Further Thoughts On Alex Vitale's The End Of Policing
Further thoughts on Alex Vitale's The End of Policing
A few summers back, some cops got killed in Dallas. That summer had hate in the air. The Trumpian demon was waiting in the wings. I remember seeing a friend of a friend on Facebook express anger that the people who protect us were under attack. The idea that the police protect us is an idea almost nobody questions. If we're not questioning it, we're high on something.
Alex Vitale in The End of Policing tells us a bit about the origin of what we know as the police. Sir Robert Peel who started the London Metropolitan Police developed his ideas while he was managing the British colonial occupation of Ireland. That is crucially important to know. The origins of one of the most influential police agencies was in oppression. Peel took what he learned about social control on a foreign shore home with him. This illustrates one of the many troubles with the monster that is imperialism. Let's apply that to the U.S. What we learn about keeping a population down in Fallujah, Iraq comes home and is used in places like Ferguson, Baltimore and Bedford-Stuyvesant. That is the ugly truth of it. It's the truth that we cannot ignore. The U.S. is a society of savage inequality. The police are there as managers of that inequality. They are there to impose the order of the haves on the have-nots. This is true regardless of how many videos go viral with a cop lip synching to a Taylor Swift song or how many photos are shown on the evening news of an officer hugging a black child. I see blatant propaganda like that and it makes me want to fucking puke.
I reflect on the propaganda of my youth and it's enough to make my brain nearly self-destruct. I remember D.A.R.E. A clean-cut, white-skinned officer of the law with a gun visited my school every week. He led the class in an anti-drug cheer. He told us that people who used drugs were losers. I sure as fuck did not want to be a loser so I resolved never to use drugs. I did not touch a drug until I was almost halfway into my 30s. I suppose it is a tough thing to broach with kids but do you know what was absent from Officer Friendly's lectures about drugs? The sociological reasons that fuel pathological drug use. Guess what, children? When the factory that paid a decent wage closed, a bunch of people found solace from their misery in heroin or meth or something else. The shit was bad but it took away the pain. We did not get told about any of that. We got told to choose baseball or ballet instead of a joint and that was the end of it. Do people fuck up their lives? Sure they do, but you cannot overestimate the importance of individual acts or "moral failings." It seems that the political will to address the pain that causes people to fall into drug abuse simply does not exist. What does exist in ample supply is the impulse to throw cops at the problem and to build massive prisons to warehouse the people who have been left behind by the system.
So, what the hell do we do? The bitch of it all for me is realizing that we simply cannot just manage inequality. That's a bitch to realize because managing inequality is all that the people with power wish to do. We've got to address inequality. That means public housing, education, healthcare. It means the transformation of our society. Something has to give. I truly fear for this country. I believe inequality will grow worse under the regime of Donald Trump and policing will grow more heavy-handed.
More Posts from Mistahsojourner and Others
Sometimes the sun shines
and somehow I’m okay with that
The wind tickles me like it does
and I really can’t protest
even if I got no clue
what the sweat and the tears
were for.
It’s hard to fake it when you can see the hallucinations of others who have far too much money and can identify said hallucinations as hallucinations. That is an awkward sentence and would make a terrible bumper sticker.
People say, let’s run the government like a business and that’s basically the beginning of The Book of Revelation.
Leaned forward. Heartbeat thump. thump. thump. Action. Controller in hand. Rocket League. Maybe this clipped style isn’t as cool as I think it is. Maybe it just sounds weird or contrived or not real.
I’m watching the game all so closely. Supposedly there are levels to meditation. Maybe I’m experiencing what a monk feels when he is about to really go somewhere. Chill. Chill. Focus.
I ask myself what I need to do? What is my job in this situation? Clear the ball. Challenge. Aim there. I see the shots lining up for me before they even line up. Never saw any of that before. Couldn’t slow down enough to actually see it.
I become aware of the pop punk blaring in my headphones as I play. Off With Their Heads. The song is Clear the Air. For the first time, I actually hear the lyrics.
I never feel happy, I never feel safe I can't let myself ever stay in one place I look in the mirror and I see the face Of a failure who will never be significant The face that you see from the morning to night Is the mask that I put on to hide what's inside I don't take it off until you fall asleep I don't want you to see what lives inside of me
That reads like angsty teenage journal shit but man, I can sorta believe a real person would write that. Sorta. I thought about the way I would deliver those lyrics. How I would read them, sing them, really sell them. Make you believe them.
This is me just slowing down and noticing things. We’re most alive when we notice things. Did you ever notice that?
Friday reflection
I re-read my story of the fight with the printer.
I dig how soaked in style it is. I dig the voice. Even though it was a really mundane incident, I like how inspired it felt. Of course, I don’t really know how it reads to anyone else. You might read that and think, “God. What the fuck is wrong with that guy? Really?”
It also occurs to me my tendency to freak the fuck out about pretty much any motherfucking thing. Let me tell you, It’s not an easy thing to live with. It’s a bitch from hell. I don’t want to sound like I’m martyring myself but what you read there, while the dramatic flair is turned up a few notches, is a fairly accurate portrayal of what my internal world can be like. If it were possible, I’d love to visit someone else’s internal world and see what it’s like for them. What is their internal monologue like? How do they speak to themselves?
I tend to be pretty harsh.
“C’mon, you dumb motherfucker. Think.”
As you can imagine, that doesn’t do me any favors. I’ve been to therapists here and there. They always bring up self-talk and all that. Be nice to yourself. I never really got good at that. I’m so far into the way I do things mentally that I can’t even imagine what doing it different would look like.
There is a desire in me to do something other than these navel gazing sessions but I have no idea what that is.
This whole thing seems a bit adolescent. There is a bit of an eye wink at that with doing this thing (whatever it is) on Tumblr. I occasionally joked with people about how, “I’m totally gonna post on Tumblr about this later. Well, here I am. Maybe what I’m going to end up with is a chronicle of me maturing. Maybe I’ll just become more self-aware. Maybe I’ll end up a threat to the system.
Heh. I’m just messing with you. Smile, okay? Fist bump me. C’mon. It’s cool. I’m just messing with you. I was going to go really far with that sudden shift in tone there, like maybe start talking about an angry manifesto or something but I don’t want to freak anybody out. I don’t know how this is really reading. I’m honestly am joking though.
I’m not funny. I can make people laugh sometimes but I don’t know how you really do that. I don’t know if anybody who can really knows how it works. Imagine understanding that at a deep level. I wonder what it’s like to understand anything at a deep level. Mostly I just have a vague idea about a few things but I could be nobody’s guru.
I was browsing Netflix. Instead of watching something, I’m writing this. There really isn’t a damn thing I need to be watching.
This is a man thinking. Have some respect. Wish him luck.
I could say this is a man shadow boxing but that’s bullshit because I’m not a boxer. That’s me appealing to something manly because I’m not the bad ass warrior even someone like me thinks they are supposed to be. I’ve taken a punch without crying though. I can take a lot of abuse. See, I’m doing it. Damn. So fucking dumb, right? Shit. I’m smarter than this. I’m wiser than this.
I was sober when I started writing this and now I’m not. Go back and re-read this. When do you think I started feeling it? If you really went back up and tried to re-read that, thank you. That’s really god damn cool of you to play along.
Alright. Get ready for some next level shit. You ready? Fuck. Got nothing. I thought of how to proceed there but just came up empty. I thought of several things but none of it felt too natural or clever to me.
How the fuck is this going to read to me tomorrow?
WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?
Do you know what the fuck I’m doing?
Confusing the reader. Wink and pantomimed finger gun thing.
I could see this being really dumb and maybe irritating. I could see this being a serious waste of time.
Peace. Drive safe.
I don’t like hearing Trump.
I don’t like looking at the fat orange fucker either.
Maybe I'm doing something right.
Maybe.
I don't fucking know though.
You feel me?
Can't even dress it up.
Anything that ever worked wasn't cuz of the white boy in me.
I wanna mean that.
Loosely connected thoughts.
Back to the lab again.
Just tryin' to live.
She told me, "May you find your worth in the waking world."
I picked up the controller again.
She shook her head and insisted I had learned what I needed to learn.
The waking world.
Back to the world.
To try and live.
Ordinary man.
Trying to live.
That's all.
My world is nothing but mundane. I work. I worry about screwing up at work. Sometimes I study for an exam that baffles me and interests me little. I slouch at my desk and look busy. I anticipate terror that often times never comes.
Sometimes I manage to focus enough to read. I finished Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky. I e-mailed the man. He wrote me back. He didn’t say much but I appreciate that he acknowledged an anonymous nobody like me. I learned a lot from that book. It did something to me.
I came very close to angrily declaring to my therapist that communism will win. That was really the first time that I expressed candidly the role living in such a fucked up society has on the psyche. That is a huge part of this. This. What I’m doing here. What makes me cry. What fucks me against my will. What turns me into a homely yet charming robot who is programmed to provide you with excellent customer service today. What makes me do this. Trying to express without asking you for a credit card number first.
That’s a huge part of the project.
What do you do in the world when you just can’t shake something?
Humidity makes me think of madness. Makes me think of the heart of darkness within you. C’mon. Show it to me. I’m sure it ain’t so bad. Tie headband like 80s action hero and nod to you. I got you. Hold my hand if it’s the end. Hold it tight. Tight. Like you mean it. Do you mean it? I do. I think I do.
Shit. Tryin’ to remember what that was like. Trying to mean something that scared you. That traumatized you. That weighed you down like a motherfuckin’ Anvil that got put there by Bugs Bunny when he had the devil in him. What’s something like that? Love, baby. Love. Right? Love that’s a WMD. Love that leads to accidents. Love that leads to words arranged in a certain way that come to priests at night when they think maybe the cloth wasn’t such a good idea. Trying to mean the words you pluck out of the air just for a quiet nod and an “I feel you.” It’s hard to mean things.
Hard to find what the fuck you mean. Like really mean, man. You with me? Think 10 things. Count ‘em. Do you take them into a dark room with you? Are they any good there? Do you really want them there with you? Do you cringe 15 years after telling someone that one time you felt the spirit really strongly or some shit?
Friday War Story: Man Versus Wide Format Printer
The week been gentle. The week been chill. Too gentle. Too chill. I don't trust it, man. Shit has to get a little crazy some time. Why not today?
I get in. Email waiting for me. See, there is this special printer on the third floor. It's this beast of a machine that is used to print and scan technical drawings. It seems most people cannot scan to their network folder. Turning the machine off and then back on did precisely dick so it falls to me to exorcise the demons from this fucking machine.
I ascend one flight of stairs to see this for myself. Stick the piece of paper in. It scans. Well, son of a bitch. It works, right? Well no. For some people, it scans and then prompts for a password but guess what? The touch screen provides no way to actually enter in a password so whenever it prompts for a password, I'm sunk. That's a brick wall.
This has me sweating. Everybody is being nice about this but if I can't fix this, I'm thinking maybe it harms my reputation. Maybe people start thinking I can't hack it. It occurs to me now they probably don't care THAT much but being the anxious, neurotic son of a bitch that I am, I sweat.
So, I'm about out of ideas. I've not seen this problem before and Google is no help. Fuck. Why the hell did I come to work today?
I let the office admin know that I got no idea what the motherfuck is going on. She puts in a call to the printer company and she says they will call me and send someone out. Thing is though, I know they are gonna push back cuz there is no god damn way this is their problem. They call me up and tell me to piss off.
Yeah. I get it but fuck you too, brotha.
Aight. MacGyver time, man. Think. I'm up and down those stairs. Hey. Wait a minute. There are a few ports on the back of this printer. Got an ethernet port. Got some funky looking serial port and a USB port. Hmm. I run downstairs and grab a USB keyboard. I plug it into the USB port on the back of the printer and... IT TYPES. I can type in the password now. I type the password I think it wants and check the box that says 'remember my password.' ... IT WORKS. Holy shit. I fixed it. Inside I'm ecstatic. I walk tall. I'm like that guy at the end of The Right Stuff walking away from the wreckage with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.
God damn. I need to chill.
What the fuck do I call this?
If you know where the dream ends, you’re being watched.
If you can find the seams, the stuff you jerk off to that you don’t tell anyone about is being written down by a government agent who is slowly falling in love with you.
You make the nipples of their soul hard enough to cut diamonds.
I clear my throat, “Look. This is bullshit. See, the beginning of wisdom is being able to tell where the dream ends while at higher frequencies. If you can do that, shit will be less scary.”
See. There were moments here. Undeniably. Some of it was bullshit. Maybe most of it was bullshit but some of it was not a dream. Sometimes I heard right. Sometimes I heard just right.
That song I know. That I heard somewhere. One time.
Yo man. I don’t know how I feel about that song thing, man.
This is garbage, isn’t it?
Maybe. There were moments though.
There were moments you thought I kinda had it.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe.
The audacity.
to try to utter the unutterable.
Holy shit, I better stay in my lane, right?
The crowd builds messiahs.
Nobody is insane enough to believe that about themselves unless they are high 24/7.
I don’t gotta worry about that though.
I’m not that good.
This though.
This is courage.
If you tried. Fuck. That’s cheesy. Good night. You know what I’m getting at though, right?
Seriously though. Good night.
