In the U.S., there are fewer topics more explosive than the intersection of policing and race. It’s a topic along which clear lines get drawn adding to the further divisions in American politics. It is a topic that both sides oversimplify to fit their preferred narrative. In Blood Betrayal, Khan dives into the complications. And the scenarios that she has in this book are extremely complicated, if unbalanced. After all, the cops get to live; the minorities…not so much.

The job of policing the community is an impossible one. Cops are human; humans are fallible creatures; thus, mistakes are inevitable. Unfortunately, when the police make mistakes, lives are ruined. Because they are agents of state violence, cops should be under intense scrutiny. But cops, like every other American, are spoiled children who don’t want to be second guessed. Cops believe they should be able to harm and even kill civilians without consequences, especially when those civilians are people of color. Now, they will say my statement isn’t true; yet watch how police react when another cop anywhere in the nation shoots an unarmed suspect. Their reaction is completely different than if it a civilian shoots anyone. The same people who were cautioning us to wait until all the evidence was presented after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd were chanting “Lock her up. Lock her up.” at Hillary. In Blood Betrayal, Khan shows what a minimal amount of scrutiny looks like and how childishly the police react to it. They close ranks and assume an us against them footing that places the police at war against their fellow citizens.

The job of policing is an impossible one, and cops should be and are given protection from actions that would be considered a crime if committed by civilians. The job itself chips away at a person’s humanity, and officers involved in shootings pay heavy psychological burdens unless they’re psychopaths. Officers, correctly, believe that their jobs are fraught with danger and, incorrectly, believe the media is their enemy. (In fact, the media uncritically reprints police department statements without fact checking them.) Civilians, correctly, believe that officers view them as the enemy and, incorrectly, believe officers consciously target minorities. It’s been shown that in the U.S., at least, people are unconsciously biased to see black men as more violent. In American, to be black is to be a criminal. This is a population problem, and since police come from the U.S. population, it is also a police problem. At the same time, civilians use the police as an extension of their own racism. This puts officers in the unfortunate position of being a tool of racism against their own will. It’s easy to see how the police come to believe it’s an us versus them situation. Khan uses Harry Cooper to depict this. He was well liked by his fellow cops and his community. He’s a cop who never wanted and had to use his weapon in a long career. Yet, he caused one death. It weighs on him; it has been a nightmare for him.

When officers shoot minorities, the incident becomes a cause. The families and officers involved quickly lose control of the situation, and they become faces of “causes”. The human tolls on everybody are lost as the incident is escalated into a cause. Khan captures that here brilliantly, and her characters are focused on keeping the incident at a human level. She shows how it becomes a cause without losing site of the people at the center of it. Khan’s writing is nuanced and wonderful.