It can be hard to reconcile the politics of a traditionally “blue” state like New Jersey with some of the stories you hear from there, although we are certain that negative stories like this exist everywhere, especially when you’re talking about a whole state that may be demographically very different in some places than in others.
I live here in Washington, in the northwest corner of the nation, and I know from my involvement in both politics and protest action that sometimes you needn’t travel far outside an area where diversity means less overt racism to reach an area where people of color are rightfully afraid to travel in public.
I also know from experience that, like DV calls usually involve alcohol or speed, or like property taxes are usually lowest in the most desirable places to live, the vast majority of overtly racist public actions involve the cops. That’s not to say that all cops are racist — but a sizeable percentage of them are, and they don’t just call names.
Take former Bordentown, NJ police chief Frank Nucera, Jr.
He was arrested in mid-2018 on “suspicion” of a hate crime, deprivation of rights of a suspect, and making false statements to the FBI after a fellow officer surreptitiously recorded him slamming an 18-year-old black teen’s head into a doorjamb as he was arresting him — for resisting arrest. No other charges were filed against the black teen.
Today the Washington Post is reporting that Nucera told the fellow officer — who had lured the chief into a confession by telling him that the kid’s family was suing him and mentioning that “someone” could have recorded the incident — that Donald Trump was the “last hope for white people,” according to a transcript that was displayed at his trial this week:
I’m telling you, you know what, Donald Trump is the last hope for white people, cause Hillary [Clinton] will give it to all the minorities to get a vote. That’s the truth! I’m telling you.”
From the Post:
The incident was part of what prosecutors alleged to be a ‘significant history’ of racist behavior in which Nucera referred to African Americans with the n-word, compared them to the Islamic State, said he’d like to shoot them on a firing squad and tried to use police dogs to intimidate them.”
Nucera’s arrest and trial demonstrate the role that racism played in the election of Trump, and why his supporters are so desperate to defend him now. With Trump gone, their overt, public racism would no longer be normalized to the point that they could get anyone to agree with them out loud anymore, hidden the way America used to hide its racism.
To that we say, let’s go ahead and make America great again — and shut these assholes up.
Featured image via screen capture
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