A person can’t act against their own self-interest? Over on the Oneita Jackson thread, she has plenty of examples. Racism is something that a culture is steeped in and which is largely unconscious, he’s not allowing the abuses because “fuck black people”, he’s allowing them because society allows it. A black police chief orders his officers to be “tough on crime”, Ben Carson dismantling the organization charged with enforcing the Fair Housing Act, Samuel L Jackson in Django Unchained.
If anything I would say that the pressure is probably greater. What will the people say if the police chief isn’t cracking down? “Oh, he’s just letting those people get away with things they shouldn’t,” because they know the police chief and he’s not like them, he’s made something of himself. But what happens if he starts pushing back? How does that change how he’s perceived? He may be in, but he may see it as a precarious in, something that has to be carefully maintained.
