Once again there were so many issues to write
about this week, it was hard to choose just one. ISIL? I don’t know enough to write about
that. Benghazi? Give me a break, literally and
figuratively! Mary Landrieu’s loss in
Louisiana? Why vote for Republican Lite
when you can have the real thing?
Besides, she just came off as a hypocritical politician. However, racism and some police I am very
acquainted with. I can’t imagine anyone
who reads this blog doesn’t know my youngest daughter has just resigned this
year from active law enforcement. I also
have a grand-niece who is an officer in another state.
Before I get into the police bit, it would be
helpful, perhaps, to describe my own background with racism. In the 1930’s my mother would load me and my
violin into our old car, and she would drive me into downtown Los Angeles from
the San Fernando Valley to my violin lessons.
If I had practiced enough and had a good lesson, she would drive us
back, along Sepulveda Pass, I think, past three or four shacks besides the
road. Black families lived in the
shacks, although we didn’t call them that then, and often the tiny children
would be out in front playing. I loved
seeing them because they fascinated me with their black skin. One time I told my mother something to the
effect that they were so cute. To which
she responded with some disdain, “But they grow up!” My father was also very prejudiced. But other than the comment that the black
children grew up, my parents never talked about their prejudices much. I think they thought it was genetic – sort of
was in the bones or something, so my brother and I pretty much grew up without
being taught, “to hate, by the time we were six or seven or eight”. There were, however, no black or brown people
in any of the movies we went to unless they were servants or natives, and were
killed. Except Tonto, of course, the
Lone Ranger’s sidekick. I used to worry
that he would get killed. I didn’t
realize until I was an adult that what we were being vicariously taught was
that black or brown lives didn’t matter.
It was OK that they got killed – just not the white hero.
When I was a Social Worker in Santa Clara
County in the late 1940’s, I had an incident wherein the police ignored the
fact that one of my clients, an Hispanic woman, was a victim of domestic
violence. Even when she showed them her
stab wounds, they just ignored her. Why
bother?
I have listed these three issues above to
indicate that I am not oblivious, nor naïve, when it comes to racism and
policing. There are some really rotten
apples in law enforcement, and out in the general public. My mantra when I was in office and we had an
incident wherein some Sheriff deputies were accused of police brutality, was to
investigate the matter fully, let the media know that the investigation was
proceeding and how, and, difficult as it was, wait for the process to go
forward. If the deputies were found to
be innocent, hallelujah. If not, throw
the book at them. They were, hallelujah,
found innocent.
But according to the media, and many other
people, my daughter and grand-niece are, by definition, racist because they
wear a uniform, and have an attitude. Of
course, some officers are racist, and some have an attitude. But for the attitude, even before I was
elected, both here in good old SLO county, but even before in Fresno, I always
found the police to be my friends, and very cooperative. I realize that I am very obviously a white
woman. I don’t know if I would have
received the same cooperation if I were not.
I have been spoken to rather firmly when, oblivious to my surroundings,
I inadvertently walked near a police action.
But that was for my safety, and when I recognized what was going on, I
really appreciated it.
When my daughter was still active in law
enforcement, she was the “go-to” person for the homeless mentally ill who
wandered the streets of downtown SLO. One
day, she had been tracking one of the most unstable of them across town, and
had finally gotten him to stop and talk to her.
During the conversation, a citizen, thinking this was a police brutality
situation, got himself in between the two.
Since the mentally ill man was very unstable, this citizen could have
gotten himself really injured. And,
there was a police officer, doing her best to deal with a potentially violent
situation, having to deal with someone who thought she had an “attitude”. She managed to get rid of the citizen, then
talk the ill individual to go to the Psychiatric Facility for treatment. She was livid that the citizen interfered
just because he saw an officer talking to someone, and assumed the worst.
There is in this country a streak of racism
that those of us who are somewhat older, were taught by just living. It will take time, education, patience and
some good governance on everyone’s part to undo the damage done covertly and
overtly in a society that believed, and still believes in many places, that it
should be run by white males only. Let’s
not forget the slogan, “Take back our country”.
For that we got voter suppression laws encouraged by a ragtag majority of
conservative white men on the Supreme Court.
Don’t get me started on sexism!!!
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