Cops, racism, and feminism

In a way, the outrageous news about police action after the shooting of Laquan McDonald can be viewed as almost a positive thing.

The guy was shot sixteen times in the back, witnesses and video pretty much corroborate this story and that is hardly in doubt, but what I find interesting is how much video and audio has gone missing. There were five police cruisers at the scene, but video is available from only two of them, and audio is not available at all, despite it being a requirement on all police vehicles in Chicago. Additionally a camera at a nearby Burger King had its footage of the time the crime was committed erased, the manager says the cops did it. Which I am inclined to believe as I doubt that some random Burger King employee would risk pissing off a PD just for a bit of attention.

So why do I view the systematic attempt to erase evidence as a positive? Well, for one, they didn't do a very good job of it, which implies to me that there may have been a cop or two on the scene who weren't completely on board with a grotesque miscarriage of justice, which hopefully implies that there are a few good people in police departments and I would like to think that number is growing, but I realize that may be naive ofme.
The second reason is also probably naive, but I am encouraged by the fact that they felt the need to erase the evidence at all, because let's be honest here, there have been times in the US, not so long ago even, that video evidence of an illegal shooting of a black man by white cops was simply ignored rather than treated as damning evidence.

Okay, if I am being honest I imagine you can still find cases right now, today, where that is also happening, but I still sort of view it as progress even so.

It's easy, and accurate, to say racism is the reason behind these killings we keep seeing, as well as the reluctance of the legal system to prosecute or convict those behind them. But I don't know that it is the whole story, I believe it is also a feminist issue.

Nowhere in our culture is Toxic Masculinity for represented than in our police forces, it's treated as a boys club and in large part it is, the women on the force had better be one of the guys or they won't have a very good time, but that is not the problem, well it is, but not the problem I meant to talk about. Police forces take the violence first, emotions are for wusses, Judge Dredd is a role model aspects of our culture and distills it into every aspect of it's existence, from the selection process that some say actually weeds out the most intelligent applicants, to the locker room mentality that seems to infuse every other part of their day.

Take all the members of a stereotypical high school football team, with all the testosterone, stupidity, refusal to admit weakness, and bravado masking insecurities that go along with it, keep them like that, but age them five years and give them guns, and you have the average city police force, these are the people we have protecting us.

They say our schools look more and more like prisons every year, I don't know if that is true or not, but high schools, prisons, and police departments all share one thing, aside from a large percentage of their populations being criminals I mean, that is the "snitches get stitches" mentality, and that more than anything else is what is poisoning law enforcement in America, I know there must be good people in our police departments because the country has not literally turned into a Mad Max movie yet, but the cops involved in these shootings we keep seeing usually have partners, and there are often multiple units on the scene when it happens, yet virtually no fellow officers have come forward as witnesses or provided statements when some kid gets shot in the street.

I hope and believe that not every cop feels like those people deserved to die, but they don't come forward, why? Because you stand with your brothers, because their appalling little clubhouse has succeeded in instilling an us against them mentality in its members, and even if they wanted to, they know the little things cops can do to make your life miserable, or end it entirely, and they want to keep living, and to keep working.

It's a feminist issue because this idea comes directly out of America's love of guns and romanticism of vigilante justice, as well as the outdated and quite frankly horrible ways our school system operates to encourage cliques and macho behavior in men. If you are raised to never show weakness, and you are told that compassion is a weakness, and that strength means backing up your peers no matter what, it's pretty fucking hard to break out of it, and police departments self select for that kind of crap.

But like I said, I do think cracks are starting to show in the whole edifice, the fact that cops, however few of them so far, are actually starting to be prosecuted for this shit is somewhat encouraging, and equal opportunity laws are starting to bring different viewpoints into many police departments.

It's very little, and far too late for too many people, but change doesn't really come suddenly, and combined with the other gradual shifts we are seeing in the rest of our society, the increasing acceptance of homosexuals, condemnation of racism, and awareness of the problems of income inequality, I think there is reason to believe that maybe next year will be better than this on, and the year after that will be better still. I hope so, if not it means these people died for nothing, and I don't think that is a country  I want to live in.