Advocates: Black cops not exempt from anti-Black policing

Get Nadine White's Race Report newsletter for a fresh perspective on the week's news Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy That the death of Tyre Nichols — young, Black, just trying to get home — came at the hands of Memphis police officers was a familiar refrain in the nation's seemingly endless lamentation of racism and police brutality aimed at Black people. You treat white people as if they are innocent until proven guilty.” Legal scholar Amara Enyia said "being Black and a police officer does not undo the inherent anti-Blackness in the policing system.” “That’s one of the most insidious characteristics of the system, because we may buy into a notion that because they’re Black means they can’t possibly have adopted the norms and values of the system,” said Enyia, policy and research manager for the Movement for Black Lives, a national advocacy coalition aligned with the broader Black Lives Matter movement. Not far away from the hotel balcony where King was fatally shot, the Black officers "beat a brother to death," Sharpton said in a eulogy. Addressing the officers, he said: “There’s nothing more insulting and offensive to those of us that fight to open doors that you walk through those doors and act like the folks we had to fight to get you through them doors.” “You didn’t get on the Police Department by yourself.