Great post. I should say, one of my oldest and closest buddies is a cop (well, just retired a couple years ago, but his entire career occurred during our friendship). We have some tension between us over these sorts of topics, but I love the guy. And there are a hundred more I know and respect as good cops. None of this occurs in absolutes, and understanding that is vital.
But this conversation also occurs with the realities of a power dynamic that is obviously one-sided (and codified by law), all withing a context of one group being imported to this land for the express purpose of dehumanization and subjugation - conditions that did not end 150 years ago with the Emancipation Proclamation. That day was simply a point on a continuum of time that still has a lot of empty space to its right before the scales of race are balanced. And when we don't acknowledge that all these facts inform the interactions between police and black folks, we aren't talking honestly about it.
It's not a matter of "all cops are racist!" Of course they're not. And obviously, their normal course of their work will have them having violent interactions with people of all sorts, so it's silly to cast every one of those as acts driven by racism. Of course they're not.
But it is plain as day, and well documented, that the fear of, the inability to see as equal, and the thoroughly indoctrinated lack of respect this society at large still has for its black citizens - the kind that doesn't simply vanish because a few Civil Rights bills are signed into law - still intersects with the way law enforcement interacts with the black citizens of this country. And sometimes, that fear, that lack of understanding and respect, manifests itself in unprompted violence, unjust brutality, and the absence of a benefit of the doubt I've always received as a white man.
And that is what these football players are struggling to make people realize. That's it, really. Is that really unfair, or un-American? They are leveraging the fact that their actions are being televised to millions of viewers across the country in order to call awareness to this fact and hopefully effect a change.
