[Flash Walken]

Why have there been so many police killings of black men in recent years that an activist group focused on stopping police violence, Black Lives Matter, has come to prominence in American politics?

African-American comedian D.L. Hughley fears he knows the answer. Our children and parents and friends are "brutalized and nobody says anything," he said on CNN Thursday, his eyes welling with tears. "It's too much. It's too much."

Hughley later posted to Facebook an article published last year by law professor and former military police captain Samuel V. Jones. The article refers to a 2006 FBI report that warns of a concerted, decades-long attempt by white supremacists to infiltrate law enforcement.

"[T]he term 'ghost skins' has gained currency among white supremacists to describe those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes," the FBI report states.

There is no evidence that the officers involved in the St. Paul and Baton Rogue shootings have any ties to white supremacist groups or hold racist views. Official investigations will determine whether the shootings were justified or not. The frequency of such incidents, however, suggests at the least that commonplace cultural attitudes about class and race make police stops very dangerous for young black men. And the 2006 FBI report argues that sometimes there are even worse motives at play.

"Several key events preceded the report," Jones wrote. "A federal court found that members of a Los Angeles sheriff's department formed a neo-Nazi gang and habitually terrorized the black community. Later, the Chicago police department fired Jon Burge, a detective with reputed ties to the Ku Klux Klan, after discovering he tortured over 100 black male suspects. Thereafter, the mayor of Cleveland discovered that many of the city police locker rooms were infested with 'White Power' graffiti. Years later, a Texas sheriff department discovered that two of its deputies were recruited for the Klan."

For many white Americans, the typical policeman of their imagination remains the one that the late illustrator Norman Rockwell made iconic: the kind, dedicated, soft-hearted man of the community. And that officer certainly exists in police departments across the country. But for black Americans, as expertly showcased in the recent ESPN documentary about the OJ Simpson murder case, the reality of policing in the U.S. is very different. Last year, another African-American comedian, Chris Rock, posted to social media several photos of him being stopped by police. In one post, he wrote: "Stopped by the cops again -- wish me luck."

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