How do we end the police excessive violence, in so many cases murder
towards African Americans in the United States? Big question. And
not something that could be answered by me. I know nothing about
policing. We have so many different regions of the country and I've
mainly been in maybe a handfull of them to compare. Each region is
probably different but the following reality is the same all over.
Since I am a white
man and for the most part a law abiding citizen I don't really worry
about violence towards me by the police as I'm sure others like me
feel the same. We were taught as children if you are lost or afraid
of something ask a policeman to help. Was that just a fantasy? I
don't know I was never in that situation. All I know is that if I
see the police I'm not concerned that I am going to be stopped,
frisked, arrested or be pinned to the ground by a knee in the back of
my neck and suffocated to death just because I am walking or riding
my bike while being white. Which brings me to this thought.
Why has policing
become as it has, militaristic, and in particular always accusative
and angry towards people of color? I can't answer that in general. I
can only guess at it. Is it racism? In my experience I have had two
family members who were police. Both made no bones about being
racist, but they also were suspicious of a culture that has evolved
over time from the clearly white dominated culture in America pre
Civil Rights. If you've lived as long as I have you know what that
was like. It was the norm. "I'm free, white and twenty-one"
was the expression on the lips of all the people I have known except
for the ones who weren't. That is until it became embarrassing to
say. And until you became friends with a black person. I mean
friends, a real friend, you'd feel the shame of certain thoughts
based on the beliefs that were drummed into your head as you grew up.
But let's turn to
the job of being a cop which and though I am unqualified I still have
an opinion.
This job can not be
easy in any way shape or form. No it isn't ranked as the most
dangerous job in America. But it certainly is up there. It's the kind
of job where someone might shoot a gun at you. And I'd hazard a
guess that out of the thousands who have been protesting and even
those grumbling about the protests sitting at home and watching TV
would ever don the uniform and become a cop. I know it was never a
consideration of mine. Police are only considered heroic when they
are the front line workers who come to the aid of a citizenry under
attack, say when the towers fell down or some mass shooting. But how
often do those things happen? Other times they are the ones who hand
out tickets for traffic infractions to angry violaters. How many
times have you said or heard: There's never a cop around when you
need one? Still they are the ones who get called when an actual
crime is in commission or you are frightened by that unusual noise
coming from a corner of your house where there shouldn't be a noise.
They are seen as someone who comes to your aid or causes you grief.
So why would you want that job? Honestly I don't know. I can make
assumptions but that is all they are, assumptions. Black Americans
don't feel the same for sure as those of us who are white. The
police largely create grief and more than 3 times murder for them
which has been the point of these demonstrations.
So what is the
problem in America? Could it be we have too many guns? And policing
has become as it has. Do all the guns create the suspicion that
every black person carries a gun and is out to commit a crime? That
was the impetus behind "Stop and Frisk." Or when
approaching a domestic violent situation in a black neighborhood, (as
well as in a poorer white neighborhood) that it is assumed there 's a
gun in a house? The policeman responding must be on alert or in a
flash he or she could be dead. This must be the case for both white
and black cops. How anxiety creating is that? So this is the
training: Shoot first if you have to and ask questions later. You
will be backed up. You have a union. You have the justice system that
will protect you. You have qualified immunity. You get the benefit
of the doubt even with body cameras. Even with all that the problem
clearly to me anyway is that you are not going to change police
culture overnight and so long as we have over 300 million guns owned
by citizenry in this county that circumstances will be even slower
to change. No easy answers. And solutions are even more difficult.
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