Quote:
Originally Posted by LoisR
(Post 1784317)
What can you expect from people who have never had any type of social or economical relationship with a person of color? Having been a HS Principal and Asst. Supt of Schools (local and county wide), there is discipline in schools. Expect more of the same unless we, yes, all of us, change.
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Be real. The officers undoubtedly have interacted many times with people of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds as youth, in college, and on the job. They aren’t living in a vacuume.
The question posed by this thread was what specific changes do you think would have meaningful and lasting effects? How did you keep order & gain respect from your students? Did any of them become beat cops on the street?
Do you think would have happened if (like happened in Atlanta) a young white man who was reportedly suspected of driving under the influence resisted arrest by punching a cop in the face then stole his taser and ran then tried to taze the cop? I don’t know if the outcome would have been different but why didn’t the cop allow the other cop to use his taser to subdue the offender? Perhaps the shooter cop did not realize the weapon was his taser? Did he fear the suspect had a gun that he was aiming & discharging? Intense Stress, the darkness of night affecting visual perception, fear of harm to the public nearby could all have caused that officer to have made errors in his judgment. Or he could simply be a power-hungry bully who would probably have demonstrated that flaw many times before. The Atlanta case is very different from the case in Minneapolis yet the two elicit similar responses from protestors.
My relationship to a few cops and my own interactions with them lead me to believe the police forces seek, hire, promote and train far too many bullies. Doing a Myers-Briggs test or other psychological profile on police might be a useful screening tool to guide appropriate hiring and training.
The social media exposure of our young people cannot be overlooked as contributing to the aggressive responses in some instances. Aggression and violence is everywhere young people look...movies, videos, games, social media and many times in their own real life situations too.
Changes should include training of strategic thinking skills and conflict resolution for everyone on both sides. I remember Smokey the Bear’s simple public service commercials, for example. Similar messages could be placed to benefit everyone through social media, commercials, billboards and in a mandated civics course, preferably in elementary schools before dangerous trouble occurs.
Some lessons from the school of hard-knocks: apologizing should come easily since it costs you nothing, being forced to empathize is the only way some people ever put themselves in another’s shoes, respect must be earned and shared both ways, forgiveness is protective & powerful, while having & sharing abundant gratitude changes almost everything.
Change must come. If this continues, who will want to be a cop?