Yeah, you knew this was coming.
The sad thing we all knew it was coming. Its the ones we do not hear about that worry me most, but we don’t want to hear it because we want to believe the problem is fixed. Until…
Which name today? What state? What lie are we going to be served about due diligence and consequences by usually a white old guy that climbed the ranks they all do, with the right amount of asskissing and some covering of dirty laundry?
The lady who politely and calmly talked down a cop who shot her boyfriend at point blank range? All while catching it all on video? Diamond Reynolds
The young woman moving to Texas enroute to a new job and whole new life ends up dead in a jail cell… over a taillight? Sandra Bland
And now, a young man who had a counterfeit bill… something rather easily migrated into the system in a thousand innocent ways… dead by 4 cops. Slowly suffocated. George Floyd
If this had been a white man, would the reaction had been the same? What about a white woman?
It’s gotten bad enough there is a website now devoted to tracking it, Mapping Police Violence.
Why the hell is this coming from the force that is solely to “protect and serve”? The only one they seem to be protecting is themselves.
I do not disparage the ones who got into this career to do good. However, it is one of the only high risk positions that does not require any kind of degree.
Let me repeat that… THIS JOB ENCOURAGES HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL EDUCATED INDIVIDUALS TO CARRY AROUND WEAPONS AND TELL OTHERS HOW TO BE.
Think about the kind of people you knew in high school.
Think about the ones who you met in college.
Compare.
Notice a difference?
At least for me, the people who went on to college took life entirely more fucking seriously than those who bailed right after the grad ceremony, if they showed at all.
I was way late in completing my own college education, so its been more than a decade since the last time I was in a classroom. One of the classes I was taking was about diversity… just diversity and being tolerant.
In that classroom, one my favorite classmates was a cop. He was one of those rare ones you want in power who makes their presence known with little words. He was getting no assistance or promotive promises by taking the classes he was, but he was personally determined not to be… “one of those cops.”
He was very candid about how racism and bigotry were loud and proud in the workplace and the best he could manage was avoidance whenever possible. He was in the minority of those who didn’t engage in the thoughts or the behavior. To do so, made him somewhat of a target but being a man of few words benefitted him for the most part.
To join in was to be part of the brotherhood, and when you’re put in a position of having to turn your back and trust in that brotherhood not to put a bullet in it, you join for your own protection. Even if you happen to be the very thing they hate.
My professors even noted that it would take hardcore culling of the old white guy good ol boy mentality to start really seeing a change and it would have to be swift and forceful.
The only hopefuls of note from that classmate is when he was telling us about how they had a new and much younger chief who was talking to him a lot about the classes he was taking and making them requirements for everyone on the force, with incentives and pay perks for doing so. He seemed to be listening a lot to how to improve the force through education while also weeding out those unfit for duty.
The problem is, there isn’t a lot of weeding on the front end. One of my former brothers-in-law joined the force… and got in. He was the type who would have been the subject of many a domestic disturbance call, if they ever bothered to stick around long enough.
He was violent and power hungry and I cannot fathom how the fuck he passed the psyche test unless he represents everything they are seeking.
Which suggests this is exactly how they want things to go down and why they go to such great efforts mildly reprimanding them and making it sound like fairness for committing hate crimes in a uniform. Hate crimes are bad enough, but the sentence for a person in uniform should automatically be double.
The measurement for racism is the same as misogyny… if you wonder if something you see is racist put someone of another race (or gender) in the same situation in your mind. If it sounds absurd, vile, stupid, etc… it is racist or sexist. Above all… DON’T BE SILENT ABOUT IT!!!
Example: commercial comes on, woman sporting plastic gloves and a broad smile in spotless clothes whilst cleaning an entire house. Insert a man in this role doing the same… see the problem?
One of the WORST possible actions or reactions we could ever have is not speaking up. Would George be alive today if he’d been swarmed by other people yelling at the cops and telling them their actions were a hate crime? To get off him? To call them murders? Racists? Trash? Would they maybe have woken up out of their rage stupor to realize they might be wrong?
Because they are… all four of them. The moment they engaged in the action or inaction of killing a citizen they had sworn to protect and serve, they became nothing but trash. And its time to take out the trash.
The sad part is the problem goes so far beyond just cops… but officers of the law should and need to be the example by which we follow. We should NOT be tense when they are present. We should not fear for our lives when cops are around. I am though. I feel better when they are gone and I find nothing scarier than a pack of big white cops with their raybans puffing up and surveying their next move. We go out of our way to avoid their presence because of the way they have a reputation of handling things.
White entitlement motivated this woman and she does not see her own racism. I am thankful that she was taught a somewhat fair lesson… she was fired and her dog was taken away from her by the rescue she’d adopted it from. If only she would use the time to better engage in investigating why those problems reside solely on her own way of thinking… which is completely and utterly changeable. But she’s still trying to justify her own behavior. And again, if you’re apologizing not for your actions but someone else’s reaction to them… you’re not apologizing.
So what do we do? We vote, we protest, we arm ourselves with how to be better allies if we are not part of the demographic being subjugated and abused. We show up, we open our mouths, we yell, we get loud, because we’re the ones who are supposed to be protected and served… and its time to kiss the asses of the real masters… us.
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