Do Police Have The "Right" To Brutalize-- And Execute-- Citizens? Republicans Tend To Think So

If the election is a referendum on Trump, get ready for President Biden. If it's about Trump's handling of the pandemic, expect an landslide that will see Republicans at every level of government losing their offices. The Republicans know that, of course, and they are working make the election about anything else. They've settled on a bogus "law and order" narrative. Bogus because Trump is the most criminal president in history, presiding over the most criminal regime in American history. This may not be that big a deal compared to Trump's major, daily criminality but last February he pardoned the female Darrell Issa, Angela Stanton-King, who had served 2 years of her sentence for running a car theft ring. A few weeks after Trump pardoned her, she launched an election campaign against John Lewis in Atlanta's 5th congressional district, one of the bluest districts in the country (D+34), where Trump only drew 11% of the vote. With Lewis' death Stanton-King is now running in an open seat (against state Senator Nikema Williams). A gay-bashing, anti-Choice Q-Anon nut case with a flare for getting attention, Stanton-King has no chance of being elected to Congress but every TV appearance and every newspaper article or social media mention brings money into her coffers. She's very much like her hero, Señor Trumpanzee.

"Law and order" is not part of today's Republican Party-- except inasmuch as it can be used to oppress poor people. The Republican campaign theme this cycle is all about painting a picture of Democrat-run cities being overrun by angry mobs and looters. Trump in New Hampshire Friday: "Today's Democratic Party is filled with hate. Just look at Joe Biden supporters on the street screaming and shouting at bystanders with unhinged manic rage... They are not protesters. They are anarchists, they are agitators, they are rioters, they are looters." And actual Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two protesters and wounded a third in Kenosha.

The protests in Kenosha were all about the police shooting Jacob Blake in the back-- 7 times-- last Sunday. Blake lived but is now paralyzed from the waist down. The police responded to protesters by gassing them. Some of the protesters, angry and provoked-- possibly by Trumpist agents provocateurs-- burned businesses. There is a legitimate sense that police are not accountable for their criminal activity and the fascist impulses they act out against citizens.

"I support the protestors, so I am against the police. That’s the lie I hear every single day in America," wrote John Pavlovitz yesterday. "It’s a myth perpetuated by this President and his party and by people like them: white people who don’t want to address the systemic racism embedded in law enforcement or the persistent brutality against people of color on display-- and who attempt to push people to the very opposite of poles in order to avoid talking about it: 'Choose Black Lives or Blue Lives.' they say. 'Those are the options.' This choice is not only unnecessary, it is rooted in a fundamental falsehood: the existence of Blue Lives. There is no such thing as a 'Blue Life.'"

Law enforcement officers are not a race and they are not a monolith, either. They come from every disparate part of this nation; out of many families of origin, religious traditions, sexual orientations, and political affiliations, when they choose this work. It is among the most dangerous and stressful and volatile work on the planet-- but they do choose it.

And when they do, they take an oath to protect and serve humanity in its fullness. That is the job description. It is the very heart of the calling. It is the singular purpose they exist: defense of all life under the Law, a Law they represent and embody.

There are expectations we have for those choosing to put on that badge and that uniform:

• They are expected to defuse combustible situations, not exacerbate them.
• They are expected to use wisdom and restraint instead of emotionally exerting force.
• They are expected to withstand provocation without responding in kind.
• They are expected to be beyond prejudice and above biases that would deny another human being’s inherent worth.
• They are expected to uphold the civil rights of every person in their path equally, without caveat or condition or excuse.
• They are paid by American citizens (including citizens of color) to do this chosen work on behalf of the public who they are accountable to.

And when they are off-duty, members of this diverse community can remove the badge and uniform and they can escape the hazards and the threats of their jobs, and live fully into their other “non-Blue identities”-- that is, except for the black and brown police officers.

They like (all people of color) can’t take off their skin to avoid the taunts that come with it, they can’t be undercover or off-duty or take a break from the demands of their difficult reality. They can’t step out of their pigmentation in order to sidestep the violence it brings every moment of every day. They are not black or brown at some portions of the day or some days of the week or when they clock in, which is why the supposed #BlueLivesMatter movement isn’t an equivalent advocacy of life in response to the call for people of color to be treated with dignity, it is an insult. It is a white excuse to avoid confronting discrimination against people of color, to distract from the difficult conversations, to deny the systemic sickness, and to stop all conversation.

This is something far beyond citizen on citizen violence, this is violence initiated by those with both the power of the Law and weaponry in their hands. That means they are subject to even greater scrutiny because the stakes are higher and the impact on communities is profound.

It is not an attack on law enforcement to name and to condemn police brutality, or to demand that those who comprise its ranks are of the highest standard as human beings-- it is a reiteration of its value as an entity.

And it is not anti-American, but the essence of patriotism to responsibly police the police; to ensure that they are living into their oath with regard to all citizens, because every human life literally depends on them doing so: at traffic stops and in city streets and in public parks and in their homes.

And as citizens of this country, we don’t have to apologize for our standards and our expectations of public servants. That’s part of the gig. Law-abiding, tax-paying Americans are not accountable to violent police officers-- violent police officers are accountable to law-abiding, tax-paying Americans. It is not incumbent on us to avoid criticizing them, it is incumbent on them to listen and to respond to valid criticism.

It’s not asking too much to insist that officers not only protect people of color as passionately as they protect white Americans, but that they not actively harm them.

It’s not unreasonable to expect them not to kneel on a man’s neck for over eight minutes until he expires, not to shoot a man seven times in the back, not break into a woman’s bedroom and murder her, not to beat peaceful protestors, not to knock unarmed old men to the ground, not to allow a young white man with an AR-15 to run past them while being alerted to his murderous presence.

Being furious when police officers do these things is not an act of hatred against law enforcement as an entity-- but against the acts of hateful cowardice committed by some that pervert it and cheapen them all.

I am not for Blue Lives, I am for human lives, and the human lives that continually find themselves brutalized by those entrusted to protect them are black and brown-- and Americans need to name and confront and own this because until we do, we will continue to conflate outrage at inequity, with attacks on the perpetrators of this inequity.

The good people of this country fighting against brutality will not be defined by the calculated lie that to be for Black Lives is to be against the police.

We simply demand that the police be for Black Lives without exception-- or we demand they no longer be police.