I do have to consider a point about which I suspect we (including the police) have no data: how much they draw their arms without firing and if it's done too often.

What put me into this thought was a traffic stop in a neighboring municipality a few years ago that began with the officer approaching me with gun drawn and holstering it before any words were said but after the moment that the officer could first see my skin color, gender, and vehicle make. It was apparent that the officer uddenly realizing that the person stopped was a middle-age, white woman riding a BMW motorcycle clearly meant vastly more favorable treatment that day.

Looks like I was a little inattentive to my sentence construction in my previous comment. I wrote "...the number of police-related and non-police-related homicides...", which might have suggested that every death due to police action involved a criminal act on the part of the officer (i.e., a homicide), which of course, isn't even close to being the case. I should have written something like "the number of deaths due to police action and those related to (non-police-related) homicide..."

Kevin, I am deeply disappointed in how lacking in nuance, empathy, and understanding of the world beyond data this post is. From the headline on, this article is a fabulous articulation of the utter disconnect between the life experienced by you, an upper-middle class white man (as well as your readership, most of whom are also white and upper-middle class), and the everyday experience of poor black communities in this country.

Unlike you, Councilperson Charlie Reece (who is, like myself, an upper middle class white man) took one small step toward a deeper understanding of that experience. He, at least, was willing to consider that his experience, data-backed or otherwise, is not that of huge swathes of the population of Durham and United States more broadly. He did not go far enough, but I commend him for his admission that while he may not understand the depths of distrust, rage, and tragedy in many people of color communities in our Bull City, his experience may not provide an entire picture. He trusts someone who represents communities that he does not. That is the mark of a great politician.

A page full of data, followed by vague attempts at painting a balanced picture (oh DATA and BALANCE, those great deities which we must all worship at the altar of these days if we are to be TAKEN SERIOUSLY. Never mind that the data is far from accurate, rarely complete, and often gathered and reported by those very agencies being judged by it), does not address the very recent and very old trauma experienced by communities of color at the hands of people who look like you and me. You see police reform, body cameras, community policing, and so on and so forth as great solutions, the details of which must be tweaked here and there, but that otherwise will bring peace, quiet, and security to all communities, just like yours and mine.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, sir, but that's not the real world most black folks live in. It's not a matter of how many people are shot by police or by civilians (heck, by that measure, even toddlers are far more dangerous than terrorists).

It's that mothers of young black men must teach those male offspring not to appear too confident lest police take that the wrong way.

It's that those mothers live in fear when their 17 year old boy goes out to a party at night.

It's that that party has a dozen cop cars outside it, while the frat party down the block is left alone until someone calls in a noise complaint, at which point one or two cops show up and politely shut down the event.

It's that a seven year old black kid with celebral palsy must be dragged back to his house by his ten year old brother when gunshots occur in his neighborhood park, the police nowhere to be seen, then or later.

It's that the one of the best chances a poor black kid has of 'making it' in these United States is by joining the military or police. Or, you know, be a basketball player or hip hop star.

It's that a black professor gets accosted by police outside his own front door because he dares live in a white town.

It's that being black makes you far more likely to have your car searched for drugs; be arrested rather than let off with a warning; be roughed up by police; receive a longer sentence; be sent to a higher security jail; die in that jail, than being white.

It's that being white buys you protection, and being black requires you to say 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir', then hope that the cop who just stopped you at a traffic light is in a good mood.

It's that white folks shake their heads and say 'if only she was just more polite to that cop' when you die in a jail cell, beaten the crap of, and are found hanged to death in your cell. But wait, that was a suicide, right?

It's that the picture that appears on the news is of you wearing a hoodie, looking 'threatening'; that the first thing that is discussed is what job your dad had when you were growing up and how that affected the time he spent with you, not how terrible it is that your swimming career be ruined if you go to jail, or whether you are mentally ill.

It's all these things, and more. Far, far more.

And yes, I am aware that you know these things. You know them as facts. You know them as bits of data. You know them because those loud, obnoxious activists shout and scream until someone pays enough attention to gather that precious data that shows severe racial bias in your local Police Department.

You know these as things that need to fixed. You have solutions, ideas, policies. But you do not know them on your flesh. You do not know them in your blood. Nor do I, and I am grateful every god damn day for that fact.

Because of who I am, because of the color of my skin, because of the accrued wealth of my family, I am grateful every day that people like Jillian Johnson exist. I am grateful that she can run for office. I am grateful that she can win in this wonderful city I chose to make my home in. I am grateful that she can represent those people who have given up on trying to teach people like you and me about their everyday lives, about why we are wrong.

So yes, the police are far more dangerous than civilians bearing arms. They are more dangerous in deeper, more insidious, more heinous ways than you or I can ever know. So please, retreat to your safe space, hide behind your numbers. The real world is far worse, Kevin, than what is dreamt of in your spreadsheets.

I think it's also important to acknowledge that violence is a far more encompassing category than killing. Police violence runs the gamut from low level harassment, suspicious treatment of innocent people, unwarranted detainment, unnecessary SWAT deployments, non-lethal violence, racial profiling. It's extremely short sighted to look only at lethal encounters as if that is the only form of violence that creates a perception of the police as a menace and not a protection. There is no way to quantify, and no statistic that tracks, police harassment of communities of color. You can have a gun and the authority that stands behind that, and be really dangerous without ever having to pull the trigger.

As a burgeoning social worker who works with impoverished clients who don't tend to have access to CDC statistics when they are stopped by the police, I recognize that Johnson is pointing toward fear of death as an issue, particularly in the face of the above mentioned situations. Here's the kicker... Data has to be collected and reported. Data is useful for debates. But, the data behind trauma and fear is not as quickly reported and connected to real situations, such as fear of an a who distrusts your entire culture. While I may not agree with the literal comment by Johnson, I agree with what an authority with a gun in one face represents to a community that is so often relegated to "gang members" and "thugs", people who aren't often invited to these lofty debates.

I read this supposed rational and logical response to Jillian Johnson. Backed up with government stats comparing police killings to civilian homicide rates, no less. As if the state violence that Johnson described is limited solely to police killing people outright. Never mind that the most common form of police violence that people of color experience is everyday harassment, whether in one's own neighborhood or while out driving.

I'm a so-called law-abiding citizen, respectable, college educated and everything. I still fear being anywhere near police. Because no matter how polite I am or how small and non-threatening I appear to be, on the wrong day with the wrong pissed-off cop I could easily become Sandra Bland or Tamir Rice. Because that is the experience of being Black in the United States: you are always seen as a danger to society. That is the experience that thousands of Durham residents have, and the experience that Jillian Johnson confronts everyday as both an African American and a city council member. Unless you know what it means to be feared by your country's dominant class for simply existing, there is no way you're qualified to judge the lives of those of us who do.

Hey Everyone!

I believe Kevin's math is faulty. And since he (and commenter Paolo, and others) have based so much of their argument on the certainty of numbers, it really matters.

Here's the deal. If we consider only the CDC numbers that Kevin cites, we see that, indeed, a black male is 50x more likely to be killed by a civilian. But this number - 50 - is only meaningful if we have the same number of police officers and civilian population. Of course, we don't - and that's why Jillian's statement is not only true in terms of "cultural experience", but also "hard data".

From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_the_United_States), we have around 800k sworn officers in the USA with arresting powers. As of 2008 anyway - call it a million if you like. Of course, many of these wouldn't be on patrol with a weapon, but still, call it a million. That means only 1 person in 320 (at most) is a sworn officer.

The reason that this is important is that this means that, from the perspective of this abstract "black male" subject, a police officer is 320/50x, or 6.4x more likely to kill them, than the average civilian. So, according to the numbers (supplied by Kevin), a police officer is indeed far more "dangerous" than the average person. This is a case where it's not just some nebulous "experience" - this is fact, right?

Here, I'll provide an analogy if the numbers are confusing. I'm far more likely to die of influenza than of ebola. Statistically speaking, worldwide, many many more people die of flu each year than ebola. But many many more people contract flu each year, right? Just because it kills more people overall doesn't mean it's the more dangerous disease. (In this example, ordinary people are flu, and police officers are ebola.) Which would you rather come into contact with?

I'd expect that Kevin should retract his argument and assert the opposite, since it is so grounded in numbers - Paolo and the others, too, I suppose.

Of course, as many intelligent commenters have already pointed out, relying only on CDC numbers of deaths is not necessarily a way toward a comprehensive understanding of state-sanctioned violence and all it entails. Police also assault people non-lethally; threaten people, at gunpoint or otherwise; use tear gas; stop and search people, perhaps illegally; detain people; and deport people. Depending on your point of view and your politics, you may find individual acts in these categories permissable, or necessary, or you may find them abhorrent.

Then, of course, one should factor in the other aspect of what Ms. Johnson was talking about - namely, state-sanctioned violence across the globe, including military intervention. If we start counting violence at the hands of US military personnel - well, then, the numbers start to become even more grim.

Statements like Mr. Reece's are really important because they stress the importance of understanding how other people perceive the world. But they can also end up being dismissive. Jillian's statement isn't (or isn't just) a statement drawn from the "experience of the black community" - it's also a statement that is backed up by the data.

I think it's a reasonable debate to be had about whether police (if we choose as a society to have them) are *supposed* to be violent. But using a misreading of data to discredit an entire critical discussion about the problems in our current police system is far more "indefensible" than Ms. Johnson's original post.

As a social scientist with a Master in Social Work, I’m sad to say I could use this article in a research class as an example of a Secondary Analysis gone wrong. For one thing, Kevin misinterprets the data he cites, and commenter Ben provides an excellent explanation of how Kevin’s conclusion is false solely based on the data he picked.

Kevin also fails to provide operational definitions for “cops and soldiers” and “state-sanctioned violence,” and in doing so falls victim to measurement bias. The unstated operational definitions that he arbitrarily applies to his analysis seem to be “cops in the United States” and “violence only in the case of killings in the United States.” Commenters Allan, Salma, and Ben have highlighted the limitations of Kevin’s myopic scope. Moreover, his analysis is strictly quantitative, and I would argue that in order to most accurately operationalize “state-sanctioned violence,” a researcher/journalist/commentator would need to incorporate qualitative analysis to glean insight into forms of violence that cannot be captured within quantitative data.

If Kevin had used operational definitions that accurately reflected Jillian’s initial comment and subsequent clarifications, then he would have also included in his quantitative analysis statistics on physical injury, community destruction, detainment, deportation, displacement, and so on, as perpetuated by police and soldiers throughout the world. If he had integrated a qualitative analysis, he would have included commentaries on the physical and mental impacts of repression, over policing, psychological warfare, and so on, from people most directly impacted by state-sanctioned violence, such as what commenter YMC posted above. And if he had taken these necessary steps to perform a secondary analysis, then he too would have concluded that cops and soldiers are the most dangerous people with guns and that state-sanctioned violence causes more harm than non-state sanctioned violence.

From a historical standpoint, I feel like this article compliments the reactions of national media in the wake of Dr. King’s Beyond Vietnam speech, in which King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Outlets like the Washington Post responded by declaring that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people." I point this out not to compare Jillian with Dr. King, but to compare Kevin with those whose theory of social change was conceived within a limited realm of “practical” reform. As a result, when social justice leaders made strong statements against unjust power, these folks sided with unjust power, intentionally or not.

Disappointing. Here’s to hoping BCR will do better next time.

And I’ll say that I am proud to live in a city with an elected official like Johnson, who prioritizes the development of political power amongst those most impacted by systemic oppression. I look forward to voting more people into office who share her values.

I appreciate the thoughtful comments and dialogue from all.

I will note that it's interesting that I hear both of the activism perspectives I alluded to in the piece coming up here: (a) those who (rightly, IMO) note the feelings of terror and fear that many feel in the police's presence, and (b) those who seem to argue a broader philosophical point linking police powers with armies and the perceived illegitimacy of state violence as a broader concept.

Those who see in modern policing and military actions the misuse of an otherwise-appropriate state power -- this is essentially where my POV is -- would I think agree that it is crucial that society find ways to improve the perceived legitimacy and actual appropriateness of state-owned violence. It's hard to look at actions in, say, Iraq in the early 2000s, or US actions in developing nations during the Cold War, without regret for our country's actions. The same applies, deeply, to the findings of police misconduct in recent years.

I do think there is a generational divide of sorts that we've seen play out in the discussions this year of the notorious early 1990s crime bill. Like the racially-divergent sentencing rules for powder vs. crack cocaine preceding it, there are problematic elements in the legislation. I'm less interested here in the merits of the law -- it's far from clear that the crime bill was what changed the picture on crime, with lead's banishment from paint and gasoline are among the least controversial alternative explanations -- as I am in the generation gap in perceptions on whether adding more police to urban neighborhoods was a good or bad thing. (See, e.g., the NY Times' April 18 piece, "On Crime Bill and the Clintons, Young Blacks Clash With Parents" for an interesting coverage of both sides -- http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/politics/hillary-bill-clinton-crime-bill.html.)

To me, that generation gap undergirds my reply to those who would argue that it is somehow self-evident that the views Johnson has expressed should hold sway, or that I am in no position to comment on a societal matter in which I, as noted above, do not have a first hand view. There is at times within activist movements (and this may be definitional for such actions) an ideological cohesion and unity that assumes only one worldview is right. While my personal background does not afford me their viewpoint, as the NYT notes, there are many who have other similarities in background, modulo age, who would reach a different view from either me or the activists who have been so engaged in these conversations.

I find tremendous common ground with those in this (a) category, and that's what I'm alluding to above -- that it's crucial for the good of the polity and society that we make drastic improvements to community policing and other uses of force.

I am certain there are those who fall into camp (b). That's a philosophy that I think is completely untenable with modern society in any way. The notion that all state-sponsored violence is inherently immoral and wrong ultimately challenges the liberal state. And it quickly leads down a path that challenges appropriate government powers of regulation, taxation and the like. I find no common ground for debate with this position, which runs counter to centuries of widely-accepted thought underpinning all free societies.

Kevin, if you don't fix your math, this whole piece is trash. Sorry, this isn't about a "generational divide" - this is about the misuse of "hard data" as the cornerstone of your argument. What is left here when those statistics are taken away? To leave in print the claim that Johnson's comments are "indefensible" while not acknowledging their factual accuracy is unethical, at best.

Calling a group of people dangerous is not a great way to bring them into a productive dialogue, or getting them to listen to what else you have to say. Johnson obviously wasn't trying to get the police to listen.

@Ram: Almost the entirety of white America has called black folks dangerous for many years, ever since slave revolts were the biggest threat to their prosperity. Jillian's comments about the police are not the problem here.

@Kevin: "There is at times within activist movements (and this may be definitional for such actions) an ideological cohesion and unity that assumes only one worldview is right."

There is at all times within the white establishment a unity that implies that only what they see around their neighborhoods is valid; that was is good for them is good for everyone else. That adherence to the dominant narrative of the powerful classes, and deep reluctance to engage with ideas that contradict it on a basic level, is incredibly troubling.

I actually happen to agree that abolishing the police is neither possible nor especially desirable. It seems quite likely that a vast majority of people of all walks of life agree on that. As Natalie and others point out above, police engagement with people of color communities is more complex and nuanced than 'they come, they kill'. Believe it or not, many radical activists know this full well.

And yet, there is huge disillusionment with notions of police reform, body cameras, community policing, and so on. That deep distrust does not come from nowhere. It does not come from ideology, nor from prejudice. It comes from everyday experience over generations, from deep trauma.

Police and prison abolitionists may not have the answers either, but at least they're willing to engage with something other than what there 'always was and always will be'. That is what can lead to change, not strict adherence to a framework that has hurt so many.

What you don't seem to see, Kevin, is that it is you that has a singular point of view, an unwavering uniform ideology. Furthermore, you are backed by all the power, money, and force in the world. It would do the world of good if you, and many others in the traditional corridors of power and influence, would take the time to step away from your data, and go listen.

In a further comment to Ram, Johnson's job is not a mediator with police officers. She is one of seven supervisors of the police chief's boss.

In my work, I have never had the luxury of expecting management three levels up of including me personally in policy decisions. If I have engaged (and I have, being a natural born troublemaker), I do so understanding that I first have to gain legitimacy at the table relating to policy. And I certainly don't expect that to be presented on Facebook.

Durham police are not, in their role as police, a constituent group of the city. They are employees of the city.

As to Rick, I'm not sure why your demand to part from standard criminological practice deserves a response. Wait away...

Well Michael I guess it boils down to this: I am a person who likes raw numbers. I am not an "enlightened" criminologist or theorist. So yes, I will keep waiting.

@Rann and @Michael: my comment was intended as a direct response to Natalie's true and important point that the solution to the problem of overzealous policing (which is one of many real problems) is open dialogue between police and other citizens.

As I know from my experience in Israel, open dialogue is not encouraged when a politician calls one of the groups that is supposed to engage in the dialogue "the most dangerous". Whatever the factual merits of Johnson's claim (and I absolutely do not dispute those factual merits), it is not going to encourage open dialogue, any more than Netanyahu encourages open dialogue by dismissing Palestinian discontent with his state. And if you don't believe me, then go ask the chief of police whether Johnson's comment has encouraged open dialogue between police and other citizens.

@Michael Bacon
"whom did you think you were voting for before?"

I'd wager a large number of people in Durham uncritically voted for her because the People's Alliance and Indy endorsed her. They took their trusted organizations and voted in that direction. Whether she has the same level of support in the next election remains to be seen.

I'd also wager that many in Durham, whose level of engagement stopped at the ubiquitous cute green signs and PA/Indy endorsement also voted for her because they felt good about voting for a black progressive woman for council thinking that they would get a progressive like Bell, Schwel, Moffit, Catotti, or Woodard.

If she maintains the level of support in the next election then there is evidence that it's based on her work and contribution to council as a known entity versus faith in proxy organizations.

I think she adds to council and I like her as a person but I'm ducking out to avoid tomatoes and accusation now.

Rick, raw numbers mean nothing without context. If you like raw numbers without analysis, stop trying to analyze them into a political position. If you wish to use numbers to support a viewpoint, then you need to listen to people that know more than you about their analysis and interpretation. Ben is correct that, on an individual level, if you were a black man and were to walk down a street and see a civilian on the right sidewalk and a police officer on the left, you would be statistically safer staying to the right. Perhaps civilian cause 50 times more death overall than police, yet there are 300 times more civilians in the country. So yes, even if we want to be myopically shortsighted and treat this one data point like some proof of rightness, we must still conclude that it reflects police as being more dangerous than civilians. Furthermore, to assume that all homicides of black males is automatically black on black crime is super racist, and is not even supported by the statistic. The stat says nothing about the perpetrator of the crime. Ever heard of lynching? Assuming that all black homicide victims must have been killed by black people ignores a massive history of lynching, hate crimes, and other violence against black people. It is another example of misusing statistics and inserting ones own political bias, and using statistics to give your bias a veneer of respectability. Instead of waiting, learn more math and history. Your time will be better spent.

@Ram -- thanks for the context, but again, we're not talking about a marginalized group that needs to be brought to the table. If we have problematic police officers and we are willing to take direct steps to confront the problem, we have some very easy ways to address the problem -- fire them, sanction them, put them to administrative roles, put them in charge of the evidence locker, etc. I cannot repeat this enough -- they are employees, they enjoy their role as officers of the city or county at the pleasure of the city or county. And if the problem with police violence is policy (and I think, in the main, it is), we should be changing policy in order to change outcomes. In that, the police violence is unlike every other form of violence in the city, in that it should be absolutely answerable to elected officials. And that is what makes the FOP's scolding so unsettling.

@Rick -- I apologize if I sounded dismissive. It was responding to what I read as a dismissive tone in your post. To put it in very simple terms, if I tell you that dogs kill more Americans than rattlesnakes every year (they do), then tell you I'm going to lock you in a small room with either a random dog or a random rattlesnake, which one are you going to pick? That's what individual risk represents and what Johnson is addressing.

I'll respond to Kevin in a separate post.

Hey Kevin!

Thanks for your response in your last comment. I appreciate the forthright engagement with the commenters - not always easy, I know.

I think, though, there's still a couple points to be addressed:

In #1 of your comment, you raise the issue of violence toward white males. However, I don't believe your argument supports your conclusion. Just because a police officer is more likely to kill me (a white male) than an average person, or even if that is even more true than for a black male subject, doesn't conflict with the fact that I (a white male) am much safer in general than a black male. I believe you've attempted to downplay the relevance of this data by suggesting that this creates an absurdity - though it doesn't. So when you write that it produces "a conclusion not well supported by the painful weight of history", you're really not making a logically sound argument.

The reason that I focus on ("harp on", maybe?) these statistics, though, is because I think that your original argument is really foundationally built on them. If you were writing this blog post from scratch, and you couldn't describe Ms. Johnson's comments as "indefensible" (because they were demonstrably true), what would the article become? Clearly, there is a lot of nuanced discussion to be had around the role of public officials, the relationship of a councilperson to the police and the citizenry, etc., but I suspect that conversation necessarily plays out differently when what the "controversial statement" is actually just a statement of fact.

(Two asides: a) Mr. Reece's statement irked me, not because of its intent, but because it suggested, or allowed people to argue, that this was all about subjective experience. b) The moment in which I disagree with Ms. Johnson, from the point of view of the data, was in her follow-up comments to the Indy. She was right the first time.)

Finally, when you write "in discussing police and military, we are talking about a group of people that is indeed supposed to have a monopoly on the authorized use of deadly force", you're really changing the goalposts, aren't you? Ms. Johnson said police are dangerous - to say "they're supposed to be dangerous" isn't really saying that she's wrong at all. And I would point out that, throughout history, "legal" and "authorized" violence has so often been used in terrible ways: to support slavery, to support Jim Crow, etc. Unless you're willing to argue that police and military violence has now, finally, in 2016, reached the point that it is wholly moral and just, then I'm not sure how you can justify complaining about someone criticizing it, even if they are on city council.

@Kevin -- Thanks for the reply. Johnson is one of seven city council members -- she is not the mayor, nor is she representing a single ward of the city. As such, yes, she has some responsibility to build consensus. However, in the realm of Wild-Ass Guesses, would it be fair to say that at least 1/7th of the city shares her concern for excessive police violence in the city? Is having that concern about city policy expressed by one member of council a terrible thing? Instead of seeing this as threatening to police officers, I suppose I see this as finally having a person in authority bringing a very real fear of many Durham citizens to bear on a police department that would rather ignore it, and groups like the FOP are made uncomfortable by that. I think that's a good thing.

My scholarly work has moved away from the geography of crime, where it was 10 years ago, but I dug around in that world enough to come away with some favored general theories of urban crime. Clearly, people of color are not only subject to more violence from police than white people, but are also subject to more violence by non-police. Ideally, a coherent analysis has to incorporate both the police violence and the non-police violence. The best work, to my mind, comes from the theory of legitimacy -- that maintaining an orderly community is not derived from a "tough" police state, but from the general belief that the law and its organs are on balance positive forces. If people believe the law is legitimate, they will both follow the law and cooperate with its organs. If the law is perceived as illegitimate, all kinds of things happen. Even the highly problematic Broken Windows theory starts with this. If the general sense develops that one can steal things or hurt people with impunity, law and order falls apart.

So take the very relevant cases of La'Vante Biggs or Jesus Huerta. A police force which elevates the threat to a suicidal or runaway son upon arrival, for whatever reason that may be, is a dysfunctional one. That force will not be perceived as legitimate. To put it a different way, if as a white person I discovered that my 17 year old son had stolen something minor but for which a police report had been filed, I might make him go turn himself into the police with the item in question, with the general comfort that most police officers in this country would give him a stern talking to and send him home. That episode would teach him respect for the police and for the law. Were I black, there is no way in hell I would send my son to the police the way things stand now -- the fear that he could easily end up dead or in prison for 5 years is very accurate and very real.

That is what police illegitimacy does. It destroys the critical level of trust between the community and the officers whose entire purpose is to serve and protect the community. And in so doing, it fails the community by breaking down the ability of the police to do legitimate work. In Durham, just as in cities around the country, the African-American community for very good reason has absolutely no trust that police officers, prosecutors, judges, or the penal system as a whole will be anything but a terrorizing influence on their families lives. If we want to deal with urban crime, that has to change.

Now, with that said, we now have in the body that ultimately supervises the work of the Durham police a member stating the fears of a large portion of our community, the community that is also most victimized by crime. That alone is not nearly enough to bridge the divide of mistrust, but it is a far better start than insisting on the inherent goodness of the police and shouting down anyone who disagrees, which is what has happened in this whole sorry mess.

So, yes, in general I suppose I agree with your general take that anti-governmentalism is a problem, and that we need better and more legitimate policing far more than we need an absence of policing, but I think that's putting too fine a point on what's happening here. The opinions Johnson expressed are hardly unusual among Durham citizens. Delegitimizing those opinions fundamentally worsens the problem by increasing the disconnect between the organs of state and the community.