Community Policing

[spoonchicken]

https://abc7news.com/society/sfpd-unveils-pride-patch-and-patrol-vehicle-for-lgbtq-pride-month-/5328245/

[nikkijo]

Waste of. Corporate funding.    They DO NOT support the community. In any capacity what so ever 

[ForbiddenFruit]

No cops at pride

No terfs at pride

No corporations at pride

[MellowYellow]

On 6/24/2019 at 9:00 AM, ForbiddenFruit said:

No cops at pride

No terfs at pride

No corporations at pride

I do not mind if someone is to participate in my pride/acceptance of being gay. I don't see why poeple who hold other LGBTQ identities would either.

I do not see the wrong in having the police at pride. There can be gay , bisexual, lesbian even transgender cops. Leave politics out of pride and let poeple participate. Hell most cops deserve great honor for serving there community genuinely and with love (dont let the bad apples spoil the bunch)

I think its self explanatory why terfs may not be allowed. I think if your transgender and you truly feel like you are woman I have no qualms with Identifying you as a woman.

I do not believe corporations should have morality, but I won't be offended if they want to participate. What if the poeple who work in the corporation are genuinely proud of how far the LGBTQ community has come?

All and all, I don't want to exclude poeple who accept me just because they are not me.

[Lyra]

There's a difference between individuals who are members of the police being at pride and there being a police presence at pride. Like there a quite famous bit of London pride where LGBT army members drive a pink tank, for me the difference is it's not the army sending them but a group of individuals in the armed forces.  Now I admit the photos of police offices with a puppy boy "police dog" this year were very cute but given the origins of pride which I feel need to be honoured and respected where it was a riot to protest the harsh and bigoted actions of the New York Metropolitan police force. To me that's the major reason not to want a police presence at pride, their past and present against the community need to be remembered.

No corporations at pride is a little more fuzzy but let's be honest it's not Coke's employee's celebrating their overlord's inclusiveness it's Coke looking for some good cheap advertising, this kind of pink washing just makes pride the same as saint patrick's day or christmas or any other corporatised holiday and as a community I think we should try to resist that. Also the sheer hypocrisy of companies like twitter and youtube trying to get in on pride is quite shameful.

As for Terfs? They can all die in a fire.

[Nappygirl97]

There is nothing wrong with having police at pride, they are there to help protect people and deter violence and interact and build community ties, just like there is nothing wrong with them being at a football game or other large public events. They are not there to arrest people they are there to make sure nothing goes horribly wrong. 

Unfortunately we still live in a world where people are still not accepting or can accept things provided it is not shoved in there face and unfortunately we still have people on both sides including some LGBT people on the LGBT side still provoke arguements and heated discussion and in some circumstances worse. If you did not have that police presence at pride there will be more likelihood of incidents and that muddies the message cause of small majorities. 

Also alot of pride takes place on public streets either closed off for a parade or something which will need police to help enforce those closures or small events In local businesses on open streets and you cannot pull an officers off their patrols just cause it is pride as that opens a big can of worms with other issues.

[MellowYellow]

1 hour ago, Nappygirl97 said:

There is nothing wrong with having police at pride, they are there to help protect people and deter violence and interact and build community ties, just like there is nothing wrong with them being at a football game or other large public events. They are not there to arrest people they are there to make sure nothing goes horribly wrong. 

Unfortunately we still live in a world where people are still not accepting or can accept things provided it is not shoved in there face and unfortunately we still have people on both sides including some LGBT people on the LGBT side still provoke arguements and heated discussion and in some circumstances worse. If you did not have that police presence at pride there will be more likelihood of incidents and that muddies the message cause of small majorities. 

Also alot of pride takes place on public streets either closed off for a parade or something which will need police to help enforce those closures or small events In local businesses on open streets and you cannot pull an officers off their patrols just cause it is pride as that opens a big can of worms with other issues.

I also don't see anything wrong with the police grabbing a rainbow flag and participating while at the event ?. I also think Lyra is right: government and corporations do the LGBTQ thing for virtue signaling and anterior motives.

I just don't want individual people to feel like they don't belong, which hurts more than anything when you have so many intersecting identities. I have no qualms with officers having fun at pride in there Uniforms. Sure, it may offend you and remind you of brutal history, but being in that uniform may be just there way of showing pride in themselves and that they belong, which is more important to me than traditions/customs. As long as no one is hurting one another i'm fine.

[ForbiddenFruit]

3 hours ago, Nappygirl97 said:

There is nothing wrong with having police at pride, they are there to help protect people and deter violence and interact and build community ties, just like there is nothing wrong with them being at a football game or other large public events. They are not there to arrest people they are there to make sure nothing goes horribly wrong. 

Unfortunately we still live in a world where people are still not accepting or can accept things provided it is not shoved in there face and unfortunately we still have people on both sides including some LGBT people on the LGBT side still provoke arguements and heated discussion and in some circumstances worse. If you did not have that police presence at pride there will be more likelihood of incidents and that muddies the message cause of small majorities. 

Also alot of pride takes place on public streets either closed off for a parade or something which will need police to help enforce those closures or small events In local businesses on open streets and you cannot pull an officers off their patrols just cause it is pride as that opens a big can of worms with other issues.

Police are not there to protect citizens, especially marginalised citizens. They are there to maintain the state's monopoly on violence.

I mean, I get you, right. You put a big bunch of vulnerable people in a group, and you're going to want some security there. I can understand that desire.

But hey, guess what, I'm as pale as a fuckin' vampire. People who look like me on that front get to feel safe around the police. But the increased police presence at Pride comes at the expense of the most vulnerable at pride - queer sex workers and queer people of colour (and anyone suspected of being a sex worker, I add. Hence the curious phenomena of people being arrested for 'walking while trans'), and hoo lord the venn diagram of that does not look pretty. 

You also can't particularly square an agreement with No TERFs at pride with it, because in recent years, police have protected TERF presences at pride. They've arrested trans people who've protested said presence.

Being a cop is antithetical to queer liberation.

[CutieButtCrusader]

Historically, police have been antithetical to queer liberation, like @ForbiddenFruit says.

The main reason police are a part of pride now is not because of a moral trend toward queer inclusion of society, but because we're at a point where the pink dollar is a valuable commodity.

Police come to pride not because they're proud of the queer community, but because there are corporations there; banks, car dealerships, retailers, you name it. Sure, many police as individuals may support pride, or even be queer themselves, but institutionally they have yet to be held to account for acting against us, let alone earned an open welcome.

[Brudda Voodu]

In large public gatherings, or parades.  A police presence is required to maintain public order and civility.  It does not matter what the purpose of the parade is.  When I take my kids out to the Santa Clause Christmas parade, there is a police presence.  Even though it's just kids and soccer Mom's and Dad's.  There are rules in place that keep our civility to one another in check.  You might be surprised at how quickly chaos can take over a large group of people.  I dont see anything wrong with having police present for the parade and festivities.  Every other public event of this size has a police presence to maintain order, why should pride be any different? 

No matter what brought you to the pride parade, you are still a member of the community and the general public.  You must follow the laws and rules like everyone else.

10 hours ago, ForbiddenFruit said:

Police are not there to protect citizens, especially marginalised citizens. They are there to maintain the state's monopoly on violence.

I mean, I get you, right. You put a big bunch of vulnerable people in a group, and you're going to want some security there. I can understand that desire.

But hey, guess what, I'm as pale as a fuckin' vampire. People who look like me on that front get to feel safe around the police. But the increased police presence at Pride comes at the expense of the most vulnerable at pride - queer sex workers and queer people of colour (and anyone suspected of being a sex worker, I add. Hence the curious phenomena of people being arrested for 'walking while trans'), and hoo lord the venn diagram of that does not look pretty. 

You also can't particularly square an agreement with No TERFs at pride with it, because in recent years, police have protected TERF presences at pride. They've arrested trans people who've protested said presence.

Being a cop is antithetical to queer liberation.

You sound very political in your reasoning.

[willnotwill]

Really?  You must live in a more difficult area than I do.   I've certainly appeared and watched many parades that don't have a police presence.   Most people are smart enough to stand on the curbs and behave themselves without having a threat of police action.

Most of the time we have police around parades not because of the foot crowds but to regulate automotive traffic that the parade route is interfering with.

[Brudda Voodu]

1 hour ago, willnotwill said:

Really?  You must live in a more difficult area than I do.   I've certainly appeared and watched many parades that don't have a police presence.   Most people are smart enough to stand on the curbs and behave themselves without having a threat of police action.

Most of the time we have police around parades not because of the foot crowds but to regulate automotive traffic that the parade route is interfering with.

So the police are there regulating traffic and yet you maintain that there is no police presence?  I don't mean armed swat members on every corner leering at the public.  A police presence is exactly that, a few cars and a few cops maintaining peace.  Any parade that doesn't require traffic control, is not much of a parade.  The perception of the police as a threat only meant to instill fear and control is an unhealthy and untrue assertion.

[LaFleurSauvage]

So, lets have a reality check here. A large objective of the LGBTQ community over the last 40 years has been about finding and building public acceptance. I don't know what you expected, but corporations waving the rainbow flag and putting out "pride" specials is exactly what so many of us have been fighting for. LGBTQ is started to be treated no differently than cishetero behavior. We are targeted by ads now, meant to help us part with our dollars. Companies, recognizing we are a market are now pandering to our market.

That is a bloody victory. We are not being ignored or treated as aberrations, and instead as valuable customers. One of my mentors once told me, "The biggest disappointment I have with the youth in the LGBT community is that they insist on fighting the battles of my generation instead of the battles of their own."  

[willnotwill]

The perception of the police as a threat only meant to instill fear and control is an unhealthy and untrue assertion.

It was your assertion, not mine/.

 

[ForbiddenFruit]

7 hours ago, Brudda Voodu said:

You sound very political in your reasoning.

Pride is political, though.

2 hours ago, LaFleurSauvage said:

That is a bloody victory. We are not being ignored or treated as aberrations, and instead as valuable customers. One of my mentors once told me, "The biggest disappointment I have with the youth in the LGBT community is that they insist on fighting the battles of my generation instead of the battles of their own."  

My fight is to have my national health service comply with WPATH guidelines and stop handing austerity cuts off to the trans population and stop being so gatekeepy. It is not my fight to have a sandwich named after me because I've started having disposable income.

[MellowYellow]

43 minutes ago, ForbiddenFruit said:

Pride is political, though.

Do you want pride to be political? 

[willnotwill]

1 hour ago, MellowYellow said:

Do you want pride to be political? 

It always has been.  

[MellowYellow]

 

4 hours ago, willnotwill said:

It always has been.  

That is not the point. The point is whether or not you want pride to be political or not

Once you determine that, then whether or not police should be included within the parade can be answered.

I do not think pride should be political, which means I don't believe individual police officers should be excluded from pride because of political issues far greater than them, like police brutality or racial profiling. The individual pieces of the entire group cannot be blamed because there is no guarantee that the individuals themselves are to blame, so why do it?

23 hours ago, ForbiddenFruit said:

Being a cop is antithetical to queer liberation.

From a nonpolitical standpoint, this is quite a cruel statement, because it implies that gay cops or Lesbian cops or trance cops have to live with a sense of impostor syndrome. Either your not really a cop, or your not really proud of your LGBTQ identity as you sell it down the river. I say impostor syndrome because if this statement was fact, that is exactly how I would feel if I was a cop and also gay. 

I've delt with impostor syndrome my entire life. None of my family ever graduated high school yet i'm in college making the dean's list every semester. Im autistic, yet also very mindful and aware of other people's emotions. I vote republican, yet im a strong advocate of human rights and a member of the LGBTQ community. I have my own reasons to be all these things and I don't feel like any of them conflict.

When society around you tells you that the identities you hold are antithetical to each other or to the things that give you purpose, it is hard to understand who you are as well as where you belong. I've spent my entire life trying to be successful yet the thing I kept missing was acceptance from myself as well as a group I can Identify with. I have felt and still feel like there is an empty gap in my heart that needs to be filled and I want it filled with people who accept me for who I am and respect me because I worked hard to earn it. 

When I joined daily diapers, I joined because I want to find people who I can identify with because I can't identify with republicans, or the LGBTQ community or the autistic community or whatever community. I was lucky enough to not have an antithesis to ABDL so I could grasp upon it and try to find myself.

The point is the loneliness, unworthiness, lack of belonging emptiness Ive felt for such a long time could be felt by those LGBTQ police officers you told off because you have some moral political crusade you want to achieve. I want no one to feel what I've felt. All of that pain for a few political squabbles is why I hate most activism even if its virtuous. Don't eat your own.

 

Now of course if you want pride to be political, then optics is important and attracting the proper people to shape your ideology. Cops are not what you want because you don't want the optics of looking like a movement that is complacent with police brutality, racial profiling, or defending bigots. In politics there are only groups and parties and the individuals don't matter so you need not concern yourself with the outward societal harm of the aggregate suffering of every individual you alienate. Politics is simply a war on partisanship and who has more power.

If you can strip the political power of your enemies and sway the political masses you can win over the hearts and minds of people. 

Problem is; the minds of the poeple today are having trouble differentiating between a political action and a moral action (morality and politics are morphing because social media has broken the grip of filtered information caused my news giants), meaning the optics of socially alienating large swathes of individuals is going to come back to bite you.

Political movements are becoming more puritanical and extreme while the center collapses, much like it did in weimer Germany before the Nazis took over, but unlike then, the internet will not let any political partisans get away with sacrificing morality, ethics, and people for a sense of greater good. In many ways, the unfettered free market of ideas that is the internet will not let any movement become too extreme.

So it is still good to have police at the pride parade because it will harm the LGBTQ movement politically if you remain in a puritanical state of partisanship and not back down on this issue. Like I said before, it may offend you to see officers in uniforms on your day to celebrate your pride and remind you of brutal history, but the individual cops having a good time and celebrating with you, for whatever reason, will feel included and apart of something greater and we as a community would have let that happen. It is a kindness and will look good.

When I refer to cops, I'm referring to cops with LGBTQ identity. People who are proud to serve there community and be queer. Of course you still need cops doing there jobs to direct traffic or guard the parade whether or not you think that is nescessary

 

Sometimes you just have to forgive for the sins of the past and focus on the future. I forgive society for throwing the autistic in asylums because little jimmy couldn't stop flapping his hands when he had a little anxiety. I forgive society for thinking I was an pedophile because an evangelical church told people that is what gay people like me are like. Society learns from the past and usually progresses forward in a positive direction and a quote from a video game I used to play sums this all up "If we were judged for what we did in the past, I don't think anyone would know who we are".

 

Ok i'm done rambling. Whatever anyone takes from this know I only want people to hate each other less and love each other more.

[CutieButtCrusader]

10 hours ago, MellowYellow said:

From a nonpolitical standpoint, this is quite a cruel statement, because it implies that gay cops or Lesbian cops or trance cops have to live with a sense of impostor syndrome. Either your not really a cop, or your not really proud of your LGBTQ identity as you sell it down the river. I say impostor syndrome because if this statement was fact, that is exactly how I would feel if I was a cop and also gay. 

"Cop" is not an identity. It is no more an identity than "radio presenter" or "artist" is mine. Being  a cop is not an intrinsic part of an individual's nature.

Couple that with the fact that police often favour communities with power and influence, and you've also got a vocation that is prone to corruption.

15 hours ago, LaFleurSauvage said:

I don't know what you expected, but corporations waving the rainbow flag and putting out "pride" specials is exactly what so many of us have been fighting for. LGBTQ is started to be treated no differently than cishetero behavior. We are targeted by ads now, meant to help us part with our dollars. Companies, recognizing we are a market are now pandering to our market.  

Companies are pandering to us because we have money, not because they care about us as people. There is profit in inclusion, which more often than not is a veneer of inclusion over actually putting the effort it.

Take for example a company like Starbucks, that prides itself on celebrating LGBTQIA+ people, yet in a recent court case denied that a trans woman being chronically misgendered and blasted with anti-trans messages while on the clock constituted harrassment.

It's nice to see ourselves on a billboard, but having a lesbian couple on a billboard does little for teachers getting fired for their sexuality, kids being driven to suicide by queerphobic bullies, and trans being being able to access medicine, hormones or surgery.

[MellowYellow]

2 hours ago, CutieButtCrusader said:

"Cop" is not an identity. It is no more an identity than "radio presenter" or "artist" is mine. Being  a cop is not an intrinsic part of an individual's nature.

Cop is an identity because there is a culture to the profession. Just because I can choose to become that identity doesn't mean it isn't one. There is a culture associated with being a police officer, an accountant or a scientist. Being an artist has its own culture as well as a radio presenter. Most people who hold these profession have similar patterns of thinking and can be identified. 

It may not be an intrinsic identity but still a part of an identity that can be stigmatized and hated because of society around you.

Also can you post me a link to this Starbucks case so I can read it myself?

[CutieButtCrusader]

The article in question can be found here.

https://www.advocate.com/business/2019/6/03/starbucks-files-dismiss-trans-employees-discrimination-case

And having an identity invested in your job is not an intrinsic one, and does not justify investing yourself when it has a history of oppression.

[willnotwill]

What do you want it to be, if not political?   Otherwise, it's just a random party.

 

[MellowYellow]

47 minutes ago, CutieButtCrusader said:

And having an identity invested in your job is not an intrinsic one, and does not justify investing yourself when it has a history of oppression.

Alot of professions can be stigmatized for spurious reasons, like the systems of oppression reasoning.

Art can be stigmatized when you look at all the historical iterations of black face comedy or when comedy makes racist jokes in general. How about anime where all the characters are usually white or white Japanese and alot of black characters tend to be stereotypical? Doesn't mean all comedy or anime is racist or that all art is racist or even the profession, but it can be stigmatized like that when you have a problem with artists and want to label them as something flawed or evil.

Also I dont think there is anything wrong with investing your time and energy into the police. Most officers did it because they want to serve there community and do good in this world.

Finally, Your profession can be an intrinsic identity if your proud of what you do and enjoy your job. I am majoring in accounting and can say I would lose apart of myself if I were to quit right now. I am proud of the major I'm pursuing and have made it apart of me.

[CutieButtCrusader]

Here's what I always remember when it comes to police and pride.

In 1978, 5,000 people marched in Sydney, Australia to commemorate the historic act of resistance that was the Stonewall Riots. This became the first annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which still runs today.

They had permission from the city to March, but it was revoked during the time of the event. Police moved in and dispersed the crowd, and although charges were dropped against the 53 arrested and beaten, their names and personal details were published in The Sydney Morning Herald, resulting in many people being outed to families, losing their jobs, and worse.

What really jars me is the fact that it was only in 2016 that police, the New South Wales Government and The Sydney Morning Herald bothered to issue an apology for the violence enacted against the 78ers, many years after their own inclusion in the parade.

Somehow it fell on us to be inclusive of an institution that enacted violence on us long before they took any sort of accountability.

Worst of all, is that we're being asked to include and celebrate an institution that has failed to address the world over it's issues with race, with youth, with disability, and more. 

8 minutes ago, MellowYellow said:

Art can be stigmatized when you look at all the historical iterations of black face comedy or when comedy makes racist jokes in general.

And those forms of art are not above criticism or scorn.

9 minutes ago, MellowYellow said:

Doesn't mean all comedy or anime is racist or that all art is racist or even the profession, but it can be stigmatized like that when you have a problem with artists and want to label them as something flawed or evil.

Also I dont think there is anything wrong with investing your time and energy into the police. Most officers did it because they want to serve there community and do good in this world.

Just because 'some is' doesn't mean it should be dismissed out of hand.

What about the officers who join because they are narcissists with an authoritarian bent?

These things don't exist in a vaccuum, and until these issues are confronted and addressed on a fundamental level, especially when the institution has been at the core of the violence against us, I see no reason to celebrate them.

[MellowYellow]

I do not celebrate the police as an institution. I know the police are corrupt. I live in maryland: home of Baltimore city. The baltimore city police is one of the most corrupt police departments in the United states. They will frame you for crimes by planting evidence, extort citizens for money, ect. I live in a rural area, so I dont have to experience that thankfully. 

I dont know about the UK police force, but it does sound pretty dystopian over there. Hell there are poeple who go to jail for tweets in your country so I'm not surprised authoritarian poeple would be driven to join the police force.

I agree with you on all of that, but I will never jump to the conclusion that all cops are bad or participate in the corruption and this is what I disagree with you on. Not all cops are good and not all cops are bad.

Just because an institution is corrupted doesn't mean all the poeple who are apart of the institution or work in it are bad poeple. This is what I mean when I say stigmatization. 

And we cant be telling good poeple to not become cops because the institution is corrupted. That is a defeatist mantality because the good poeple can bring change and progress to the institution.

We need to spend more time addressing the issues and solving problems instead of banning poeple from our celebrations.