Apples and accidents

What do apples and accidents have in common?

In the 1930s, Herbert William Heinrich reviewed thousands of accident reports completed by supervisors, who generally blamed workers for causing accidents without conducting detailed investigations into the root causes. [Source]

Out of those reports, he started what became known as behavior-based safety theory – the idea that 95 percent of all workplace safety incidents can be eliminated by changing workplace behaviors. Previously, workplace "accidents" were equated to "acts of God," which had been a convenient way for factory managers to dismiss worker injuries and fatalities, or pin the blame on worker carelessness. After all, if accidents were an act of God (which no one can oppose), why bother trying to prevent them? And if they were the result of carelessness, an injury was an act of divine punishment. [Source]

So when the president's economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, said that he does not believe there is systemic racism in law enforcement, and that "harm comes when you have some very bad apples" in the police force [Source], I don't buy it. Just as there is no such thing as an "accident," there is no such thing as "a bad apple."

Rather, there is a pervasive tolerance for disrespect of the population that's being policed. And just as the Herbert Heinrich/Frank Bird triangle shows, for every George Floyd incident that ignites the country, there are thousands of other, lesser forms of harassment. 

Perpetuating the myth of "a few bad apples" allows us to ignore the innumerable slights the black community faces on a daily basis. If we want to stop fatalities due to police, it won't come from "weeding out" the bad apples. It will have to come from a change in policing culture.