Blacks underrepresented in GPD? Yes. Discrimination? Doubtful.

In an unsigned editorial in this week's Yes!Weekly about alleged discrimination against black officers in the Greensboro Police Department, the anonymous author offers this:

"...African Americans and Latinos are still underrepresented in the department."

The implication is that is evidence of discrimination.

I emailed Yes!Weekly editor Brian Clarey and asked him what percentage of Greensboro police officers are minorities. He wrote back that, according to the City's Public Affairs Office, "of 615 sworn officers, 24 percent are minority — black, Asian, Latino combined."

With the white population of Greensboro at about 53% and the African-American population at about 40%, those percentages seem problematic. But not so fast.

I've lived in Greensboro long enough to know racism still exists here, and I am not going to attempt to prove a negative, but purely from a perspective of critical thinking, it is apparent these percentages do not, on their face, implicate the GPD of discrimination. Here is why:

One of the requirements of being a Greensboro police officer is graduation from high school or equivalent. According to the most recent Census Bureau's statistics I can find, 90% of white adults in Greensboro meet that requirement while only 45% of African-American adults in Greensboro do and 47% of Hispanics do.

So the percentages of minorities officers in the GPD actually accurately mirror the qualified minority populations in Greensboro. For Yes!Weekly to write that minorities are "underrepresented in the department," is accurate because minorities are underrepresented among high school graduates. Minorities are not, however, underrepresented in the GPD among those with the required high school diploma.