I was called a racist today, on social media. As you might suspect, this was in response to some angry posts about the recent events in Minneapolis, in which a black man was subjected to a slow death at the hands of a white police officer, while fellow officers and bystanders watched, recorded, or did nothing.
I will reprint my post here, and see what you think:
“Well, every suspect who flaunts the law with the “You can’t get me, copper, I have rights” story leads to incidents like this down the road. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be a cop in the field, but I really believe there are more good cops–black and white–who deserve better pay and respect. The bad ones get theirs.”
In essence, I was boiling the idea down to something basic; if you approached a dog and it bit you once, and you approach a dog again and get bitten a second time, the third time you approach a dog you may be either scared or ticked off at being bitten. This is why some people kick dogs, and maybe why some cops go evil. Hate and fear are close bedfellows.
So when police officers are called in to deal with “the bad guys,” they have already been through days or weeks of unending psychological battering, and it’s hard to tell when the breaking point will, or may, come. Some officers suffer from insomnia, high blood pressure and PTSD, which may go un-diagnosed. Others may turn to overeating, drugs or alcohol, just like other stressed out employees in other jobs do. Some, unfortunately, go off and turn into the mighty enforcer, subduing all evil at any price.
Feelings of being helpless cause us to lash out or cower in the corner. Cops don’t get to cower. Citizens call the police when something comes up that they themselves can’t handle, but then people balk at how the cops do the handling. It’s easy to be a law enforcement instructor when you’re not the one doing the actual enforcement. Cops get called in on injuries, murders, abuse, and see blood and terrible scenes that are bad enough for the citizenry to see.
They’re supposed to take care of what we say we can’t.
I am not playing devil’s advocate for anybody who thinks it is okay to hurt another human being in any way (let alone kill them), but we all create the monsters in our lives by the same ignorance that is terrorizing Minneapolis this week, with burning down buildings (including one new business a local black man was preparing to launch when pandemic restrictions were lifted) and breaking into stores to loot.
Criminal brutality leads to police brutality, which circles back to criminal brutality.
Minneapolis is a wonderful place. I’ve been there a few times, and walked Uptown and in the city proper. I know the good guys outnumber the bad guys about one hundred to one. But wow, that one sure can stir up trouble.
Whether a twenty dollar bill that started the encounter at a store with the victim was counterfeit or not, who knew if he printed it or just came upon it by accident? Ideally the officers should probably have been able to confiscate the money and have it verified, then offer to return it if viable. Nobody needed to be choked to death between the ground and a cop’s kneeling knee.
But back to my allegedly being a racist. My first reaction was amazement. I never got that one before. Believe me, I was prime real estate for bullying in my day, so I’ve had some real classics hurled my way. And the reply went on anew, to tack on the opinion that I was always dumb in high school anyway. Nothing like a little nostalgia over 40 years later; yesterday’s bullies are today’s social know-it-all commentators.
For the record, I am not a discriminator of any kind, but I do like to believe that the best way to live harmoniously is to not look at what is different about us and concentrate on what we can do the same that benefits everybody. This might mean that, regardless of race, you will find law-abiding citizens and non-law-abiding citizens, good cops and bad cops, people who would rather walk away than fight, and those who would rather fight than walk away.
Since I know who I am, I have decided to let this one go. Name-calling avails nothing, and the person who posted obviously doesn’t really know me, so that’s that.
A man is still dead who shouldn’t be, and the cops look bad again.
That’s sadder.
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