Is the police force racist? This is one of the most crucial issues. The solution to this essential question is complicated. The essence is that police officers seem to be more racist than Black police officers and the general population in certain areas while being less racist in others.

Derek Chauvin pushed his knee into the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. The now-former Minneapolis police officer's lethal use of force has reignited a national conversation about police violence and racism.

In the United States, law enforcement personnel murder around 1,000 individuals each year. According to one estimate, black males are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be murdered by police throughout their lives. Another research found that black persons fatally shot by cops were twice as likely to be unarmed than white people.

A highly representative Pew Research Center study of over 8,000 active-duty police officers and approximately 4,500 U.S. people was the best survey to answer whether police are more racially prejudiced than other U.S. citizens. Police officers often felt that racism no longer existed in the United States. The American public, particularly the Black American public, was often divided.

Consider one of the clearest race and racism survey questions. "Has our nation made the necessary reforms to provide blacks equal rights with whites?" The inquiry was questioned. Surprisingly, 92 percent of White American police officers agreed with this assertion, implying that racism is no longer a problem. Only 6% of White police officers disagreed, indicating that racism must continue to be addressed (2 percent were unsure). 69 percent of Black police officers admitted to a lack of equal rights. However, 41% of the White general population (still a small minority, but a sizable one) recognized a lack of equal rights in the United States. 84 percent of the Black population agreed. It's difficult to accept such statistics without concluding that police officers are, on average, even more, racist than the rest of us.

If there's evidence that police officers misinterpret racism, there's also evidence that the general population misunderstands cops. According to Rich Morin and Andrew Mercer of the Pew Foundation, the public's perception of what police officers perform in the line of duty is as follows:

Many Americans assume that police officers often shoot their weapons. More than eight in ten (83 percent) individuals believe that the average officer has shot their service weapon at least once in their employment, outside of firearms training, or on a gun range.

However, the same study was cited before police officers questioned whether they had ever used their weapons in the course of duty. Only 27 percent of police respondents said they had done so. Yes, it is right. 73 percent said they had never discharged their weapons. The American people feel that police officers in the United States are much more trigger-happy than they are. That is a rather widespread anti-police stereotype.

There is reason to assume that police officers would conduct better in a life-or-death shooting scenario than you and I would. Consider research that directly matched police officer discrimination to prejudice experienced by the people police officers are tasked to protect. Joshua Correll and colleagues established a creative technique to examine "the police officer's dilemma" in reaction to police killings more than two decades ago. What do you do if you see a Black guy carrying a little shiny item that seems to be a handgun? Naturally, you only have milliseconds to make a judgement.

However, even if police officers are considered a highly racist direction on certain measures, it is not fair to conclude that all police officers are racists—or that endorsing one racist belief entails that a person, officer or not, is a racist through and through. Furthermore, research demonstrates that almost everyone has racist attitudes and behaviors. No one is immune to racism in all of its manifestations.