MET POLICE Commissioner Cressida Dick has stated that Britain’s biggest police force is no longer institutionally racist and that the label is ‘toxic’.
Following the brutal murder of Stephan Lawrence, the Metropolitan Police force has been branded as institutionally racist. A term, which she says was coined by Sir William Macpherson 20 years ago, that is ‘outdated’ and ‘unhelpful’ as the force had ‘utterly transformed’.
She told the Home Affairs Select Committee: “It stops people wanting to give us intelligence, evidence, come and join us, work with us”. She explained the label ‘puts people off’ thus alienating the public and diminishes the effectiveness of the force.
Former black police officer, Kevin Maxwell, explains that he was not at all surprised by these comments. In an article for The Independent Maxwell wrote: “Dick herself told a newspaper that, not only was the Met “institutionally racist”, but it was “very difficult to imagine a situation where we will say we are no longer institutionally racist.” Now, twenty years after the Macpherson report, having ascended the throne as Britain’s top officer, Dick is saying something different.
“Something that, if you ask a black person on London’s streets like young black boys and men, they are likely to give you the opposite answer to an older white woman in charge of law enforcement.”
It seems Maxwell is not alone in his views as many across social media question how exactly Dick came to this conclusion that the Met police have ‘utterly transformed’ and are no longer racist when statistics show an ever rising war against black people, in particular black men.
One Twitter user wrote: “Cressida Dick is an embarrassment and should resign from her position as commissioner. The @MetPoliceUK is 100% as institutionally racist today as it was 20 years ago and for her to claim otherwise is denial in an attempt only to protect her own legacy.”
Another said: “So Cressida Dick just decided by herself that the Met police is no longer racist.
Just like that. Regardless of the stats that show the disproportionate deaths of Black people while in police custody.”
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