This Week in Racism: It Turns Out Racist Cops Can Get Fired. What Was Everyone Waiting For?

Death and taxes used to be the only two certainties in life. But no matter how much progress it feels like we’re making sometimes, the sad fact is you can probably slide racism into that list. Are we in a moment of uprising that feels like it has the potential to create real, systemic change? Yes. Do people and organizations still show their ass on a daily basis? Oh, most definitely. And to keep tabs on all that ass-showing, we’re pleased to introduce our weekly racism surveillance machine. If you already get our newsletter, Minority Report, you’ve likely seen this — but now the rest of the internet can get a taste.

🗑 In stunning development, police department plans to fire racist officer

Earlier this month, Daniel Haupt, a police officer in Albany, New York, got into a chat with a sheriff’s deputy at a gas station. The deputy’s body camera turned on accidentally, but the timing couldn’t have been better: The camera captured Haupt casually dropping a selection of bangers from Racism’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 1. “My buddies listen to the scanner, and they send me texts all the time,” Haupt said. “And they go, ‘Is the suspect ever a white male?’ and I go ‘No.’ I know it sounds terrible to say, but I don’t give a f*ck what anybody says, I sincerely don’t. Because bro, they are the worst f*cking race, and I don’t — you can’t deny, like, over the last X amount of months, they are — you know because we work together — they are getting worse and worse, and people are defending that. Are you f*cking kidding me?” In response, Albany police chief Eric Hawkins announced that he’d be firing Haupt. Wait. Not suspended? Or placed on leave pending investigation? Like, actually fired? The way it’s supposed to happen? Take note, every police department ever. Just kidding, we know you won’t. (Albany Times Union)

🗑 Congrats to Pittsburgh, our newest White supremacist hot spot!

When you think of Pittsburgh, you think Steelers and Pirates. You think Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller. Maybe you think french fries on sandwiches. You probably don’t think hub for White supremacism. Yet, that’s exactly how one FBI analyst has described the area. During a recent symposium hosted by Duquesne University, the Bureau’s John Pulcastro called the extremist movement in Pittsburgh the most active he’d seen in 20 years of studying such activity — including the Pacific Northwest, where militias have exploded over the last decade. Pulcastro and his colleague ticked off groups like the Patriot Front, Proud Boys, National Alliance, and others who are actively recruiting in and around the city. Guess there’s a reason the western part of the state is known as Pennsyltucky! (Morning Call)

🗑 Speaking of the Proud Boys, so much for that whole “we’re not racist” thing

Before this weekend’s so-called “Million MAGA March” — in which some tiny fraction of a million Trump supporters descended on Washington D.C. to whine that their preferred candidate had lost by literal millions of votes while suffering an electoral defeat equal to what he had called a “massive landslide” just four years earlier — a Proud Boy decided to become a Proud Man. Okay, let’s back up. The Proud Boys is an organization you can describe as “a far-right group with a history of violent confrontations,” or perhaps more accurately as “a far-right group of racists in black polo shirts who try to incite violence during protests but also get their ass beat a fair amount.” Despite the group’s behavior (much of which you can read about here), the current leader of the Proud Boys has maintained that he denounces racism and anti-Semitism. All sorted? Okay, back to the story. A longtime Proud Boy named Kyle Chapman announced that he had deposed said leader in a “coup” and was making the group’s White supremacy explicit. (“We recognize that the West was built by the White Race alone, and we owe nothing to any other race,” he said in a series of encrypted chat messages.”) While other members have downplayed that any such “coup” happened, you gotta at least appreciate dude’s willingness to broadcast what the rest of the world already knew anyway. Love those snug polo shirts, fellas. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)