From my new column in Taki’s Magazine:

The Broken Arm of the Law
Steve Sailer

March 15, 2023

Occasionally, big media institutions still do valuable reporting.

As you’ll recall, the prestige press humiliated themselves back in January when the story first broke about how five black Memphis policemen beat a black motorist to death. The media’s initial response was heavy on explaining over and over that white people were still to blame… for reasons.

But now the Washington Post has paid for former sports reporter Robert Klemko, who looks like he is about one-fourth black, to talk to nine old-time cops who served at the Memphis police academy about what has gone wrong with the new generation.

Are they wholly trustworthy? Perhaps not (office politics are endlessly complex), but what they say makes a lot of sense.

As with most patterns in human society, their explanation involves both nature (Memphis has been scraping the bottom of the barrel harder when hiring cops) and nurture (its police academy has been made easier in order to not flunk out its new recruits, who are more fragile: mentally, emotionally, and ethically):

Memphis police academy cut corners while scrambling to hire, officers say

Five ex-officers charged with beating Tyre Nichols were hired at a time of lower standards and scrutiny, current and former officers say

Read the whole thing there.