What might happen to federal checks on anti-Black violence once Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office in January?
Maybe this question popped into your head after you read that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the killing of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman who was fatally shot by a white deputy with Illinois’ Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office (apparently, he was spooked by … a pot of boiling water?). In a letter, the DOJ said that the shooting “raises serious concerns” about the office’s “interactions with Black people.”
Over the past four years, anti-Black violence has gotten plenty of federal attention. A White House spokesperson this week condemned a neo-Nazi march in Columbus, Ohio, calling it a “sickening display” and saying that President Joe Biden “abhors the hateful poison of Nazism, antisemitism, and racism.” And at the start of his term, Biden launched a dozen investigations into law enforcement agencies on the state and local level to address police misconduct and racial discrimination.
It’s possible that, under Trump, anti-Black threats, whatever form they might come in, won’t be taken seriously — or that they’ll be ignored outright.
In important ways, we’ve already seen how recklessly Trump grapples with threats to Black Americans’ safety. Recall his response to the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that was planned by white nationalists: “Both sides” had “some very fine people,” Trump claimed.
We also saw during Trump’s first stint in the Oval Office that he was willing — more than willing — to bully the DOJ and try to force it to do his bidding, which never included protecting Black communities. He booted Jeff Sessions from his position as the attorney general (and head of the DOJ) because he recused himself from an investigation into pro-Trump meddling in the 2016 election. Sessions’ successor, William Barr, resigned from the post after he challenged Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen — a lie that imperiled the lives of Black poll workers.
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Still, there’s reason to think that things might be worse the second time around. Look no further than Trump’s pick for the country’s next top law enforcement officer: former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.
Gaetz has long made clear his hostility to efforts to advance racial equality. In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, Gaetz told Fox News that racial justice activists are filled with hate, and that the movement to remove monuments to white nationalism amounted to “cultural genocide.”
A DOJ steered by a Trump hard-liner like Gaetz is nothing short of disturbing, as Omar Wasow, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, told Capital B last month. He emphasized that a federal government under this kind of influence is very likely to apply the law unevenly, using it to target people it perceives to be foes.
“For Black Americans, this could mean that the DOJ or FBI stops inquiries into police departments that are seen to be violating civil rights,” Wasow explained. “It could also mean that their locally elected progressive prosecutor now has to tussle with the federal government — the kind of thing that comes up in Project 2025.”
Additionally, current DOJ officials are hurrying to finalize reform agreements with police departments — the result of those investigations Biden launched that are mentioned above — because Trump has signaled that he plans on eliminating this key civil rights initiative.
Concern about the changes likely coming to federal oversight is widespread. In his first comments since Trump’s selection of Gaetz, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave an address that was at once a loving farewell to the department he’s led for nearly four years and a note of encouragement to its employees to stay strong under new management.
“I may be coming to the end of my tenure at the Justice Department,” he said on Monday, “but I know that all of you will continue in the department’s mission — what has always been its mission — to uphold the rule of law, keep our country safe, and protect civil rights.”
The post The Threat of Unchecked Anti-Black Violence in 2025 and Beyond appeared first on Capital B News.
