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Black lives matter
5 years ago
When I said I needed to write more I didn't expect this to be the first thing, but as I think about it... no, this is not a topic where silence serves.
I don't know 'who started it' on the demonstrations that turned to vandalism. I've seen the police over-reactions. I've heard rumors of instigating groups. I don't know enough to say much there.
But I know this. I've seen every individual or group who tried to talk this out for the last decade get completely villainized. I've seen everyone who tried to talk about how the police are getting trained to escalate rather than de-escalate get dragged through the mud. I've seen every use of "just a few bad apples" come up over and over for the behavior of authorities, forgetting the phrase is a "a few bad apples spoils the bunch. And I've seen every attempt at public discourse get shouted down - remember how the kneeling football players got treated? I don't care much for football, but if you were wanting an extremely harmless, convenient protest that doesn't interrupt people's daily lives: That was it. And no one listened. For heaven's sake, the 'response to the response' movements were more about shutting up the people complaining than helping addressing the issues.
Property destruction isn't right. But neither is the use of lethal force as a compliance tool, and especially when employed by agents of the government against its own citizens with no accountability is MUCH MUCH WORSE. Neither is, when unarmed people are killed, dredging up some excuse that it was somehow okay because... they didn't comply fast enough. They looked too scary. They didn't comply with the right order screamed at them. They twitched a bit. They complied but they should have complied differently. They did something else sometime else in the past. Those aren't reasons. Those are excuses and excuses just pour gas on a fire and then those making them act surprised when it becomes bigger.
We've had a long time to fix the issue of accountability and training. We know we teach police the wrong things in training - we wrongly focus on escalation over deescalation. We know they haven't been held to high enough standards - they cannot serve communities that fear them. And we have done nothing to fix that, despite that hardly being a new revelation. There are options and as a society, we haven't taken them. And the people who must bear the results of those poor decisions can only bear that so long. More eloquent people than me have spoken, but "be patient" is easy to say when you're not the one affected, and meaningless if you're not making any changes with that time.
I do not believe every cop is bad. I think it's far more likely the majority never have any part in this. And there's no perfect system. But I believe the way we hire, train, equip and hold our police accountable has created a situation that leads to repeated tragedy in foreseeable situations and I believe we have done nothing to fix that in the vain hope that people will just accept it as okay that this happens and no change has to be performed.
I don't know 'who started it' on the demonstrations that turned to vandalism. I've seen the police over-reactions. I've heard rumors of instigating groups. I don't know enough to say much there.
But I know this. I've seen every individual or group who tried to talk this out for the last decade get completely villainized. I've seen everyone who tried to talk about how the police are getting trained to escalate rather than de-escalate get dragged through the mud. I've seen every use of "just a few bad apples" come up over and over for the behavior of authorities, forgetting the phrase is a "a few bad apples spoils the bunch. And I've seen every attempt at public discourse get shouted down - remember how the kneeling football players got treated? I don't care much for football, but if you were wanting an extremely harmless, convenient protest that doesn't interrupt people's daily lives: That was it. And no one listened. For heaven's sake, the 'response to the response' movements were more about shutting up the people complaining than helping addressing the issues.
Property destruction isn't right. But neither is the use of lethal force as a compliance tool, and especially when employed by agents of the government against its own citizens with no accountability is MUCH MUCH WORSE. Neither is, when unarmed people are killed, dredging up some excuse that it was somehow okay because... they didn't comply fast enough. They looked too scary. They didn't comply with the right order screamed at them. They twitched a bit. They complied but they should have complied differently. They did something else sometime else in the past. Those aren't reasons. Those are excuses and excuses just pour gas on a fire and then those making them act surprised when it becomes bigger.
We've had a long time to fix the issue of accountability and training. We know we teach police the wrong things in training - we wrongly focus on escalation over deescalation. We know they haven't been held to high enough standards - they cannot serve communities that fear them. And we have done nothing to fix that, despite that hardly being a new revelation. There are options and as a society, we haven't taken them. And the people who must bear the results of those poor decisions can only bear that so long. More eloquent people than me have spoken, but "be patient" is easy to say when you're not the one affected, and meaningless if you're not making any changes with that time.
I do not believe every cop is bad. I think it's far more likely the majority never have any part in this. And there's no perfect system. But I believe the way we hire, train, equip and hold our police accountable has created a situation that leads to repeated tragedy in foreseeable situations and I believe we have done nothing to fix that in the vain hope that people will just accept it as okay that this happens and no change has to be performed.
It's uncomfortable, it's downright scary at times, but hopefully something better comes from all this. It's been far too long coming and there's far too much pain to reconcile anytime soon.
The main counter point that keeps getting pushed is property damage and theft and vandalism is wrong; that it defeats any good message being touted. I'd have to disagree - those acts are only a natural response, and perhaps some of the most meaningful. That we have a system so entrenched in commodity and capital that they outweigh people's lives - that those we envision to protect the people are instead taught and trained to protect commodities and buildings and punish those who defile the sacred institute of wealth - is a broken system. That those acts of property damage enrage you and make you cast the suffering as villains should serve as a wake up call, but it is so hard to get some to see otherwise.
I can hope that this is not the end of the world, but the start of a new one.