I've been reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's new book Between the World and Me, this passage stands out as relevant in light of Brian T. Encinia arresting Sandra Bland because Sandra Bland refused to put her body at his disposal.

At this moment the phrase "police reform" has come into vogue, and the actions of our publicly appointed guardians have attracted attention presidential and pedestrian. You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from these policies—the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects—are the product of democratic will. And so to challenge the police is to challenge the American people who send them into the ghettos armed with the same self-generated fears that compelled the people who think they are white to flee the cities and into the Dream. The problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that our country is ruled by majoritarian pigs.

And on the subject of "the Dream," as Coates puts it, here's Ryan Cooper writing in The Week:

The American Dream allows us whites to pretend that our relative affluence is the result of our own actions on a fair playing field. But it just ain't so.

If you have not seen the Sandra Bland traffic stop dashcam, watch it.