This March marked the 30th anniversary of the Rodney King beating, an early incident of citizen video capture of police brutality. It does not seem that thirty years of reform, protests, civilian oversight, blue-ribbon commissions, or consent decrees have changed a goddamn thing. Instead, we’ve got cops flying a cop flag over the American flag because they’re loyal to the badge over citizenry.
The Cincinnati police pulled down the American flag at the justice center and replaced it with the thin blue line. Infuriating. Picture from a friend. pic.twitter.com/1bM0ovH0T6
✌Nostradonuts✌ (@P0kes) May 31, 2020
Clearly, if we are to have laws we need some form of law enforcement. But whatever policing is in the United States, it is not law enforcement. It resembles more the standing army that the framers of the constitution warned against, the Redcoats holding their line just before the Boston Massacre.
Some members of the founding generation expressed fears that a standing army would pose a threat to liberty. Police forces as we know them did not exist. Of course, slave patrols policed Blacks in the South. Courts have made us accept a lot in the name of law enforcement. https://t.co/zlMuUMazZ0
Annette Gordon-Reed (@agordonreed) April 16, 2021
Surely, not every cop is implicated in this system? Perhaps we should listen to what they say when they think nobody else is listening. For example, a recent data leak from a right-wing crowdfunding site tell us that numerous donations in support of right-wing vigilante shooter Kyle Rittenhouse came from police officers, including an internal affairs executive in Norfolk, VA who sent the following note with his donation: “You’ve done nothing wrong. Every rank and file police officer supports you. Don’t be discouraged by actions of the political class of law enforcement leadership.”
(It’s not just actions like beating or killing a suspect that earn unconditional support. The Boston police were recently discovered to have been protecting their union president despite very credible child molestation charges going back 25 years.)
When someone tells you who they are, believe them. How do you reform an institution that killed someone in this country almost every single day last year? How do you reform a system that produces multiple separate stories about elderly women brutalized by police while picking flowers?
The media always focuses on when police kill. But there are plenty of days when we don’t. For example in 2020 there were 18 days when police officers didn’t kill anyone at all.
Los Angeles Police Department Parody (@LAPDParody) April 12, 2021
Why is all this happening? Jared Yates Sexton has a lengthy and illuminating essay on the subject, which concludes:
This is not just about training. This isn’t about a few bad apples. It is that law enforcement, with its long history, from knights in armor chopping down serfs and disrupting peasant rebellions, to armored police units in the heartland of America rolling through streets in tanks with 21st century technology meant to suppress the people, has a fundamental problem: the belief that these forces are intended to make war with their own people in order to protect property, wealth, and power.
The problem is the very concept of the thin blue line.
So, by all means, yes, support law enforcement. But end American policing.
Anyhow in a Corner, Some Untidy Spot
Noah Smith of Bloomberg has an excellent and sobering take on the Republican embrace of the “replacement” conspiracy, which has been endorsed by such luminaries as Tucker Carlson and Richard Spencer.
If you’re concerned about gun violence, I have bad news for you about what Americans are doing to each other with cars.
An official word from FEMA:
We’re experiencing high call volume for people applying for Funeral Assistance. We’ve contracted support to provide us with 5,000 agents to help with the huge volume of calls. There’s no deadline to apply at this time. https://t.co/pIFqSEpRAehttps://t.co/YgM3JVSzTq
FEMA (@fema) April 12, 2021
Joy
A very tiny puppy.
Kitten gets a bath. (Click through for before/after).
This very tiny kitten.
Bucket-o-shiba-inus.
Secretly Ironic 