Everyone loves the police these days, right? They’re out there to serve and protect. With wages paid by our own socialist taxes. They are the friend of us all! Except… Well, you all know where this is headed. And I need to iterate first that I am a supporter of the brave people who do this job.
It seems like people largely want to boil it down to racism these days. But I don’t want to touch that. Racism is just the beginning of why we might question them. That nail has been hammered into the coffin enough. Bigotry is more about our entire culture than it is just the one sector who happens to carry guns professionally.
The conversation (especially now when Chauvin is discussed after the George Floyd trial) about how not all cops are bad cops is interesting. Not all people are bad either. But as far as humans go, most of us vocalize that the majority of humans are just inherently shitty. Everyone vocalizes this all the damn time on social media, and often because of social media. But we’re supposed to believe that only a few cops are bad apples? When we already think the typical human is a jerk? Hm. Maybe they aren’t bad humans at their core (I personally don’t believe most of us are), but it sounds like the training for that particular field might be flawed.
Yes, I want to talk about how law enforcement is trained and perceived. I hate this word, but it could be “systemic.” The police officer in Columbus really did all he knew how to do when that situation arose. Shoot the person with the knife who was attacking another person. He was taught to do that to save lives. But could it have been handled differently without an emotionally unstable person dying? We need to revamp the law enforcement training programs from the ground up if they are taught that killing a person is the only course of action.
The actual role of police in society is to protect people — and currently, most people either hate or fear them. Even the “back the blue” people with their monochromatic American flag cover photo that has the blue line? Even they don’t really like cops. They just pretend to right now socially, because they subscribe to the “I’m a conservative who hates liberal scum” newsletter. But in real life, they’re still motherfucking cops and leering at them on the roads.
And it makes sense. They do have a quota for tickets, as it’s part of the job, so they’re just out there fulfilling their duties. But like most of the populace, they profile people — hell, don’t too many of us do that? — but police should be reprogrammed to not think that way. They, more than anyone, need to have that standard raised at its highest level. That’s their job. Nobody cares if Bob the accountant doesn’t like Mexicans. Bob is just a jerk. Police account for our lives.
The issue is that many countries have stuff in place to prevent what we experience. Police are given tools to subdue and de-escalate a situation. They’re taught to catch criminals, not kill them. We can do better. The proof is all around the first world.
Like I said, law enforcement should be all of our allies unless we’re actual criminals. We all mess up, but that should just be the equivalent of a day’s detention in junior high school. But no. Instead, we all are afraid of them, even if we aren’t breaking laws. Killing people shouldn’t define cops. Making everyday people afraid of you or dislike you shouldn’t define cops. Being an adversary to Joe Everyman shouldnt define cops.
I absolutely support police. Just because I don’t use the blue line American flag on social media doesn’t I mean I’m not propping up law enforcement. I’m also not some huge proponent of the very misunderstood “defund the police” movement. I’m just here, as usual, to try to make us all think. I wish I could think more myself, but there’s just too many books and video games out there that eat up my attention. Also porn, but the police already told me that’s okay.