Community Policing

[CutieButtCrusader]

Which is why if an LGBTQIA+ cop wants to come to pride they can do so out of uniform, as themselves, and not representing an oppressive institution.

[MellowYellow]

11 hours ago, CutieButtCrusader said:

Which is why if an LGBTQIA+ cop wants to come to pride they can do so out of uniform, as themselves, and not representing an oppressive institution.

People make up institutions. If there are good and bad people in the institution, then the institution is neither good nor bad.

Its like my rural community. If you were to claim that the police institution is oppressive here, you would be sorely wrong and I would ask what your smoking. Almost ALL of the cops in the town I live in are good.

If its Baltimore city or London, I can see why you would think the police are oppressive. There is objective evidence to that argument.

I agree with you the police as an institution are corrupt, but not 100% corrupt.

It also has to do with the values of the people who live in your area. The place I live is rust belt america (a lot of poor underprivileged working class people without jobs). Even then, there is a basic value system set in place where you respect your neighbors, hold doors for people, show acts of kindness, live with mindfulness, humility, etc. Essentially, the people around me are honorable. That makes an honorable police force.

Alot of the city folk that come to the local university that I attend, have little or none of those values. Iv'e been sorely disrespected multiple times by people who have come from the city. One time a lady put her hand in my face and was telling me to move when I wasn't even in her way and wasn't even bothering her. Alot of city folk that come to my university are jerks, and if that is next generation of people going into the workforce in Baltimore (including the police) then I'm not surprised there is problems.

Point is, you may see the uniform as oppressive, but that is just your perspective and not objective. There is more to the story than "this institution is oppressive or tolerant". ALL institutions are good and bad. Fix the bad parts and keep the good parts. 

The officers in my area prove to me that there can be honor in defending the innocent and that is what the police should be. I celebrate the police as an idea, not an institution.

I like to think positive, so I don't mind if good LGBTQ cops want to wear there uniforms at pride. After all, I did say that is something to be proud of if you are a helpful, kind and an honorable individual. It is what I want the police to be.

23 hours ago, willnotwill said:

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

 

I want pride to be pride: pride in who you are despite offended people having a problem with you. If you have legally harmed no one, then you shouldn't be persecuted.

[willnotwill]

I want pride to be pride: pride in who you are despite offended people having a problem with you. If you have legally harmed no one, then you shouldn't be persecuted.

And that is not political, how?

 

1 hour ago, MellowYellow said:

 

I want pride to be pride: pride in who you are despite offended people having a problem with you. If you have legally harmed no one, then you shouldn't be persecuted.

And that is not political?

 

[CutieButtCrusader]

3 hours ago, MellowYellow said:

People make up institutions. If there are good and bad people in the institution, then the institution is neither good nor bad.

Its like my rural community. If you were to claim that the police institution is oppressive here, you would be sorely wrong and I would ask what your smoking. Almost ALL of the cops in the town I live in are good.

Institutions are comprised of people, but they are not people. An institution is representative of the collective, not any one individual that makes it up. Good people can still serve a corrupt institution, but that doesn't make the institution worthy of representation, especially when there's a real and unaccounted history of harm involved.

3 hours ago, MellowYellow said:

I want pride to be pride: pride in who you are despite offended people having a problem with you. If you have legally harmed no one, then you shouldn't be persecuted.

That feels like a bit of an oversimplification. It's not just about people being offended and having a problem with you. It's about resistance to generations of oppression that for many of our forebearers was a matter of life and death. It's not just about feeling good about yourself, but taking a stance against that violence and bloody history, honoring those who came before us, and continuing the fight.

It's appealing to just say 'the past is the past, let's all get along' but many of our community are still feeling the effect of police violence, and we do them a disservice by not calling that out. Police, as an institution, have failed to take accountability for that.

Take this from the New York Times:

One of the perpetrators of a violent and bloody raid showed no regret for his actions, and in hindsight even dared to call it a good thing.

[MellowYellow]

This is going to be my last post. We are arguing in circles now.

6 hours ago, CutieButtCrusader said:

Institutions are comprised of people, but they are not people. An institution is representative of the collective, not any one individual that makes it up. Good people can still serve a corrupt institution, but that doesn't make the institution worthy of representation, especially when there's a real and unaccounted history of harm involved.

Institutions are not people and I never said they were. People make a collective, a tribe, with an ideological alignment that determines there values which shapes the values of the institution. People still influence the institution because they run institutions. Institutions don't exist in a vacuum. Plus the police are composed of multiple tribes as I said before so there are multiple perspectives on how the institution carries out morality (good and bad)

Also I did not say police as an institution is worthy of representation, only the idea that police officers should defend citizens and honor the citizens and themselves should be represented. I believe the uniform is a symbol of that idea and more so than the symbol of an institution.

6 hours ago, CutieButtCrusader said:

That feels like a bit of an oversimplification. It's not just about people being offended and having a problem with you. It's about resistance to generations of oppression that for many of our forebearers was a matter of life and death. It's not just about feeling good about yourself, but taking a stance against that violence and bloody history, honoring those who came before us, and continuing the fight.

Offense is not an oversimplification, because your desire to fight the good fight against generations of oppression is the reason for offense. The life and death war your forebearers fought is the reason for offense. Those things that you hold value, that I hold no value in, justify your offense.

Here are some definitions of offence:

-annoyance or resentment brought about by a perceived insult to or disregard for oneself or one's standards or principles.
-something that outrages the moral or physical senses

The reason you have a problem with police or there uniforms at pride is because they are a symbol of your enemy. They symbolize the thing you want to destroy.

The thing about symbols is that they can be anything, and mean anything. For some people, there is negative symbolic meaning behind a gay relationship and those people have plenty of reasons to be offended and to wage war against there enemy, which is you. The symbol of a man in diapers and baby clothes playing with baby toys is seen as repulsive because people have spurious reasons to be offended by that, even claiming pedophilia.

As long as symbols have subjective meaning and can be selectively chosen as symbols by people, political/religious groups or activist groups, your reasons to despise the police seem very trivial.

and finally: I see no value to being offended. there is no value to offense unless you can rationalize an actual crime behind it or use it to build a counter argument.

6 hours ago, CutieButtCrusader said:

It's appealing to just say 'the past is the past, let's all get along' but many of our community are still feeling the effect of police violence, and we do them a disservice by not calling that out. Police, as an institution, have failed to take accountability for that.

The past is the past, but you shouldn't put that behind you, you should learn from it. I never said to put it behind you I said forgive people.

I am not going to wage a cultural/political war against the establishment out of revenge. Nothing is achieved from that but more hatred and resentment on all sides.

Finally, what if the people who ran the stonewall Inn didn't want to wage a war either? What if they just wanted gay people to be treated like humans and that is that? 

It is sad that the police in that time were so callous to there fellow man that they would treat someone like that just for being gay, but you know what? They did that because they were offended at the fact those people were gay. It is the same feeling you feel about police uniforms or police in general. It is the same feeling.

There is no real value to offense and no good reason to justify offense as moral judgement.

[MellowYellow]

6 hours ago, willnotwill said:

 

 

And that is not political?

 

It is not political. The believe that I accept myself for who I am and take pride in it is something internal.

It can be made political by political/religious think tanks, governments, activist groups and academics. It is not inherently political.

Edited June 29, 2019 by MellowYellow
Sorry for two posts I couldn't quote in an edited post and had to make a brand new one.