Something to ponder:
Why would professional law enforcement see themselves as having common cause with unknown armed militia or citizens?
Why would professional law enforcement see themselves as having common cause with unknown armed militia or citizens?
The stubborn fact of American history and culture is that professional law enforcement has always sided against African Americans with white citizens in general and even armed white mobs and citizens.
Here's a test:
Can you name a single situation absent a presidential order when local law enforcement officers came out in support of African American rights against armed whites threatening us?
Almost always the state has wielded law enforcement against the interests of AAs.
Can you name a single situation absent a presidential order when local law enforcement officers came out in support of African American rights against armed whites threatening us?
Almost always the state has wielded law enforcement against the interests of AAs.
Check the photographic evidence. From white mob violence like that in Tulsa to officers on horseback at the Edmund Pettus Bridge to officers in riot gear today... it's always the state in its paramilitary force arrayed against the just claims and demands of Black people.
This "friendliness" between police officers and random armed people and the ease between a 17-year old with an AR-15 dates way, way back. "Officer friendly" always treats others with friendliness, but in times of civic clash generally withholds that friendliness toward us.
Perhaps the simplest and most persistent evidence of the injustice of our criminal justice system is its constant, never-questioned, instinctive protection of white citizens and property along with a questioning, instinctive, constant opposition to African American demands.
The partiality stands there in photo after photo. Until there's a deep reform of the culture of policing and an examination of our implicit and instinctive biases, injustice will be baked into law enforcement.
If we want a fair policing system, we have to insist at the very least that police engage all citizens in the same way. We have to insist on greater impartiality. We have to demand that the law *and its officers* side with the oppressed and mistreated.
For the Christian, impartiality reflects the character of God and partiality a sin that defies God. We ought to be the ones who most assertively insist that the authorities act equitably and justly. Rather than defend behavior like this, we ought prophetically challenge it.
/end
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