We live in what’s called a democracy. To be sure, the benefits of this democracy don’t accrue equally everyone, especially to our brown and black brothers and sisters. Anyone with half a brain knows the rich have stolen the benefits of this democracy for themselves through a tax and wealth distribution system that so favors them that the top 1% own more than the bottom 50%. We must also keep in mind that the oligarchs who truly own this country are neither left nor right, blue nor red, they are venal and proud of it.
We live in a land where our TV and movies depict good Americans of all colors in our law enforcement, our district attorney offices, and our courts. They all try to find and administer justice. This fiction soothes our souls. See? The police are color blind. This is the promised land where merit will take you where you need to go.
Demographic data tells us a different story. Our society is as stratified as any feudal state. If your parents are born into poverty, and most people would cry over a $500 car repair because they don’t enough useable cash to pay the bill, then you’ll most likely die poor. The generational equity of the middle class, that mix of homeownership, a decent job or small business, money in the bank and 401ks, and access to an adequate education, that generational equity is fading away. Right now, as wealth accrues to the economic overlords, the American dream drowns in the quicksand of its own making.
Into this tragedy comes the rightful search for an answer. From Black Lives Matter to the craziness of a right-wing that must suppress facts to entertain an occluded worldview filled with hate and the embrace of thugocracy in the name of freedom, Americans are searching for an answer to this question. How do we reclaim the supposed birthright our history books, and our mythos, assure us that we are entitled to own? Never mind that we’ve passed the sell-by date on access to the American Dream for those not born into well off neighborhoods with decent schools. With the flight of decent jobs for the marginally educated, wealth accumulation in America remains a fantasy for most.
Enter the radicalized right telling white America that all they have to do is take up arms against those stealing their way of life and all will be as it was. An argument that lacks any coherence but resonates because somehow in this land of plenty a large percentage of people feel cheated. Of course, they feel cheated. The system set up to oppress our brown and black brothers and sisters and trap them in low wage jobs is now oppressing everyone equally! How unfair. How cruel. How totally foreseeable.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that in order to keep a person in the gutter you have to be in the gutter yourselves. How right he was.
The police mostly come from this well of white modest/low-income anger themselves. It’s natural for them to think the right wing nut jobs are their friends. That the guns and the mayhem they might cause are aimed at the other they too see as the enemy. So they stand aside as “armed friendlies” roam streets in Wisconsin or as Trumpista protestors try to take over the US Capitol to enforce their version of democracy (Their MY vote is the only vote that counts version). Perhaps the police are shocked that Trump protestors think the police are traitors for having the temerity to clear thugs and brutes from the hallowed halls of national identity. But the police must decide. Are they part of the anger that wields no solution but chaos and totalitarianism, or will they become something new, something this country has not seen maybe ever? The police must decide if they will become an arbiter of the law for all regardless of color, or political identity. This choice has been a long time coming and I hope that the correct one is chosen.
I don’t think police are either good or bad. I do think that police culture in America tilts right-wing and that the culture itself begets racists treatment of brown and black people. I do think it’s stupid to say defund the police (like I want a cop around sometimes) but it is good to re-form the police in the image of a better society. I do think we need to re-establish priorities so that communities are spending more money on social services and job training and less on police. I think police, in those circumstances will likely have a safer, better experience with better community/police outcomes. One of those better outcomes would be not having the police take sides.
Dear commonmountain.com administrator, Well done!
To the commonmountain.com webmaster, You always provide helpful diagrams and illustrations.
To the commonmountain.com owner, Your posts are always on topic and relevant.