padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
okay one more thing
a sidenote to that: no outside the hood really gives any kind of a fuck about violence until it spills into downtown and wealthy neighborhoods. I've seen it here for years. people get shot on the south and west sides all the time, but it doesn't become this huge Chicago crime is out of control issue with fucking CEOs and whoever commenting on it until yuppies in Lincoln Park or whatever start getting mugged and carjacked.
but yes, the racial issues are complicated by the fact that many more police officers now are POC. that doesn't mean however that Black and Latinx and etc cops can't enforce systemically racist and/or unjust policies. Again, it's all grist for the institution.
this is absolutely true in Chicago and I expect many major American cities with majority POC, due to 1) absolutely the economic incentives 2) the active efforts by police departments over the last few decades to, out of necessity (and sometimes legal mandate) diversify and reflect the demographics of the cities they police. it is also true that there is an inner city POC pro-police element, tho I would say it's not see the police as a "force for good" so much as a lesser evil than violent crime. even when people do want a greater police presence specifically to combat violence, they're not in favor of the police as a militarized force of occupation, which is basically what they are on the west side, and other parts of town, here. who would be in favor of that, besides cops?I see a lot of like, very normal-ass looking young Latina women in police uniforms, and they seem pretty sane at least from the outside. There are very few jobs out there that pay as well, and have the kinds of benefits and job security, without needing a four-year degree. That's a big deal. There are also plenty of families (of color) in poor neighborhoods who see the police as forces for good, as keeping violence from boiling over. That's not me taking their side, or using them to argue either side of the ACAB question—I'm just saying that people who view the world this way are real, and are often just normal-ass working class Christian parents who care more about stray bullets hitting their kid than whether police are overly rough in a stop'n'frisk. I went to a big officer orientation training in Queens circa 2015—granted this was NYC, before Ferguson, but it was like 70% kids of color, lotta community college kids from Staten Island, kids were worried about passing drug tests.
a sidenote to that: no outside the hood really gives any kind of a fuck about violence until it spills into downtown and wealthy neighborhoods. I've seen it here for years. people get shot on the south and west sides all the time, but it doesn't become this huge Chicago crime is out of control issue with fucking CEOs and whoever commenting on it until yuppies in Lincoln Park or whatever start getting mugged and carjacked.
but yes, the racial issues are complicated by the fact that many more police officers now are POC. that doesn't mean however that Black and Latinx and etc cops can't enforce systemically racist and/or unjust policies. Again, it's all grist for the institution.