Diary of a Mad Businessman Pt 6a: Justice & Plywood
By Ben Calica
As I fear for my teetering business becoming collateral damage, I think about what to do with my own rage and how we use it to not just say “enough” but to actually make it finally be enough. Cops who have abused others based on their race need to be treated like the moral equivalent of pedophiles. Not tolerated by those who work with them, and any system that covers for them needs to have those parts ripped out and replaced by ones who find it equally unacceptable.
This is my second rewrite of this, because, frankly, in listening over the last couple of days, both to friends and in general, I’ve realized both the I was wrong about a few things, and that I can not just stick this on the pile of perpetual outrages. It is just fundamentally intolerable.
I only have the slightest sliver of what this must be like. Sure I lived through a level of otherness when I was in high school, living in a place where my ethnic background resulted in some physical bullying (even went as far as legitimately being asked if I had horns.) But I don’t need to live in a state of constant rational paranoia because of a flip of one of my bits of DNA. I don’t have to live in fear that my son’s drive to the store to get a soda could result in his being killed because he didn’t show his hands fast enough, or just happen with that as an excuse. I can be enraged that it happens in a place where I have even the slightest voice. And I can be ashamed that I let it sit in the pile of outrages that felt out of my control. I don’t want to just join in for this moment. I simply can not abide living in a world where this is ok for even another day. So what should/can I do? (Not a rhtorical question, I need to learn that answer.)
My son and I have been having an ongoing argument about this. Even though we agree on the vast majority of this, we have one area where we deeply clash. His view is that the system is fundamentally flawed and that anyone who participates in it and does not leave in protest of the wrongs that are done, is by their nature culpable and therefore not good people. He argues that the good people need to leave so the whole system can be torn down and rebuilt. I, on the other hand, believe that there are lots of good cops our there, probably more then the bad ones, and that the more doable solution was to nurture and cherish those and give them the tools to help pull out the wrong in the system.
But I’m starting to realize that comes way to close to the tremendously minimizing “few bad apples”, argument. It is clear that a system that can turn a blind eye to behavior that is so obviously wrong, one that institutionalizes the code of silence of protecting other members, rather then a sense of pride of moral/ethical value that would find turning a blind eye to this kind of behavior the equivalent to being a teacher and not saying anything about a known or even suspected pedophile who was responsible for a classroom full of kids. A system that teaches it’s members to protect themselves by ending life over subduing. We have decided in most states that we would rather pay to keep a horrific murder in prison rather then taking their life, because we far too often discover that innocents have been wrongly convicted. (Or to our horror discover those facts after people have been put to death in our names.) Yet as a system, if a officer can show that they even suspected the possibility of harm) they are justified to shoot for center mass and sort it out later, frequently in situations where non-lethal force would work. So maybe I’m wrong.
What is completely clear is we all need to draw this moment in the sand, and just as in the Me Too movement, make it utterly unacceptable disqualifying to have ever done these kinds of racist profiling and just fundamentally wrong treatment of fellow human beings. Not just, “we’ll do better” going forward, but the sweep of those that have done these wrongs so that future generations realize that such behavior will ruin their lives, just as it ruins those it touches. (I will admit to worrying what setting these trained forces out into the world unemployed will do in terms of creating an even stronger armed group of supremacists, vs. really trying to reach in and push out that ignorance and hate with actually empathy and understanding. Maybe it would be better to have the punishment for that past behavior be going to dinner once a week in the home of a black family who’s lived through that fear and discrimination so that everybody gets to see each other as humans, not as malicious cartoons.) And we need to change the system in fundamental ways, to give our support and legal and moral cover to those who would identify the moral pedophiles in their ranks and get rid of them.
I do know there are good cops. I have a small business, and a number of times have had to deal which young shoplifters, and the cops I’ve dealt with have been good in ways different then you might think. I probably shouldn’t admit this in public, but I’m weird about how I view shoplifters. I remember what it was like when I shoplifted as a kid, and I know the for me and my best friend at the time, what happened when we got caught had very different outcomes. For him, he had a traditional punishment for the time that involved his bottom and a hair brush, which sounds terrible, but ended up with his feeling like he got something very survivable and ended up with his doing a lot of drugs and worse. For me, it ended up as a moment of deep shame and fear that I though wouldn't ever stop occupying my thoughts and fundamentally changed who I was comfortable being inside. So for me, when we would catch a shoplifter that was under a certain age, we would do a very careful dance between the officer and myself. It involved dealing with the parents and took a fairly long time, a number of visits before the kid finally owned all of what they had done and could hopefully get themselves on a better path in life. Honestly, it only worked about 20% of the time and was a big and for the cop, career valueless thing to do. The only reason to spend that time was truly caring to help a kid who had actually broken the law. There were a couple of officers in particular that would do this, and they did so with equal care, regardless of race or economic background. They proved, not by words but by actions which side of the line they stood on.
The culture needs to change to make any of this discriminatory BS an unacceptable stain on the reputation of the police, a reputation based on people knowing that the police will be trustworthy and fair in their efforts to actually protect and serve. Basically, the good cops need both the systemic and our backing in pushing out the bad ones. I think the hate needs to not be at cops, but at bad cops and every part of the system that supports that, and that hate and shaming should be absolute. Hating all cops ends up either pushing the good ones down or out. Those are the ones we want sticking around and taking over.
So if I ran the world/country. Here’s what I would do.
- Functioning Body Cams need to be a requirement. If their camera doesn’t work, they can’t go out. If they have more then x times where the camera feed isn’t stored for the day, they get fired. And if there is any time where the camera isn’t working during a disputed event, the assumption is the other person is telling the truth and they are disciplined as if they did whatever they are accused of. Cops should always be acting in a way as if it is ok that someone else is watching them. It is horrible and nerve wracking and what is needed to prevent any more abuse, ever.
- Community connection: I think I’m serious about mandatory community dinners for cops with families who have had those bad experiences. We need to see each other as actual people, not perceptions.
- Aggressively expanded whistle blower coverage. And a cultural shift that this isn’t ratting on someone else, it is getting rid of those who should never have been there in the first place.
- Reduce/simplify the laws. There are so many laws to be enforced, that the very discretion to enforce them or not is giving too much discretionary power to the police. As much as I hate to say this, if I speed and get caught doing so, there shouldn’t be any chance that I can talk my way out of it. That creates too much of an opportunity to create hidden discrimination.
- Give the Good Cops the Love, invite them to join the protests. I know there are lots of good cops, people who have chosen a very hard profession because they want to be those first responders to help keep people safe and take care of. They are horrified and shamed by this. Give them a path to follow their sense of what is right in a way that doesn’t make them leave their jobs, leaving it to those who have caused all of this in the first place.
- The part of the system that provide cover have to go. An institution that covers for or worse encourages pedophilia is not one we could or should tolerate. We need to look at our law enforcement agencies with the same moral outrage and careful attention.
In the meantime, I know two things I can do right now. Listen and vote. It isn’t nearly enough, so I’ll listen to see where I can be of use. But it has to stop. No one should be afraid because the people who we hire to keep all of us safe don’t see them as or treat them as they would their own sons and daughters. It’s enough…
Other pieces in this series: