When it comes to Black Lives Matter, neither top cop understands the movement’s existence, so they decry and monsterize it instead.
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Usually when a bureaucrat says something that defies the laws of asininity, I chuckle, or, if the subject matter they’re referring to is of a personal nature to me, my temper flares up and I ready my words for a defense.
But this morning when two top cops – both black men – gave utterance to their usual anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric, I did more than chuckle, I cracked the f*ck up, more so at Mr. David A. Clarke Jr., the sheriff of Milwaukee County, who predicted the grassroots movement that came to life after the death of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, would form a partnership with ISIS to “bring down our legal constituted republic.”
I guess what made his statement so funny to me was that he’s not being a satirist, instead very serious, which means he’s more vacuous than I credited him, and the disconnect between government talking heads like Mr. Clarke and the everyday anti-police violence activists is wider than I’d like to believe.
Too, this morning, I read in Philadelphia Magazine that the Police Commissioner, Mr. Charles Ramsey, is tired of people, particularly Black Lives Matter activists, complaining about the police.
“I get a little sick and tired of all this cop-bashing. I haven’t heard anybody talk about the criminal element that’s … causing all the harm out here. When you go and put a burglar alarm on your house and you apply to get a permit to carry, is it to protect yourself from the cops or from T-Bone and Boo Boo down the street?,” Mr. Ramsey, who’s retiring in January, is quoted as saying in the publication.
According to my source within the Philadelphia Police Department, many officers are also tired of the criticism, and they are falling back from enforcing certain policies, a trend in policing known as the “Ferguson Effect.”
The complaints and scrutiny of police officers by activists and the public is infuriating those hired to uphold – not improve – the system, because a culture had long been established in this country that a police officer’s work is of no consequence to citizens, thus justifying the paucity of civilian oversight boards of American police departments.
Despite their link to a historically oppressed race of people, neither Mr. Ramsey nor Mr. Clarke can empathize with, or comprehend the concerns voiced by Black Lives Matter activists and their supporters.
They refuse to admit what many in black communities have known for decades and what a large part of the American public is now acknowledging: police have and do treat African-Americans differently and, more often than not, will use excessive force on their bodies, claiming that they fear for their lives, despite there being no real threat.
Last year, during a press conference addressing the controversial case of Mr. Darrin Manning – a Philadelphia teenager who claimed a white female officer squeezed his testicles while he was being patted down – I asked Mr. Ramsey, who couldn’t understand why Mr. Manning would run from the police if he hadn’t done anything wrong, if he would agree that most black boys in this city fear the police, and he didn’t, instead he suggested maybe there’s a few that do, then portrayed himself and his department as a welcoming venue for dialogue.
“We can’t fix the problem if we don’t talk about it,” he said.
In the real world, though, before you talk about a problem with the intentions of solving it, you first acknowledge that there’s something which needs remedy.
Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Clarke don’t appear to believe that there’s any validity to the claims of racism, brutality and bias in American policing, that the high profile cases that come before the public via the media are individual instances, and not part of a sick trend exacerbated by a system rooted in violence and oppression.
Their indifference to people’s reality and staunch defense of their own is not a demeanor or spirit in which conversation can flourish; instead it just perpetuates the “us versus them” culture which, in part, is what Black Lives Matter is speaking to with their aggressive activism.
Both men, because they are so deeply assimilated into the system for which they depend on for livelihood, have opted to criminalize and trivialize the efforts of black people and their allies rather than acknowledge how this push for social justice will make America great, not just for the routinely disenfranchised, but for Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Clarke’s quasi-privileged black sons, daughters and grandchildren.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™
I thought not. What a waste.
Thing that drives me crazy about gimp. You post a monologue. We respond with another monologue and there is never any real dialogue. Is that the point of this because if so then why do you write your passion? Does anyone have any interest at all in learning something from each other? If not then just post away into the ether. You already have your mind made up so what’s the point?
Ok. I’ll be honest here. Unfortunately I don’t think I’m gonna get an honest answer. Who’s funding this? This “grassroots” movement came on too quick and too well organized to be from the real people those who think it’s real have been fooled maybe for the right reason but probably not. Its just plain old good underground politics. I’ve been around this rodeo too many times to not see the markers of it all. The activist leaders are too well connected and all that’s missing is the ties to the top. How close am I Chris? 🙂