*sigh* State of the State

I watch the news more than I used to. I still find it more palatable delivered by things like The Daily Show, but there are things that can't be brightened up much by comedy. It's a big world, and there's always something unpleasant going on. The latest "big" bit of news seems to be the conflicts with and around the police in this country, and that's... troubling to say the least.

There's so much entangled with that, too, that it feels impossible to address it all...

Is there a bias against minorities by law enforcement? I don't have the drive to look up statistics, but I do believe there is. There have been so many major news stories about that in the recent years. Does that mean it's okay to ambush and shoot cops? Heck no.

Trevor Noah made a good argument recently about how society has such a binary view of the discussion. Saying you're "pro-police" somehow means you're against minorities. Saying you're "pro-black lives matter" means somehow you're against police. Even saying "all lives matter" is seen as saying there's no problem. That shouldn't be the case. One should be able to say "all lives matter" and mean it, not just sound like they're being politically correct. Because any stance is perceived as being against something else, it's so hard to even talk about a topic without making it confrontational.

There's a clear problem with the socio-economic divisions in this county and overlap with minorities. But how do you fix that? That, I don't know...

I also feel like a factor is the militarization of the police force. And I'm not even really talking about the surplus military gear the police pick up, or the fact that a lot of ex-military people seem to go into law enforcement. While those are involved, the biggest thing in my mind is the mentality behind it. I feel as though police have increasingly taken on the mindset of anyone in their sights as being them/criminals/the bad guys. For a military action, that dehumanization of the enemy is almost necessary. For a group that is supposed to "protect and serve" the citizenry it's a part of... that's not so good. Too many are trained and willing to shoot first in order to protect themselves rather than make any effort to deescalate a situation. As much as I want police to be careful, putting a bullet in someone who reached for a pocket should probably not be one's first instinct.

I actually started watching Cops a while back simply to balance out in my perception against the reports of police brutality. I mean, those are filmed encounters that are surely cherry-picked both for TV-viewability and likely to avoid showing police in a negative light. Even so, I find myself frequently thinking a situation would go better if the police prioritized calming a situation over just enforcing control of it. And some do, I just wish more did.

I have, personally, been afraid of the police before. That feels odd to say because I'm white, my criminal record is nil, and I don't even remember the last time I was pulled over (probably for a light being out or something). But there was a stressful point in my life with the HOA and one of the owners threatened to sue the board. That alone is troubling, but then her husband started throwing around that he worked in the sheriff's office. That probably wouldn't have been as worrying as it was, but I really felt he was trying to use his position as law enforcement to intimidate us. I had a good deal trouble sleeping for at least a week, worrying about what he could/might do. In retrospect, from a calmer position, I was probably silly to be that worried. But at the time, I was genuinely scared he would abuse his position. That put some things in perspective for me...

But I really don't know if there's any way to solve the various biases in our society. Compared to some in the world, I think we're going pretty damn well, but it still feels painfully imperfect at times...