Originally Posted by
Wrongside
Last Summer/Fall I started to worry about the state of affairs for a lot of reasons, but this one in particular.
As much as a strong light was being shone on the shootings, the bad cops, racist cops and the general fear the Black community has of being shot by an officer, especially when being pulled over -- this has to have emboldened many for many reasons...
I have heard some stories of Black people being even more scared to get pulled over nowadays, which I can believe and sympathize with....
but some have perhaps rightly detected a change in 'weather'( perhaps there have been many private conversations about how they have been let go with a surge of 'warnings' lately. Maybe they have talked about how the Cops are pretty scared now...this is easily imagined) and realized they might be able to get away with more in most circumstances: the risk, they sense, might be worth the reward....as they say to themselves, the last thing this cop wants to be involved in is a shooting that will destroy his life...(Today's situation, you have a cop who was willing to shoot a taser, but not a gun for example)...
So now this has emboldened many, leaving us with a big problem of now potentially more combative arrests and more shootings...
If any one has worked as teacher, coach or youth (especially troubled youth), you might have noticed this....The kids know...Take a bad teacher for example who has lost control of the class and he/she is yelling at kids, handing out some detentions, but also making a lot of empty threats as well,. The kids have zero respect for the teacher - and which is more, they rightfully suspect that the teacher can't suspend everyone, or does not really want to create another scene with another kid....
They know this game extremely well for it is the same pattern with their weak parent....The kid actually knows that after the weak parent punishes them, they are actually less likely to do so in the near future, or even follow-up on the first punishment....so rather than serving as a deterrent or a boundary (as it would with a good teacher/coach/parent), it is looked at more like an earned breach in the fortress...
Kids, youth, criminal types -- are all extremely gifted at picking up on this...
We have become weak, we have lost control -- to the good of no one...