If money wasn’t needed. If people had access to dignified work to pay for housing, food and health, they would have a choice.
Cop work is always available, on a very low entry bar, paying generally better than equivalent positions elsewhere. And shitty people get to vent their violence unchecked.
Nice cops “just” have to sell their should a bit. Some people get desperate and are willing to pay the consciousness price.
In my opinion these positions shouldn’t even be available, the whole chain of command should be replaced by people representing the oppressed classes, committed to ending oppression.
I’m not defending police, I just think the criticism has to focus on the institution problem, not at the individual problem. Individuals are insignificant in the grand scheme of things, systems are everything.
Sure, like any other wildly unethical job there’s a spectrum of different people’s privilege and ability to easily cut out to a less cartoonishly evil job – I would hold Person A with a background in cybersecurity and no dependants a lot more responsible for every day they remain a cop than Person B who joined police academy straight out of high school and is supporting 5 children etc.
But saying that Person B should be excluded from “fuck cops” – that is, that there should be an exception to the general cultural work of making it socially unacceptable to be part of a murderous, racist, unjust, reactionary paid army – is supporting the institution that you’re claiming to be against. Waiting until a complete societal transformation before campaigning for people to not take blood money (your euphemistic “consciousness price”) is valuing Person B’s economic solvency over the lives of the people they (or, being generous, just their colleagues) will harass, target, frame, and even kill.
If money wasn’t needed. If people had access to dignified work to pay for housing, food and health, they would have a choice.
Cop work is always available, on a very low entry bar, paying generally better than equivalent positions elsewhere. And shitty people get to vent their violence unchecked.
Nice cops “just” have to sell their should a bit. Some people get desperate and are willing to pay the consciousness price.
In my opinion these positions shouldn’t even be available, the whole chain of command should be replaced by people representing the oppressed classes, committed to ending oppression.
I’m not defending police, I just think the criticism has to focus on the institution problem, not at the individual problem. Individuals are insignificant in the grand scheme of things, systems are everything.
Totally honest question: do you feel this way too about Russian soldiers in Ukraine, or IDF soldiers in Gaza?
Sure, like any other wildly unethical job there’s a spectrum of different people’s privilege and ability to easily cut out to a less cartoonishly evil job – I would hold Person A with a background in cybersecurity and no dependants a lot more responsible for every day they remain a cop than Person B who joined police academy straight out of high school and is supporting 5 children etc.
But saying that Person B should be excluded from “fuck cops” – that is, that there should be an exception to the general cultural work of making it socially unacceptable to be part of a murderous, racist, unjust, reactionary paid army – is supporting the institution that you’re claiming to be against. Waiting until a complete societal transformation before campaigning for people to not take blood money (your euphemistic “consciousness price”) is valuing Person B’s economic solvency over the lives of the people they (or, being generous, just their colleagues) will harass, target, frame, and even kill.