Typical.
The shooting of Antonio Martin in Missouri yesterday, meanwhile, was a perfect illustration of just how self-aware the pigs really are. They come out with a statement immediately, explaining that this is nothing like the Brown or Garner cases, because the victim had a firearm. Thanks for the clarification, gents, it was badly required on account of the fact that nobody trusts you. Of course, the officer had been issued a body camera but was not wearing it.
Your point is? People starting waving their hands about things- they quickly explained that there is a reason, after all, this happens in the first place.
I didn't intend to make a particularly salient point, was just a bit of a late night muse. Anyway I just thought it was interesting that they had to differentiate themselves from the Brown and Garner cases specifically (and really the entirety of the statement revolved around this premise), even though they would have defended the police in those instances too. You know what I mean?
Cops are generally respected and trusted.
You may not trust them, but that is a different story. The belief that no one trusts cops suggests a blindness to political reality.
have every reason to trust police. A few years ago I was mugged and intimidated in Sydney by an Aboriginal neighbour. Reporting him to the police still remains my biggest regret in my life, really, seeing both the way that they talked to me about the situation (the cops were openly racist in one of the country's most progressive areas) and how they treated him (broke his door down, pulled hair off of his head for a completely unnecessary DNA sample and then sent him off for another six months in prison thanks to his 'priors'). We made peace when he got out, but suffice it to say that what ended up happening to him was in no way proportionate to what had actually happened that night.
(To clarify, as soon as it became clear that they were to pursue charges that were not proportionate, I explained that this was a misunderstanding of the entire situation. When they spoke to the perpetrator, because he had used the phrase "all I did was rob him for a beer", they went forward with the robbery charge, even though that is not really what happened. Powerless to do much else, I explained that I didn't want to press charges, but by that point they had already pinned him for resisting arrest or some other nonsense)
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. If I'm drinking in a public park with friends, the police will drive right past us, and all of the other groups, until they find the group of Aboriginals, usually the only people in the park *not* drinking, and they stop and talk to them for a minute or two and then drive off. It's a joke. And compared to the average American police, these guys are saints. The whole issue makes my blood boil. I'm only glad that the media is finally giving these stories the attention they deserve.
Anyway, maybe whites trust police, but I'm not blind to political reality at all. The political reality is that police engage in systematic racism and brutality and until now we have lacked the national resolve to address it. And when I said that 'nobody trusts' the police, I'm referring to their victims, not the lily white suburb dwellers who are perfectly content to turn a blind eye to this.
