's essay's logic — when "white" civilians decide to help police reduce BLM's opportunity to light those fires — this becomes a clearly immoral, illegal and necessarily "vigilante" thing.

I wonder whether . . .

. . . it would be okay with Ms. Kolhatkar, if a "white" business owner — rather than a "white" vigilante — protected the structures involved?

If not, how about if a "black" business owner did it?

And maybe even a "black" business employee?

How about a "black" passerby?

How geographically or situationally related does this person need to be?

How far across the 'color makes right' spectrum should we go? Does 'correct' skin color provide the necessary 'community protection against arson license'?

Where does Kolhatkar draw her anti-arson, anti-looting line?

Does she have one? Or is such an analysis too much a leap for her possibly vacated mind?

Immediately thereafter in her essay . . .

Kolhatkar makes another unwarranted leap to judgment.

She accuses responding Kenosha police of ignoring the arms-up (post-homicide) Rittenhouse because he did not appear to be a threat:

Many have rightly questioned if law enforcement would have simply ignored a similarly clad Black teenager carrying a rifle that he was clearly too young to legally own.

Lost to Kolhatkar's thinking is the obvious answer that the responding officers probably had no idea what had just happened and who had done it.

One cannot reliably tell how old someone is with just a glance, especially at night and under pulsating emergency vehicle lights.

And why would (or should) those officers necessarily have stopped someone, who had both arms up? Indeed, it is my understanding that Rittenhouse fell under an exception to the firearms age rule that Kolhatkar assumes was in place.

Lacking probable cause to do much of anything at all, the responding police officers' (inferable) idea that Rittenhouse presented no threat was accurate enough. In fact, Rittenhouse reportedly turned himself in to police authorities, when he returned to Illinois.

I point all this out to demonstrate that Kolhatkar has no idea what dealing with tumultuous circumstances (like these) are like for police. Or anyone else caught up in them. Most of the time, it just "ain't" clear what is going on, much less what one should immediately do about whatever those happenings are.

After indulging her essay-initiating, evidence-lacking judgmentalism . . .

. . . Kohlhatkar jumps immediately to making another fact-lacking generalization:

Right-wing extremist armed vigilantes and police officers are cut from the same ideological cloth of American society that feels entitled to patrol the collective behavior of nonwhites, women, etc.

Hmmm

That seems to be a rather gandiosely airy conclusion.

Kolhatkar weakly offers evidentiary support this way:

“Slave patrols were among the first public policing organizations formed in the American colonies,” writes [former FBI agent and now author, Michael] German.

He adds, “Put simply, white supremacy was the law these earliest public officials were sworn to enforce.”

Judging by police actions, especially over the last several months, this historical framework of policing appears to be intact hundreds of years later.

"Appears to be"?

Based on what statistics?

Instead of coming up with numbers and compared statistical proportions, Kolhatkar links to a series of a few videos showing resisting "white" guys not being shot by police.

Evidently, we are to presume that if a handful of resisting "white" people were not shot by police, then black resisters (who are shot) are taking bullets exclusively because they're not white.

Obviously missing is a comparison of proportionately how many white resisters versus black resisters there are. And what proportions of each are shot. And under which comparable (or not) circumstances.

Kolhatkar's analysis does not even qualify as weak logic, much less marginal objectivity.

Kolhatkar concludes her poorly supported rant . . .

. . . this way:

Against a well-armed police force linked to white supremacists, what chance do communities of color have at leading dignified lives free of police harassment, targeting, and killing?

According to German, “the Justice Department has no national strategy designed to identify white supremacist police officers or to protect the safety and civil rights of the communities they patrol.”

And this is precisely how Trump likes it.

The moral? — God preserve America, if we allow prejudiced Airhead Fanatics like Sonali Kolhatkar to govern us

Having been a patrol officer, detective and watch commander myself for 14 years — with law enforcement contacts across municipal, county, state and federal jurisdictions — I can offer the "more likely than not" hypothesis that American law enforcement is not notably filled with white vigilante, black-person-oppressors.

Are there:

Law enforcement people who use excessive force?

Yes.

Many officers, troopers and constables who are poorly trained?

Absolutely.

A visible portion of uniformed people who are sick of human lowlifes and occasionally overreact to them?

Yes.

But a society heavily infiltrated by White Supremacist-acting police departments?

No.

Certainly not when one does even rough calculations, based on generally applicable American demographics and geographic locations.

Cops have their hands full just trying to do what society legitimately asks them to. Most of them are not out to oppress (identifiable population subgroups) just for the fun of it.

If you want to correct me on this, Ms. Kolhatkar, come up with some demonstrably valid numbers and a reasoned — as opposed to 'emotioned' — analysis.

Until then, hostile, witless prattle simply makes one look foolishly ignorant and almost certainly bigoted.

I conclude by observing that I do not see how fomenting a movement of very poorly targeted, pillage-producing, counter-bigotry is going to cure allegedly society-wide racial prejudice.

PeteFree.com

"Liberal" columnist Sonali Kolhatkar wrote that — "Many police are barely distinguishable from racist vigilantes"