A lot of people who intone so authoritatively about police have no contact with actual police and no idea what being a policeman or policewoman is like. From Fred Reed on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
Encountering almost daily criticisms of the police by Pathologically Virtuous Whites of the sort one finds at Salon and NPR, many of these criticisms being nonsensical, I find myself wanting to ask these unpleasantly nice people:
Do you know any cops? Have you ever known any? I mean known them well enough to have a beer with after work, or to invite to a get-together at your house. Have you ever really talked to a cop?
As I thought.
Let’s try this: Have you ever heard an unedited interview, or any interview, with any of the cops or security people accused of gratuitously killing blacks? Or with their lawyers? With any cop at all about anything at all? That is, with anyone who might present their side of the story?
I haven’t either.
Has it ever occurred to you that there might be another side of the story?
Yet I assume confidently that you have heard all sorts of activists and talking heads who weren’t there holding forth on events about which they had no direct knowledge. Doubtless you have heard a lot from Jesse and Al, Barack and Michelle, and Hillary, and Black Lives Matter, and all the commentators. But nothing at all from the cops, right? That is, your entire understanding of cops, the conditions in which they work, and particular events has been crafted by the media. No?
Now, why don’t you know any cops? For at least two reasons. As a Pathologically Virtuous White (PVW), you are almost certainly a college graduate. The police are blue-collar. PVWs s do not associate with what they regard as lower classes any more than they would let their daughters date a plumber.
Am I wrong? Do you have a single close blue-collar friend? Or any blue-collar friend?
Another reason why you don’t know any cops is that cops and their families tend to be clannish, to associate mostly with other cops and their families. There are reasons for this. One is that people are uneasy around cops and, in social settings, the cops are uncomfortable around PVWs. If you invite a dozen friends to a backyard barbecue, and one is a cop, what happens if a guest, unaware, pulls out a joint and lights it? Does the cop arrest him? Pretend he doesn’t see? Be a good sport about it and risk repercussions for dereliction of duty? Will people even talk about their experiences in the Sixties with a cop around? (“I was flying on psilocybin and….”)
What if some of the guests are a bit, er, flushed with wine and start to drive home? Should he give them a sobriety test to protect the public? When is a cop not a cop?
Further, cops are masculine, a condition seldom practiced or approved by PVWs. They are conservative and like guns. You will be acutely aware that they hey are not your kind of people. They will be aware that you are thinking this.
So you know nothing about them, their jobs, or the conditions in which they work. Especially the latter. Blank ignorance allows you to have strong, simple ideas and pious indignations about the police without any danger of contradiction by reality. You friends will all have the same notions, and you will all enjoy admiring your inherent rightness.
To continue reading: Virtue and the Streets: A Dummy’s Guide to Police Work
