Society’s Bullets

The police are neither the lawmakers nor the lawgivers but the law enforcers. They enforce what we tell them to enforce. They are the employees of the society – its security guards. The police do not prevent crime, as we would like to believe. They investigate crimes already committed. The instructions they have are explicit and implicit. It is understood (and implied) that law and order means keeping certain neighborhoods under surveillance. Police, in some areas, are given arrest quotas, which means to go look for wrongdoing. It is about the quantity not the quality of the arrests. In NYC it is prohibited to smoke in the subways, but many smokers light up as soon as they come out of the station. Many young African descendant men have received tickets for lighting up near the top of the stairs leading to the street (but not others). Almost all African and Hispanic men, and some women (myself included), can tell a story of being harassed for no other reason than walking down the street (or driving a car; or doing their job; or walking in a neighborhood that is considered not their own).

The shooting of Sean Bell and his companions, and the acquittal of the police department, needs to be laid directly at the feet of the Mayor. It is the Mayor who appoints the Police Commissioner and from whom the Commissioner gets his marching orders. The city and the country need to be put on notice that we are not having it. We have to take charge of what is happening and going to happen to us. We cannot wait for the courts to decide what is best for us. They have shown what they think is in our best interests and the society’s best interests, and they are not the same thing.