Tom Ellis
Feb 10, 2023

Thank you, Erica. There is something else going on here, I think, among these “officers.” That is, I see a pathological intersection of police culture with self-loathing among black men—the need to “prove” their toughness to their white peers in the police department by brutalizing one of their own. Think of this as a “Clarence Thomas” syndrome—internalized racism—lashing out against their own mirror image. I suspect that a lot of the endemic violence among poor black men is rooted in this self-loathing…itself a psychological consequence of generations of degradation and abuse by the dominant culture.

Tom Ellis
Tom Ellis

Written by Tom Ellis

I am a retired English professor now living in Oregon, and a life-long environmental activist, Buddhist, and holistic philosopher.

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