Killing Police Officers
Jul. 8th, 2016 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penpusherWhat we're seeing now is a devolving situation. Over and over, police officers shoot and kill black citizens. They don't even face charges, which means they don't even go to court to answer to their actions. Everything continues as it was. Frustration builds with every death and with every systematic choice to ignore the facts, to gloss over the situation, to criminalize the dead. Soon, some want to resort to creating their own justice. And you get Dallas.
We are in a very volatile and dangerous moment in American History. We are at a crossroads.
There is no justifying killing someone under the conditions we are witnessing. This is especially true of police officers who receive hours of training and learning proper protocols for situations they face on the job. When you have the training and the know-how and the understanding of your role, you need to enact it properly.
The tragedy in Dallas, a city I was just visiting a month ago, goes to all of the problems we are seeing with the country as a whole. When the system isn't working for you, make a new system. When you as a human are not valued, you have nothing left to lose.
Of course, killing random police officers only makes everything worse. Those that were patrolling the protests in Dallas were likely the best cops, those that care about what they see and are trying to make a difference. The cowardly cops that shoot and kill citizens that they stop likely would never take that assignment, so this only makes it that much worse.
But it's easy to see how this schoolyard shoving match with bullets is turning our country back into the Wild West.
Killing police officers is literally giving ammunition to the side that wants to characterize black people as animals. This, despite the fact that the situation leaves very few options for recourse. Still, the idea that Martin Luther King put forth does apply here. We all can't act with violence.
It seems as though every day something horrifying is happening. This is all due, in my opinion, because we have still not talked about race as an issue in America.
Police officers, protesters, people at traffic stops, we are all human beings. None of us is better or worse for who we are. But saying that all humans are the same and actually believing it and acting it clearly is not happening.
It feels a bit like a civil war is happening. That's all to do with not having a discussion about these issues. And putting that discussion off again will only continue the Status Quo.
We have to start talking about this issue. But how can we begin?
We are in a very volatile and dangerous moment in American History. We are at a crossroads.
There is no justifying killing someone under the conditions we are witnessing. This is especially true of police officers who receive hours of training and learning proper protocols for situations they face on the job. When you have the training and the know-how and the understanding of your role, you need to enact it properly.
The tragedy in Dallas, a city I was just visiting a month ago, goes to all of the problems we are seeing with the country as a whole. When the system isn't working for you, make a new system. When you as a human are not valued, you have nothing left to lose.
Of course, killing random police officers only makes everything worse. Those that were patrolling the protests in Dallas were likely the best cops, those that care about what they see and are trying to make a difference. The cowardly cops that shoot and kill citizens that they stop likely would never take that assignment, so this only makes it that much worse.
But it's easy to see how this schoolyard shoving match with bullets is turning our country back into the Wild West.
Killing police officers is literally giving ammunition to the side that wants to characterize black people as animals. This, despite the fact that the situation leaves very few options for recourse. Still, the idea that Martin Luther King put forth does apply here. We all can't act with violence.
It seems as though every day something horrifying is happening. This is all due, in my opinion, because we have still not talked about race as an issue in America.
Police officers, protesters, people at traffic stops, we are all human beings. None of us is better or worse for who we are. But saying that all humans are the same and actually believing it and acting it clearly is not happening.
It feels a bit like a civil war is happening. That's all to do with not having a discussion about these issues. And putting that discussion off again will only continue the Status Quo.
We have to start talking about this issue. But how can we begin?