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"Look for the helpers"

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"Look for the helpers".  

This quote, said by Mr. Rogers, is often repeated to calm children, and increasingly adults, during crisis moments.  It's meant to provide comfort to scared people.  Police officers are considered to be in this group, perhaps the paramount example.  But as Americans protest and riot against the needless death of George Floyd, one name among dozens of the past decade who are more than simply hashtags, one name among millions enslaved and murdered for 400+ years, I've increasingly been asking myself one question.  
If your calling is to be a helper, why did you decide that being a police officer is the best way to do so?  
Why did you decide to associate with a position that has a repeated history of oppression against black people?  Why did you associate with a position that has a repeated history of oppression against poor people?  Why did you associate with a position that is increasingly hostile to journalists upholding society’s responsibility to the constitutionally protected freedom of the press? Why did you associate with a position that just yesterday abused protesters all across America who are protesting your very police brutality?  You think if police would decide to keep cool for just one day, that yesterday would be that day.
 
Why did you associate with a position that let armed conservative mobs literally shut down Michigan’s state legislature a few weeks ago, while operating with complete restraint.

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What are you doing to reform your police department from the inside?  Because the adage isn’t “just a few bad apples”, it’s “a few bad apples spoils the bunch.”

If your calling is to be a helper, why did you decide to join the police, instead of riding in the big red truck?  Or instead of serving as an ambulance driver or EMT?  Or instead working for your local homeless shelter, or women's shelter, or LGBT shelter, or food bank?  Racism is so embedded in our nation that there definitely are instances of racism in those other professions, but it’s no question that the police is by far the worst when it comes to racism.  What is it specifically about the police that made you choose that method of helping, despite the immense history of oppression carried out by people in that profession?

Is it because you want to play military?  Is it because deep down, you actually want to be in a profession that systematically abuses black people without any accountability whatsoever, even when filmed?  That you are specifically drawn to a profession that hires domestic abusers, white supremacists, and overall aggressive assholes more than any other profession?

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This is a hard conversation to have because I do have several friends working as police officers.  I’m not personally attacking you, but I am asking you to search deep within you to come to terms with just why you chose to become a police officer when you could join countless other professions as a helper.  If it was for good reasons, what are you doing to root out oppression from your co-workers?  Because there are far too many police violence videos out there, yesterday and years before, for it to be a small problem.  If anything, you as the good officer is the exception.

For fellow white people, it is up to us to eliminate racism, and that requires tough conversations to have with our white friends and family.  It also requires tough actions to root out racism from our police force, and to do that we must understand just exactly why someone chooses to become a police officer when there are countless other ways to help society that are not associated with violence and oppression.

Rioting is scary and destructive, but all the folks aghast at how Center City looks today, large parts of Philadelphia where people live have looked like that for decades, because of redlining and lack of investment.  Any Penn classmate of mine who lived in west Philly and walked to 46th Street Station saw plenty of boarded up buildings, and it's far worse in other neighborhoods.  It doesn't excuse destruction (much of which was caused by white anarchist agitators who are not our allies), but folks have to start thinking much more broadly about these issues.  They are all connected.

We want safe communities, we want the police to be community members with us.  I am anti-racism and anti-white supremacy.  It just is an indisputable fact that there is much overlap of racism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, and the police.  Watch with your own damn eyes in the video above.  It’s long past time white people have these conversations, because it’s up to us to use our privilege to end this, and because our privilege allows us to never feel this pain.

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What are you going to to eliminate racism and white supremacy in our police and society at large  Register and VOTE every election as a bare minimum.  Politicians are sleeping at the wheel precisely because they fear police unions more than voters.  It's time to change that.

And for those who find this diary in the future, let this fact be clear — I have served on a jury for a 1st degree murder case here in Philadelphia.  The police were largely witnesses.  And after careful review of the evidence, it was the evidence that justified a conviction, which I voted for as a juror.  So you can keep it moving if you want to use this diary as a reason to exclude me from a jury.  If there is one thing that I am, it is that I am fair.


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