This weekend, a New York Police Department union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, released a video that claims police officers are victims a type of prejudice called "blue racism."
“The average person doesn’t see those things that make me human,” the video's voiceover says. “They don’t even label me based on being African American, Latino, Asian, Caucasian and so on. They tend to see an even broader stereotype through an even more racist lens. When they look at me, they see blue.”
The Sergeants Benevolent Association that created the video is made up of 13,000 NYPD sergeants, both active and retired.
The video fails to give hard statistics to support its claim that this new racism, "even more racist" than the old, skin color-based racism was on the rise. However, through news clips, it alleges that police officers are "a minority" suffering as "this strange form of racism continues to engulf the country.”
The short also claims that police officers are the victims of “broad-brush attacks, generalizations, and assumptions by college professors, politicians, community activists, merchants and violence from people” they are “committed to serving.”
This violence, according to the video, has police officers trying to pass as people of other professions while not on duty "for fear of physical injury."
To conclude the video, the union reworded a quote by Martin Luther King in order to lend support to its views.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by their color but by the content of their character," the video says King said.
King, of course, did not say that.
He said in his "I Have a Dream" speech, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Last we checked, even Blue Ivy wasn't born with blue colored skin.
The Twitterverse, as you might have guessed, immediately jumped on the association for this video.
Real victims of "Blue Racism" pic.twitter.com/Ok4MDUAvQ0
— Vann R. Newkirk II (@fivefifths) August 21, 2017
Yesterday @SBANYPD released a video suggesting police officers are subject to ‘blue racism.’ Read our statement: https://t.co/8kjyUFb11q
pic.twitter.com/SSL51dX6oK— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) August 21, 2017
Blue racism? pic.twitter.com/pYXs6StHmR
— kagawanandez (@shheeiiit) August 21, 2017
— Kelz (@kellice1118) August 21, 2017
Watch the video for yourself below:
