A Cop on Trial
Almost Obligatory Seriousness
A while ago on my old blog, I used to indulge the category of Obligatory Seriousness. It meant that I basically took a topic that ‘everybody’ is talking about and explain in simple but sometimes sarcastic language what appears to me to be obvious. The problem with this is that I was often prompted to speak out about something I didn’t really care much about. So it either sounded like I was just adding fine print to a big legal narrative I didn’t really want to sign, or I was just piling on for likes. Then again sometimes you have to remind people that the earth isn’t flat. Sucks to be me.
Here’s what actually gets on my nerves about this whole deal this past week going back to Shaquanda Cotton and beyond. Apathy with black success. Obsession with black failure.
Police kill about 300 black Americans every year. In that same year over 2,100 black Americans earn a PhD. So if you are black in America, you are 7 times as likely to earn a PhD as you are to get killed by a cop. Says these guys whose voices are drowned out by the likes of those guys over there and these guys over here.
Manufactured Ascent
Every 10 years it seems we are dealing with another Trial of the Century. I suppose that wouldn’t be a bad thing if more of us understood the law and exactly how often matters are tried in context. I have what is considered a troublesome attitude about such matters as justice, and that is because I don’t take my attitude and my sentiment seriously. As a Stoic, I observe what facts and frameworks most shape matters in current events and that’s mostly it. That’s mostly it because I am not called upon to make weighty decisions based upon these facts and frameworks, and I am not often inclined to emote about them. I am always repelled by wishful thinking. I am always dubious of the sentiments of crowds.
For a several years now, we have been subjected to a curated media diet of sensational events involving unarmed black men and white police officers. This diet has created a hunger for its delectables, and consequently millions of Americans have been patiently waiting beside their radios and in front of their screens to find more examples. Call it a drama consumerism. I do actually find it distasteful that these millions of eyeballs and earholes serve to monetize the diet. You don’t get handsome faces, clear stentorian voices, stereo drama drums and popping color graphics for free. I don’t happen to know if it’s McDonalds or Geico who pays because I don’t attend those feeds. Somebody does, and that somebody is bankrolling the diet and staying in our minds. So one thing I would like to impress upon you is that if America is full of any kind of evil as presented by this media diet, know that it is profitable for media outlets to present it, because sponsors are hungry for your hungry minds.
As an expert on racism, it is my considered opinion that the term has been watered down to perception on the microaggression level. As an expert on psychology it is my considered opinion that the ability of African Americans to survive such racism is remarkably robust. I would even suggest that African Americans are anti-fragile to racism. The more you pile upon them, the more fierce and strong they become. This opinion is not one you have likely heard before, then again you probably don’t know how much money a Chief Diversity Officer makes, or how many properties the rulers of BLM have purchased, despite how absolutely gratuitous and wrong it is for me to make them examples of black Americans.
So really I don’t have any more words for this, but I suppose I needed to be on record saying something obvious.
Guilty. Yay. Next.
One more thing. If policing was actually a matter of white supremacist anything, you would expect something equally as poisonous and deadly to black life equally affecting black women, children and the elderly. As usual and with my usual respect and admiration, you are encouraged to add your considered opinions to the comments section.
And finally, a deeper dive for those inclined to philosophical implications.
Sorry I had to go here. We should all be, I reckon.
About those "rulers of BLM" - Obama’s the poster child and his cousin Warren Buffett is the money behind Black Lives Matter. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/warren-buffett-black-lives-matter
<blockquote>There is, however, another version of events, in which the heartfelt dedication to racial justice is only the forward-facing side of a more complicated movement. Behind the street level activism and emotional outpouring is a calculated machinery built by establishment money and power that has seized on racial politics, in which some of the biggest capitalists in the world are financially backing a group of self-described “trained Marxists”—a label that Cullors enthusiastically applies to herself and the group’s other co-founders.
These bedfellows, whose stories and fortunes are never publicly presented as related, are in reality intertwined under the umbrella of a fiscal sponsor named the International Development Exchange. A modestly endowed West Coast nonprofit with origins in the Peace Corps—which for decades supported local farmers, shepherds, and agricultural workers across the Global South—IDEX has, in the past six years, been transformed into two distinct new things: the infrastructure back end to the Black Lives Matter organization in the United States and also, at the very same time, an investment fund vehicle driven by recruited MBAs and finance experts seeking to leverage decades of on-the-ground grantee relationships for novel forms of potentially problematic lending instruments . And it did so with help from the family of one of the most famous American billionaires in history—the Oracle of Omaha himself.</blockquote>
The police, as currently configured, are obsolete and a decision has been taken to do away with their current barely governable configuration. Part of the War on Drugs was to keep cops from policing their own neighborhoods. Even if they live in the city they serve, they cannot work in the jurisdiction they live in, as it may create a conflict of interest. Police not knowing residents is policy, not an accident.
Many police, firefighters/EMTs, and other city employees do not live in the cities that employ them. As the ratio of local residents working for a city steadily declines, so does the performance of that city’s government. It’s a terrible situation, made demonstrably worse by state laws that struck down residency requirements for city employees statewide, in contravention of home rule guarantees. State preemption of local control is destroying municipal governments throughout numerous states.
With the military, it seems odd that progressives are just now waking up to the idea that an all-volunteer force somehow may mysteriously end up with a disproportionate number of right-wing members. Maybe we have a similar phenomenon with police. So I would suggest a draft not only for the military but also for local police. Everyone at a young age should experience one or the other, or maybe both, for a few years. Then perhaps we could have informed discussions and dispense with most of the righteous ranting.
We should also dispassionately consider how dangerous a police officer’s job actually is – compared to a truck driver, carpenter, farmer and host of other jobs…. hint, you will find that a cops level of danger in their job does not make the top ten list.
And as for stopping crime, the police are really, really bad at it. According to FBI stats, only 4% of major crimes reported to police end in someone being convicted of a crime***…and only half of all major crimes are reported.
If we are actually concerned with public safety, with crime control, with having a public institution who’s mandate is actually to serve and protect the citizenry, then we need to design a whole new system from the ground up. Trying to reform the policing system we have into doing what we want it to do is doomed to fail. We need to start with a system that is accountable to the populace it serves, and that is designed specifically to provide security to that populace; not try to reform a system that was designed for entirely different purposes than to protect and serve the public.
So all the soap opera and machismo pushed by cops – that their job is so tough and dangerous – reduces to mush when held to the light of evidence. Continuing in that vein, by and large, police officers are exceptionally well-paid for the minimal qualifications required to get the job. Moreover, there are the power and prestige attractions associated with being narratized as heroic first responders and all that folderal. When you take into consideration official overtime pay, and the pay available for moonlighting, policing is one of the few remaining occupations in which a certain demographic with nothing more than a high-school diploma can realistically achieve a 6 figure income.
This is why police have so little difficulty parting with the 6-8% annual vigorish to their “fraternal orders”. The fraternal lodges are the real command and control systems for police departments. The chief of police is typically a bureaucratic figurehead whose job it is to run interference with politicians – and to a limited degree – the public.
In the interest of supporting citations – I offer the following link https://www.kctv5.com/news/local_news/charges-against-tow-truck-driver-dropped-after-audio-emerges-of-kcfop-president-department-will-investigate/article_7d41362c-4494-11eb-84ea-5febf1d0d652.html
But recommend a google search on – fop brad lemon tow lot scandal
This is a wonderful mid-sized urban anecdote of most of the moving parts involved with the structure of power, prestige, and accountability in contemporary policing. Abusive policing is concentrated among a relatively small proportion of police officers. The majority of U.S. police probably spend their entire careers without any incidence of corruption or brutality.
The problem is that police abuse is protected, unconditionally, resulting in either no or disproportionately low consequences for their actions. What results is that some naturally violent or naturally corrupt people will seek out police careers because it allows them to fulfill these desires without consequence.
Many police departments would have to undergo massive personnel purges to break the power of the corrupt and the abusers that too often run these departments through their unions. The unions will have to be broken. Having a leadership role in a police union or fraternal organization should be cause for extreme scrutiny.
A “stoic observation” from the talented teeth with ample use-of-force experience would either a) assume a “false flag” event or b) recognize a cannibalizing injustice.
So... The “black” radicals were never on the “far left” and always just one step away from “white supremacy.”