The Police were supposed to protect the people from villains, criminals, people who broke the law. The police were supposed to be on our side. "To Protect and Serve."
What happened to that?
Honestly? That was never going to happen. The police in the US, just like the police everywhere else, in every time period, is specifically designed to protect the rich and the powerful. They are intended to keep the rest of us in line.
The laws are written to ensure that the rich can do whatever they want with absolute impunity, or at least with a minimum of obstruction. The laws are written to make sure the rest of us behave ourselves. The laws allow the wealthy to continue to stockpile wealth at the expense of the poor. They allow the wealthy to pay no tax, while the poor foot the bill for the streets and the bridges and the rest of the infrastructure. Fines are punitive for the poor, but merely annoying for the wealthy. Sentencing, whether we want to admit it or not, is based largely upon whether the defendant looks 'respectable' or 'dangerous'.
Beyond that, when the police, the individual members of the police force, decide for themselves that the law has become inadequate, they simply begin killing people they decide are threatening. These people are never the wealthy. The wealthy are the Great Men, the lions of society, the holders of the purse-strings, to whom one prostrates oneself.
The targets, of course, are the poor. Even more, the poor that sit outside the perceived majority. People of color, mostly.
And these individuals build a culture within the whole police force of moving beyond the scope of the law to punish those who are perceived as a threat. And when those people, those threats, fight back, the police take that as confirmation that they were right. So, for the poor, the choice becomes die, or die fighting.
What do you do?
You fight.
What happened to that?
Honestly? That was never going to happen. The police in the US, just like the police everywhere else, in every time period, is specifically designed to protect the rich and the powerful. They are intended to keep the rest of us in line.
The laws are written to ensure that the rich can do whatever they want with absolute impunity, or at least with a minimum of obstruction. The laws are written to make sure the rest of us behave ourselves. The laws allow the wealthy to continue to stockpile wealth at the expense of the poor. They allow the wealthy to pay no tax, while the poor foot the bill for the streets and the bridges and the rest of the infrastructure. Fines are punitive for the poor, but merely annoying for the wealthy. Sentencing, whether we want to admit it or not, is based largely upon whether the defendant looks 'respectable' or 'dangerous'.
Beyond that, when the police, the individual members of the police force, decide for themselves that the law has become inadequate, they simply begin killing people they decide are threatening. These people are never the wealthy. The wealthy are the Great Men, the lions of society, the holders of the purse-strings, to whom one prostrates oneself.
The targets, of course, are the poor. Even more, the poor that sit outside the perceived majority. People of color, mostly.
And these individuals build a culture within the whole police force of moving beyond the scope of the law to punish those who are perceived as a threat. And when those people, those threats, fight back, the police take that as confirmation that they were right. So, for the poor, the choice becomes die, or die fighting.
What do you do?
You fight.
