You do not have to be a trained detective to work out that young black men are much more likely to be stopped and searched than young white men. As Mr Olisa puts it, it is ‘accepted practice’ to stop young black men to try to boost arrest rates for drugs such as cannabis. He said police were more likey to stop a car full of black people in the hope of finding some cannabis, than to stop a car full of white people to look for party goers carrying cocaine.
But the fine Mr Olisa reassures us that it is not racism that motivates these officers. No, it is the ‘performance culture’, the drive to increase your arrest statistice, that is behind it all.
I have news for the chief superintendent. If you try and look good to your superiors by arresting more black people, that is racism.
“When you look at the accumulated data , you see massive disproportionality” he said. But still he springs to the defence of his racist colleagues. He suggests that searches should be carried out based on intelligence. So presumably those officers arresting blacks disproportinately are not using intelligence.
They must be following their gut. Their presumptions. Or in other words, their prejudices.
Which is what most of us call racism.
Mr Olisa is one of the Met’s most senior black officers. He must have learned through his own experience, you do not rise to the top of the racist pond that is the Metropolitan police force by calling a racist a racist. Much more deference is required if your career is to go forward.
So while young blacks in London are having their lives disrupted by the racist intrusion of bigoted police officers, Mr Olisa can draw his carefully moderated conclusions, and excuse his colleagues’ behaviour.
It is not the officers that are racist, he argues. It is the culture.
For those on the receiving end, what difference does it make?