My husband and I, we live simply. We don’t like ambiguity, don’t tolerate intolerable behavior, we weigh our words carefully, we
think before we speak. We do all of this, not with a child’s guilelessness, but with hope that everyone else could do the same. Alas, this hope is realized less and less as time goes on.
Instead, in this “police life” we live, we see the rampant phenomenon of
people who use words to bring divisiveness, hostility, murder even. You know the words I’m talking about:
Thugs. Racists.
Race Baiters. And… Police Brutality.
(You know the people I mean, too:
The Media, Liberals, oh, and snot nosed college kids “protesting” on freeways on Mommy & Daddy’s dime.)
Those words all get tossed about daily on the news, in conversation, on social media. All but the last are essentially fighting words. That last one: not so much. That one, well, that one nobody bats an eye. It’s spoken matter of factually, its
‘a thing‘. How is it that, in the supposedly enlightened age, we exist in a society where everyone goes bat shit crazy over labels- perceived and real- and no one notices that the words “Police Brutality” have become an all encompassing,inflammatory and stereotyping term?
Humor me, if you will with this social experiment: Go ask ten people to play a word association game. Ask them to say
the first word that comes to mind after you say ‘Police’. I did, initially on social media, then person to person. Now, I travel in a police friendly/ supportive crowd ( as a matter of course) and many responses were words like ‘Hero’ and ‘Brave’. Some said ‘car’ and ‘officer’. Some, in a most apologetic and regretful tone, said
‘Brutality’. Of those who said ‘Brutality’, five said so in private messages.
So, then I wondered: what if I ask people I don’t personally know? Just random people, in hopes that their responses would be unfiltered and spontaneous. Oh, to those of you who know me personally: Yes, speaking to strangers was as traumatic as you can imagine. Anyhow, it went something like this:
” Hi,
can I ask you a quick question? You see, I’m writing an article for my blog regarding word associations, and I’d just like to know the first word that pops in your head when I say a particular word. Ready?
Police _______ “. Of the 8 people I asked, 2 said ‘Car’, 1 said ‘Brave’ and 4 said ‘Brutality’ and 1 began with ‘Bru–‘ and switched to ‘Officer’. You be the judge on that one.
Now, you may think there are some ‘givens’ here- people with good/positive/personal relations with police are likely to give responses that reflect that, and people with bad experiences will reflect that. Right? Eh, not quite. All (but one) who said ‘brutality’ said that they hated to say it, or even think it, and cited the current events playing across mainstream media. (The ‘but one’ simply added ‘for sure’ at the end. Guess we know where he stands.
You think I’m over-reacting? Well, then so are tens of thousands of other people when they protest people-defining words: Stop saying “Bossy” to girls: it sends the wrong message. Don’t say “thug” about criminals of color- it sends the wrong message. Change your football teams’ name from “Redskins” it’s derogatory. Fat. Gay. Retarded- all are insensitive, derogatory, and send the wrong kind of message. And so many more desensitizing words. They all, at some point, were pervasive and accepted, and they had entered our bloodstream so that we didn’t even see or hear the anymore. Until someone shouted: Stop. And someone else joined in, and said ” No more”. And then a movement began, and we became aware and mindful of our words and how they can hurt.
Even the people with positive feelings toward police are associating ‘Police’ with ‘Brutality’. It is rapidly becoming a compound word, and that my friends, is unacceptable. We usually use the word ‘Police’ to encompass the sum of all law enforcement, a common generalization. State troopers, deputies, sheriffs, patrolmen, officers, detectives, and so on- they’re simply: “the police”. So it
is a reasonable leap to say that when you use the term ‘Police Brutality’,
you are giving over 800,000 men and women one big fat negative connotation. You are saying, in effect, the
all police are brutal. Does anyone
actually think that? I certainly hope not. But if we keep recklessly putting those words together, as if they
belong together, then it gives those words the power to influence opinions about a community of decent men and women across this country and around the world who have dedicated, and so many have given, their lives to the service and protection of others. They deserve to be distanced from an ugly word, one that does not describe who they are and what they do.
Furthermore,
any police officer who is proven to knowingly and willfully inflicts emotional or bodily harm on an INNOCENT person, violates their oath and has no right to be called Police. They deserve to lose the privilege and honor of wearing that title. That word:
Police, is worn with pride, dignity and respect by thousands of good men and women, so how dare we sully their service with such an ugly word?
What should we call it, then, when an officer is proven to have violated his oath in such a grievous way? I don’t really know…hell, call him/her a law breaker, oath breaker, whatever- but don’t call them Police.
Too many have lived and died by that title bravely and with great self sacrifice to have it associated with a word like ‘brutality’.
Am I
at all confident this will actually give anyone pause for thought, let alone correct the media frenzy? Sigh. No. I’m a realist. But I’m a realist who won’t shut up when there’s something I want to say. And today, I want to say, “
Stop Saying ‘Police’ Brutality.”
We need to be more than the sheep being herded by the mass media diatribe against law enforcement. I hope someone out there agrees with me, and is willing to shout
Stop Saying ‘Police’ Brutality. Let’s hashtag it: #StopSayingPoliceBrutality because just like #AllLivesMatter , #PoliceLivesMatter too.
