Mmmmm....i've been hassled by cops, and each time it was one tiny click away from escalating. I don't think Michele Obama is wrong to have that fear. Not a 'significant' fear, but like me - knowing that it's just that one tiny click away - her comment wasn't at all outrageous. The problem here - it's that we accept the martial and blustering behavior of cops; that cops turn on in an INSTANT if they are not deferred to in a way that is sometimes unknowable. It IS a culture problem - but it's the culture problem within the police.
Today, one needn't be black to be hassled by cops, nor does being white immunize or decrease in any dramatic way of being a target of corrupt, martial, or incompetent police officers. As a statistically random black person, it would be more rational to be afraid of driving than police officers; or for that matter, it would be more rational to be afraid of other random black people than any random police officer. The fear that many black people express toward the police or white people in general is not consistent with reality and their other fears. There is policeaphobia and whiteaphobia in some of the black population.
This can certainly be understood rationally from a historical perspective, as legitimate fears that black people held in the past are passed down generationally even as the world changes (Take for example Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates); additionally much of the corporate media and many political factions actively attempt to distort the world in such a way as to exacerbate otherwise irrational fear. And given that Michelle Obama is among those political factions that want to cultivate and sustain irrational fear among black people, her comment was certainly outrageous.
Mmmmm....i've been hassled by cops, and each time it was one tiny click away from escalating. I don't think Michele Obama is wrong to have that fear. Not a 'significant' fear, but like me - knowing that it's just that one tiny click away - her comment wasn't at all outrageous. The problem here - it's that we accept the martial and blustering behavior of cops; that cops turn on in an INSTANT if they are not deferred to in a way that is sometimes unknowable. It IS a culture problem - but it's the culture problem within the police.
Today, one needn't be black to be hassled by cops, nor does being white immunize or decrease in any dramatic way of being a target of corrupt, martial, or incompetent police officers. As a statistically random black person, it would be more rational to be afraid of driving than police officers; or for that matter, it would be more rational to be afraid of other random black people than any random police officer. The fear that many black people express toward the police or white people in general is not consistent with reality and their other fears. There is policeaphobia and whiteaphobia in some of the black population.
This can certainly be understood rationally from a historical perspective, as legitimate fears that black people held in the past are passed down generationally even as the world changes (Take for example Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates); additionally much of the corporate media and many political factions actively attempt to distort the world in such a way as to exacerbate otherwise irrational fear. And given that Michelle Obama is among those political factions that want to cultivate and sustain irrational fear among black people, her comment was certainly outrageous.