Not everything that meets the eye

There are essentially two views of cops and law enforcement - the largely anodyne depictions of prime time network shows ("Law & Order", "CSI", etc) and the more gritty, raw depictions of cable channels ("The Shield", "Luther", etc). The main difference is only stylistic though - the underlying premise is that the "good" ones are driven by the desire to serve and get to the truth, and that they will always prevail over the "bad apples".  The popular mythology that the police are here to protect and serve is well established. 

However, even a casual perusal of the history of policing makes it abundantly clear that the truth is, in fact, the diametric opposite - the raison d'etre of the police has always been to keep the less fortunate amongst us "in check." 

What started out as the night watch (in the early 1600's) in the big cities on the eastern seaboard (Boston, New York, Philadelphia) eventually gave rise to the first formal police department in 1838 (in Boston).  In the south meanwhile, what started off as slave patrols morphed into local police departments.  In both cases, the police were entirely staffed by white men, whose main charter was to keep the labor force - slaves in the south, factory workers in the north - under the control of their masters.  The rich, as they are wont to do - all around the world and throughout history - outsourced the dirty work to hired minions. For much of the early decades the local police departments were nothing more than enforcers for the local mob bosses (who were of course the political bosses as well). 

In the early 1900s, there was an attempt to professionalize police departments around the US and while some positive changes came in (for instance, policemen would be hired through a dedicated process and not simply be appointed by the Mayor and his henchmen), it also created the modern police bureaucracy.  The main purpose however, was still to keep labor from getting too restive and the police were routinely called into bust union activity.  In response to persistent charges of brutality and calls for increased accountability, police forces closed ranks and unionized themselves.  This has to be one of the more ironic twists in this saga - the police today use the very same tool to avoid accountability that they were supposed to destroy - unions.

 

The calls for police reform continued to come at regular intervals, but nothing really changed well into the 60s and 70s, when the police were called in to suppress the civil rights and anti-war activities of that era - and they responded with characteristic brutality.  Through the 90's and beyond, corruption and racial discrimination scandals have erupted in one big city police department after the other with clockwork regularity. 

The modern day police brass may make a lot of PC statements, but under that veneer, things have only gotten worse. A case in point is the increasing militarization of big and small town police departments.  This is the consequence of the, now infamous, 1033 program which requires the Pentagon to transfer surplus military hardware to local police departments. The original rationale was almost logical - help the police in their 'war on drug'.  However, the results have been predictably disheartening - small and big town police departments are now bristling with military vehicles and weapons that only serve to further terrorize citizens when the police deploy them in overwhelming displays of force.  Shock and Awe on the homefront.  This is exactly what happened in Ferguson, MO - the manner in which that police department responded to protests that broke out in the wake of the 2014 killing of the unarmed black teenager (Michael Brown) at the hands of a white police officer so horrified the nation that President Obama signed an executive order suspending the 1033 program.  From 1990 through 2014, this program had caused more than $5 Billion in military gear to be transferred to municipal police departments across the country.  Predictably, in 2017, Trump signed an executive order reinstating the program. 

As an immigrant of color (or maybe just as a person of color), any encounter with any law enforcement officer (let alone a cop) is fraught.  I understand implicitly that the burden of proving my "innocence" or "lack of threat" is on me and the cop considers it well within his (yes, it is still mostly men) rights to assume that I am up to no good.  This is very difficult (if not outright impossible) for white americans to understand - their trust in the cops as protectors is indeed justified.  When Trump recently praised police officers as "great, great, people", who have been, "letting us live in peace," he was exactly correct - with the minor caveat that the "us" he was referring to are the people with the money and power - that are also overwhelmingly (and not coincidentally), white.  His choice of words were also (unwittingly, I am sure, given that this is Trump - that past master of linguistics, the one with all the "best" words) revealing in their own right: In stating that the police are "letting" us live in peace, he was implicitly endorsing the belief amongst a significant fraction of the law enforcement community that we are all just being allowed to thrive under their benevolent guardianship and how dare we challenge this by asking for any accountability or transparency?  

Probably the most famous line from A Few Good Men, is the "You can't handle the truth!" retort from Col Jessep (played by Jack Nicholson), but what follows is particularly telling.  He continues: 

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it." Enough said.

Calls for "defunding" the police have started to gain momentum and Trump and his supporters have seized upon it with predictable glee.  It's easy to scare people into thinking that the protestors are advocating for a lawless world where we would all essentially be in a real life version of The Purge. (Actually, I am pretty sure that that prospect is exactly what scares the living daylights out of rich elites, but let's leave that for another day.)  

Don't fall for this scare tactic! "Defunding" doesn't mean there won't be a police department or law enforcement officers.  It simply means that we, as a society, need to rethink what we want our police to do.  They have become the ultimate Swiss Army knife of civic society - called upon equally to attend to natural disasters and domestic abuse.  This is unfair to the police and to us as citizens who are paying for this service.  The police are trained to keep the peace and solve crimes, not respond to homelessness or mental illness.  "Defunding" the police is a call to restructure how we spend our public safety dollars.  If you are still worried about ending up with a smaller police force, perhaps you will take some comfort in the study after study that has shown that more police does not lead to less crime. Or conversely, that a smaller force does not lead to increased crime. 

I will close with the example that is being bandied about a lot these days - that of Camden, New Jersey.  In 2012, Camden dissolved its police department en masse (although about 25% of the officers were re-hired after a new set of hiring policies were put in place).  At that point, it was one of the most violent cities in America, with a murder solve rate of about 14%.  The force was rebuilt from the ground up and crime has now dropped by more than half and their murder solve rate is above 60%.  Why do I highlight this statistic amongst so many others? Well, because most murders are solved only when citizens come forward and help the police with witness statements and cooperate, in general.  The sharp spike in the solve rate points to a very key (and otherwise intangible) factor - the huge increase in trust that the citizens of Camden now have in their police.  Isn't that a worthwhile goal for all of us to have? 

This Moment in Time

We seem to be poised at the edge - there is a sense that society itself is unraveling at the seams.  As protests over the killing of George Floyd fill our cities, it feels like something is about to give.  The worst of our collective expectations after the election of Donald Trump have more than come to pass. 

After the shocking election result of 2016, the uneasy peace that many made with it was that we would be ok unless the nation came face to face with a real crisis.  Trump seemed ever so eager to fulfill that prophecy, careening from one manufactured crisis to another.  But somehow, he seemed to make it through without serious damage to his political fortunes. Many of us continued to wring our hands and bemoan our helplessness as the Trump administration (quite possibly one of the more incompetent cabinets ever assembled by a President) unleashed one senseless move after the other.  We debated the possibility of Trump winning another term while marveling (in frustration) that he remained viable. 

Much ink has been spilled on analysis and exposes (for a person with a disdain for books and reading in general, Trump's tenure has been a boon to the publishing industry), but the reason his prospects remained bright simply came down to the cynical calculus of self-interest.  True, there was much moral outrage, but how many people actually vote their morals? Despite all the hand wringing about Trump's actions, how many of us have experienced a materially negative impact? It's like the war on terror - it's happening in far away lands, fought by young men and women who are disproportionately from underprivileged circumstances, and return to a nation that has all but forgotten them. 

 

And then came Covid-19.  As the first reports of another viral infection originating in the far east started filtering through, it was easy to view them merely with academic interest.  Many of us recalled the SARS epidemic. Then there was MERS and Ebola. None of these made any meaningful inroads in the US and I am sure many of us made the implicit assumption that this time would be no different. But, seemingly overnight, it all changed and the disease has spread with a ferocity that we have struggled to come to terms with.  The experience has been entirely unique. It is safe to say that most of us have never lived through such an extended lock-down period.  There was almost a fairy tale quality to it.  We didn't quite know how to behave or how we should feel about it.  The movie Contagion was much discussed in the early days and I have to admit, watching it now, it did have almost a documentary kind of feel about it.  But, it is Groundhog Day that more accurately captured the sensation of our lives - without the regimented schedules (which we so loved to rail against) of our quotidian lives, there was no sense of the passage of time. Time seemed to simultaneously stand still and fly by at breakneck speed.  Many of us had the epiphany that it was only by the things that we did (& had to do) did we register the  passage of time. 

There are some that agonize about the confluence of an unprecedented pandemic, its economic fallout, and angry protests breaking out all over the country.  But, in fact, they are all connected.  The economic fallout is of course the direct result of the lockdown in response to the spread of Covid-19.  The killing of George Floyd and the anger and pain that has burst forth is of course unrelated to Covid-19, but the lockdown and a general sense of dread seemingly from an ineffable source added an edge to the anger and pain.  And that edge is what is different about this latest round of protests over institutional racism that, most recently, can be traced back to Michael Brown in Ferguson, with multiple stops in between. 

And what do we see Trump doing? Raving and ranting as always, throwing blame around and taking no responsibility whatsoever.  There is no sugar coating it - he is a racist and his only interest is self-interest. Trump couldn't care less that he and his administration are causing (almost) irreparable damage to American society, its people, and to its place in the world, as long as it furthers his personal agenda.  We are squarely in a moment of reckoning - are we going to unravel from here or is the system resilient enough to withstand these body blows and still remain standing? 

There have been many a great civilization that seemed invincible in its time.  The sun never set on the British empire, until it did. In 1700, India accounted for 27% of global GDP and a full quarter of the world's textile trade.  The US has been the indispensable power for more than a century now, but is this the start of a slide into irrelevancy?  American exceptionalism has always turned on the well justified notion that despite all its manifest flaws, the world is simply a better place when the US is the accepted moral authority.  And if you didn't care about that, well, we have the weapons to blow you out of existence.  Under Trump, there is not even a pretense of retaining that mantle of moral authority.  China is fast becoming the dominant economic force in the world and most of the world is armed to the teeth.  So, what remains of the US role? 

I always thought that the 2000 election that brought in Bush the younger (along with Cheney and the rest of the Neo-Cons) was one of the most consequential elections of my lifetime.  With Al Gore in the White House, how different would our response to 9/11 have been?  And how different would the world be today if that had happened? But, all of that will pale in comparison to the implications of the elections coming up this November.  If Trump is not defeated at the polls - and it really has to be a veritable blue tsunami that sweeps him and his enablers in the Senate out - the protests and strife that we see today will seem like a walk in the park. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, the very survival of this country - its soul at any rate - hangs in the balance.