Black people organized and got the Facebook cops fired. That story must be told

Solomon Jones | The Philadelphia Inquirer 

I’ve long known that some of the Philadelphia police officers who were fired after their racist or bigoted Facebook comments were exposed by the 2019 Plainview Project were trying to get their jobs back through arbitration. That’s why reading about it in The Inquirer was no surprise.

I was, however, taken aback that the full story of the coalition of civil rights organizations that worked to get the officers fired in the first place continues to go untold. So, let me be clear. The largest mass police firing in Philadelphia history did not happen simply because the officers’ racist, anti-Islamic, and violent Facebook posts were discovered. They were fired because the Black community and our allies mounted a concerted and organized effort against them.

Perhaps that fact is inconsequential to those whose history has consistently been at the forefront of the American narrative. But for Black people, who have watched the decades-long whitewashing of the Tulsa Race Massacre, it matters. Here’s why …

Click here to read the full column in the Philadelphia Inquirer