The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

If I just say we have to end racism and policing, it's, like, OK, I'm not racist in the first place. So the reason I use the example of the kind of everyday policing that happens outside of working-class and poor black communities is just because people know what that looks like. But it is too amorphous a statement to tell us what to do about it. But is that we're talking about here? I mean, just that there can't be racism in police departments. I mean, a fear among police officers of young black men. GREENE: But what you're describing sounds like racism, or as some have put it when we've had conversations about these incidents recently, if not racism, then it is a fear based on someone's race.

So there are some basic things about decency that we should look for and expect that most white Americans take for granted in their own communities. MUHAMMAD: Well, we might start with what does policing look like in middle-class, white, suburban communities? People are not presumptively criminal because they happen to, as one NYPD officer described, fit the description of a black male, 14 to 21, or that in most of these encounters, the context of daily abuse and microaggressions, where people are disrespected just by how they're spoken to, has to change. GREENE: Can you just help us understand what that systemic change is that you feel has to happen in Ferguson and hasn't happened when we've hit situations like this in the past?

So Ferguson should become a model department for systemic change with the kinds of value statements that the new leadership will articulate and enforce. It's been about cleaning house in a particular department, identifying rotten apples and saying that now that we've removed those individuals, everything's going to be OK. And I think that's where this conversation has been for much of the last century. And I think it's not just about individuals. GREENE: I gather beyond, you know, changing people in these jobs, you see some more systemic problems that need to be taken care of as well. If I were a historian looking back on these events 50 years from now, I would tell this moment as the arc of a story of justice achieved in removing agents of oppression - not sufficient, but absolutely necessary. KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: It's not only a solid first step, it is a necessary first step. We asked Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, if this was a solid first step. As we heard, a judge, the city manager and the police chief all stepped down this week.

Let's continue the conversation about how a city like Ferguson and its police force can learn from what happened there.

The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran Muhammad