Michelle Catherine Marcó
I’m thinking about my visit to the International Spy Museum in DC, last time I was there. One exhibit puts visitors in the role of a clandestine operative operating in a foreign country and presents a picture of a street scene. They ask, can you identify the potential threats?
There are a pair of police officers in the picture, and yep—they’re on the list, because obviously. Best not to tangle with local law enforcement when you’re a spy.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Ours is a deeply flawed “justice” system. It’s riddled with rot and inequity. And yet, on occasion, they get it right. On occasion, they take on the powerful and hold them accountable. Even all the preferential treatment in the world didn’t save Trump from a guilty verdict.
By all means, keep advocating for change, because it’s sorely needed. But it’s also worth recognizing that, sometimes, justice actually prevails. It’s a good check against cynicism and nihilism, at the very least.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
One more thing (I hope). Note how quickly conservatives championed defunding the police when it was Trump in jeopardy. They’re abusing their authority! They’re out of control!
It’s easy to dismiss this as hypocrisy. Yeah, it is, but there’s more to it than that. It also reveals how conservatives see themselves. We’re the shot-callers, the ultimate authority, always and forever above you. Don’t you dare forget it. Get back in your place, peons.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Thing is, even they’re not immune. A whole lot of white people found out the hard way. Though the January 6 insurrectionists were aided and abetted by some cops, they still met resistance in the form of cops who didn’t play along. All that “back the blue” chanting didn’t save them.
Still, too many people operate under the mentality that, if it doesn’t affect them personally, it doesn’t matter. Until more people find themselves on the wrong end of a police action, I fear little will change.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Meanwhile, I urge y’all to operate with an appropriate amount of vigilance when dealing with cops—that is to say, with approximately the same level of vigilance as most Black and brown people. Think about who and what the cops serve (hint: not you). Think about the power they wield. Treat them as a potential threat at all times.
Of course, don’t go out of your way to antagonize or provoke them, because that’s just dumb. Just keep your distance and keep on keeping on.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Copaganda, far from critiquing this phenomenon, entrenches it further. It acts as confirmation bias for people who are already deeply prejudiced. It reflects the “reality” conservatives are shown on the likes of Fox News.
Speaking of reality, there’s another reality to this, namely the reality of how conservatives (especially white conservatives) have very different relationships with the police.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Because I operate in a left-leaning bubble, there are zero (0) cops in my social circle. If I were a betting woman, I’d wager most left-leaning people are in a similar position, where they personally know far less cops than a conservative.
When conservatives see a cop, they see a friend, a family member, a neighbor. They experience them not as hostile authority abusers, but as reasonable, like-minded people. That’s partly why they react so strongly to criticism of cops. For them, it’s personal.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Then there are the racial dynamics. Ever notice how fans of cop shows skew heavily conservative? There are a bunch of different reasons why, but one stands out.
Note who’s cast as the bad guys. Sure, there are times when a rich, entitled white guy is the villain of the week. But more often than not, they’re going after Black and brown people. Does that also happen in real life? Yes. Should it? Y’all, I hope you know that they’re arrested more often than white people for the same crimes.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
I know, this will come as a shock to a lot of people, because we all grew up awash in copaganda. Sure, there were crooked cops, but we were assured time and again that the majority of them were honest, upstanding people committed to protecting innocent people and putting the bad guys away.
I’d like to think there are some decent people in the ranks, but even if there were, they’re operating in a broken system with twisted incentives. “Good” cops can do little to nothing about that.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Copaganda is unintentionally revealing. Note how often fictional cops get away with excessive force or overly aggressive interrogation tactics. Note how often they bend or break the rules, and how often it’s excused because the ends justified the means. Note the disdain towards internal affairs. Note the sheer number of shots fired. Note the ensuing carnage.
Sure, a lot of this is exaggerated for dramatic effect. But a lot of this is uncomfortably close to the truth.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
In recent years, more and more people are shedding that naïve view. The vast majority of Black people never held it—they’ve been trying to tell us for years. Still, too many people still believe we’re the exceptional exception to the rule.
We’re not. We should be just as skeptical about the police as people living under autocracy. And while I don’t endorse espionage on behalf of a foreign nation, it’s probably a good idea to regard cops the way spies do.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Also worth remembering—yes, it can happen here. And by “it”, I mean autocracy. The GOP planted the seeds long before Trump came on the scene. Now they’re making it plain that it’s their aim.
As for the cops, notice how many of them are lining up behind Trump, a convicted criminal. It reveals them for what they are and what they value. It’s not the law. It’s not the people. It’s order, the kind that puts people in their place and allows them to evade any sort of accountability.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
Now I’m thinking about all the times I’ve witnessed popular uprising against dictators abroad. Who’s on the front line, trying to push back the angry tide? Cops, of course, and often the military.
Either way, we’re talking about agents of the state, charged with its protection. Sounds innocuous enough at first, but consider—preservation of the state is not the same thing as serving the people. And these ends are opposed when the people oppose the state.
Michelle Catherine Marcó
For a long time, I held on to the naïve assumption that cops in the US and cops in oppressive regimes were different. Surely US cops are held to a higher standard. Surely our democratic system means that, ultimately, they serve the people.
Needless to say, I’ve long since dispensed with this ridiculous notion. Like anywhere else, American cops are charged with protecting the state—and by extension, the powerful and the system they created.
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.