Do Better is an op-ed column by writer Lincoln Anthony Blades, debunking fallacies regarding the politics of race, culture, and society — because if we all knew better, we'd do better.

In America, 523 people have been shot and killed by police so far this year, according to The Washington Post's database. That's just under three people per day, or one every eight hours and 48 minutes — which means by the time you read this, that number will most likely be outdated. A report by The Guardian in 2015 found that police officers in the United States shoot and kill more civilians in a few days than some nations do over a span of years.

Last year, Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post reported that unarmed black Americans were five times likelier to be shot by a police officer than white Americans. A study by the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization revealed that people with a mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by a police officer during an encounter than other civilians.

These are statistics well-reported and examined in the years since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri — the effectiveness of police is an issue on the minds of many Americans, one tackled in this column before. Yet, a recent Gallup poll found that some American citizens have gained confidence in police during this time, particularly white people and conservatives. (Trust among nearly all other groups declined.) What's more is that politicians and law enforcement agencies have taken victim-blaming to a new level, suggesting — and, in some states, requiring — that children undergo "interaction" trainings with the forces who are hired to bravely protect them and to equitably serve them, yet fail to do both.

In New Jersey's General Assembly, the A1114 bill passed in June of this year, requiring school districts to "provide instruction on interacting with law enforcement in a manner marked by mutual cooperation and respect," to students in grades K through 12, and earned a 76-0 vote in the lower house of state legislature. The bill's primary sponsor, New Jersey Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, said it isn't intended to blame police encounters gone wrong on children, but rather to prepare them for real world interactions with officers. She told NBC News, "The number of police related shootings around the nation have created a mistrust of police in many communities. This can help rebuild the trust that is essential for law enforcement to work."

Community cannot instill trust into law enforcement when it has been harmed by them. "Rebuilding trust" can't happen if it's never been established: the history of black Americans is one rife with constant incursion from cops, from slave patrols, to violent mistreatment when they demonstrate their civil rights, to serving as the agents of mass incarceration. Police have constantly been a force of terror for minorities in the U.S. The idea that "respectful" interactions with the police — professionals whose training includes de-escalation tactics — are wholly dependent on the courteous behavior of civilians is transparently false in an age where smartphones show us images of cops beating, terrorizing, and killing suspects with little to no regard on a frequent basis. We shouldn't adopt bills to teach young kids how to survive police encounters, we should train police not to kill civilians — we should train them to value life, especially the lives of black children, who, according to a 2014 ProPublica analysis, are far more at risk of being shot by the police than white kids.