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Twitter Takes News Site to Task Over “Groundbreaking” FBI Investigation That *Gasp* Says There Are Racist Police Officers

Like we didn't know.

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There have always been people willing to stand up against the destructive force that prejudice can bring to bear upon people, and those willing to fight were always vocal about the struggle, hoping to inform others about the realities of oppressed life. This has continued right through to the present, as the Black Lives Matter movement recently rose to prominence to continue the ongoing resistance against racist law enforcement officers.

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But somehow, the International Business Times completely missed all of this. Instead, they’ve written up a piece on an FBI report that suggests what we’ve known all along: that there are white supremacists working within law enforcement. What’s especially frustrating about this is that they call the report “groundbreaking.” It’s as if the bodies piling up in the streets weren’t enough to break ground. It’s as if the voices of black people weren’t enough. It’s as if it takes white people to get other white people to believe how deep systemic racism really is.

After Black Twitter found out about IBT’s report, they took the outlet to task over this ridiculous discrepancy, and they did so in style.

Many of the tweets sent in reply to the IBT tweet agree that it’s utterly ridiculous that it takes such measures to get people to believe things that black people have been saying all along. Nobody believes people of color when they try to share their stories, and the leaders in control over most forms of mass communication—movies, tv, the news, etc.—go out of their way to co-opt the stories of people of color. Then they have the audacity to call that diversity and wonder why we’re all so mad. Fuck that.

So, you know. The next time you want to run a story about a “groundbreaking report” on racism, you should probably check with, I don’t know, the people most impacted by racism. They’ll (perhaps not so) kindly tell you to wake the hell up, then ask you what took you so damn long to realize. Or, you know, you could just read the news you’re supposed to be reporting. That’d be a start.

(image via Flickr/Michael Fleshman)

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Jessica Lachenal
Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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