A Systems Problem We Have to Address.
Before anything else, I want to separate two different conversations.
One is about how law enforcement treats poor and working-class people in general, especially in dense urban environments, compared to how it operates in wealthier, whiter, and less-policed communities.
That is a real issue.
But it is not the focus of this piece.
This article is about something deeper.
It is about America admitting a structural problem and dealing with it honestly so we can move forward.
Why Law Enforcement Should Exist
I am pro-law and pro-law-enforcement in the sense that I believe societies require order to preserve liberty.
Without some form of collective enforcement of basic rules, the strong dominate the weak, and freedom collapses into chaos.
The purpose of our republic is the protection of individual liberty.
That is not a slogan.
Read the correspondence of the people who designed this system. Read their letters. Read their debates. Understand what they were trying to build.
They were obsessed with liberty.
Law enforcement, at its best, exists to protect that liberty.
To protect people from violence.
To protect property.
To protect due process.
To protect the vulnerable.
When it works that way, it deserves respect, resources, and public trust.
That is not the problem.
The Part No One Wants to Talk About
Here is the problem.
In America, entire industries of “law enforcement” were built on capturing people for profit.
Historically, this was the work of federal marshals, local sheriffs, bounty hunters, and private contractors.
And historically, many of the people they were paid to capture were:
• Enslaved people who had escaped
• Newly freed people accused of violating racist laws
• Native people who had not left their land
• Poor people who could not defend themselves legally
These were not peacekeeping systems.
They were extraction systems.
They were designed to retrieve human beings and return them to economic control.
That culture did not vanish.
It evolved.
From Slave Catchers to “Professionalized” Policing
Over time, America tried to civilize these systems.
We professionalized them.
We added training.
We added uniforms.
We added legal frameworks.
We added oversight.
That mattered.
But the underlying incentives never fully changed.
Many enforcement systems remained built around:
• Arrest volume
• Conviction rates
• Asset seizure
• Prison occupancy
• Fine and fee revenue
• Contractual quotas
In other words: profitability.
We took institutions designed for pursuit and capture and asked them to become guardians of civil peace.
That is a hard transition.
We never fully finished it.
The Prison System and the Slavery Exception
Now add this.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery—except for prisoners.
That exception matters.
It created a legal pathway for forced labor to continue under another name.
Prisons became economic assets.
Inmates became labor pools.
Entire industries grew around incarceration.
This affects minorities most.
It also affects poor whites who fall hard.
But disproportionately, it affects Black Americans.
This is not about individual prejudice.
It is about institutional design.
Laws That Create Tension by Design
On top of that, many American laws were written specifically to restrict minority communities and their cultural practices.
• Housing laws
• Vagrancy laws
• Drug laws
• Assembly laws
• Curfew laws
• Surveillance policies
When laws are built to constrain particular groups, enforcement becomes adversarial by default.
No amount of individual goodwill can erase that.
Tension is baked in.
This Is Not About “Good Cops” and “Bad Cops”
Most officers I have known are trying to do their jobs and go home safely.
Many care deeply about their communities.
Many are thoughtful, ethical people.
This is not a morality play.
It is a systems problem.
You can put good people into bad structures and still get bad outcomes.
Over and over.
A Word to Law Enforcement
Stop being cruel to people just to be cruel.
Every unnecessary humiliation.
Every unnecessary escalation.
Every unnecessary display of dominance.
It compounds history.
You are not dealing with blank slates.
You are dealing with communities carrying centuries of institutional trauma.
Act accordingly.
Professionalism is not weakness.
It is strength.
A Word to Black America
I am not here to tell you what you should do.
That is not my place.
I only know what I have seen growing up in this country.
Your restraint in the face of injustice is extraordinary.
Historically extraordinary.
Many societies would have burned under far less pressure.
And yet, again and again, you choose patience, participation, and engagement.
You keep buying into a system that has often failed you.
That takes courage.
It also comes at a cost.
Right now, much of America is struggling with its own history.
Many white Americans are confronting who their ancestors were and what systems they benefited from.
Some do not know how to process that.
Some react with denial.
Some with anger.
Some with fear.
And in the middle of that storm, you remain steady.
Once again, this country is leaning on your restraint to survive its own reckoning.
That deserves acknowledgment.
And gratitude.
What Moving Forward Requires
We cannot fix this with slogans.
We cannot fix it with body cameras alone.
We cannot fix it with diversity seminars.
We fix it by redesigning systems.
By removing profit incentives.
By reforming sentencing.
By ending quota cultures.
By limiting asset forfeiture.
By opening records.
By strengthening civilian oversight.
By narrowing criminal codes.
By restoring trust through transparency.
We have to finish the work we pretended to finish.
The Bottom Line
Law enforcement is necessary.
Liberty requires order.
But order built on extraction, control, and historical injustice cannot produce trust.
Only honesty can.
Only structural reform can.
Only courage can.
America has admitted parts of this problem.
It has not admitted all of it.
Until it does, we will keep repeating the same arguments, the same tragedies, and the same disappointments.
We can do better.
But only if we tell the truth first.
