There is no easy answer to the question: "Would I, or you help a police officer fighting with a person?" Being flippant about it ignores that there are facts and factors to consider.
I was a police officer during the Crack Wars in the 1980's. One of my uncles was a police officer during the Jim Crow era in the 1950's in Illinois, and in today's world there are three unobvious movements within the thinking of the public and police officers. Because most Americans seem to live in a strange room where they are unable, or unwilling to face the contradictions to their notions of freedom, they don't recognize the after effect of September 11, 2001. Since, that time Americans became obsessed with being fearful, and subsequently gave up their rights over to President Bush, who in his tenure created a document that facilitated loss of rights, and created a government agency that justified the methods to do just that. It produced a false sense of something unlike the past centuries of colonization, and produced a mentality lest likely to protect anyone else, in this case a police officer.
Helping a police officer in need or danger is fraught with dangers. Only a Black or a white grandmother could have pulled that off if she had a maternal spirit within her. A Black man would not venture to help. He'd most likely become part of the inner dilemma the policeman is embroiled within, and could have been killed by arriving officers. A white woman? Impractical. Inconceivable. A Native man? That would be a surprise for this century for reasons the average citizen would not consider because schools teach that we are extinct. A redneck? Maybe, a good ol' boy would love to help. He'd feel like it was his duty to help in the spirit of being who he is, but that is questionable because intervening in police work has the potential of becoming a challenge to one's personal freedom! In other words, he could get locked up, fo' sho!
The real thing is most people would have filmed it.
- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
March 29, 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment