This black Sheriff just set us back 50 years.
Is law enforcement starting Twitter fights with people a thing now?
A few days ago, a guest on Fox News suggested that Obama secretly wanted people to riot in Ferguson:
The guest, Sheriff David Clarke, went on to say that Obama’s ‘political strategy of divide and conquer fuels … racial animosity between people.’
Let’s be clear about one thing:
The only reason David Clarke got this interview is because he is black.
Clarke is the Sheriff of Milwaukee County, a place so generally unremarkable that the only notable thing on its Wikipedia page is a mention of its ‘calcareous and fertile’ soil. Can you remember the last time that anybody wanted to know Milwaukee County’s opinion on anything?
They could have gotten any number of people to say similar things, but most of those people would have been white. Even Fox, by this point, has gotten wise to the fact that having an all-white cast of people demonizing black people doesn’t look so good, so every once in a while, they need to bring in a black face.
Clarke was that black face.
Not only did Clarke believe that the President was secretly encouraging people to vandalize their own homes, but he also found the act of protest itself intolerable:
‘I heard some of the President’s comments last night, he said that uh, what we need to do is try to understand them, and he said the anger was an understandable reaction. And I was just floored by that, because it’s not an understandable reaction. People have to come up with a more socially acceptable way to deal with anger and frustration. This is totally and unequivocally intolerable.’
Clarke seems to forget that one of the reasons he’s even in his position at all is because a guy named Martin Luther King, Jr. did some things that were, at the time, considered very socially unacceptable. He also forgets that people considered King divisive. He also forgets that King said something fairly similar to what Obama did last week. Obama urged people to be respectful, but said that the anger was understandable. King said, in 1967, that:
‘certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.’
So, if Clarke is going to call Obama divisive, and the protestors intolerable, he might as well hop in a Delorean back to 1963 and stand next to George Wallace.
It gets worse.
After journalist Jamil Smith asked him about his comments, Sheriff Clarke took to Twitter, and began picking fights with everyone and anyone who didn’t agree. Some highlights:
Vague references to physical violence:
Taunting and name-calling:
Is that you, McCarthy?!:
You could make the argument that Clarke is free to do whatever he likes in his private life, even if his primary hobby of late seems to be doing his best impression of a 4channer that just got hipped to Rush Limbaugh.
But then again, on the official site for the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department, there is a section of the Law Enforcement Code of Conduct entitled ‘Private Life’ that states:
Police officers will behave in a manner that does not bring discredit to their agencies or themselves. A police officer’s character and conduct while off duty must always be exemplary, thus maintaining a position of respect in the community in which he or she lives and serves. The officer’s personal behavior must be beyond reproach.
In another section, entitled ‘Integrity,’ there’s the following line:
The public demands that the integrity of police officers be above reproach. Police Officers must, therefore, avoid any conduct that might compromise integrity and that undercut the public confidence in a law enforcement agency.
I mean, he doesn’t have to personally like libs, socialists, milquetoasts, lefties, or 5-year-olds, but isn’t he still sworn to serve and protect them? And might these sorts of comments undercut their confidence in his integrity?
It might just be me, but I think that jumping on Twitter to insult and kinda-sorta-vaguely threaten people is not quite ‘beyond reproach.’ Repeated references to ‘smash-mouth politics’ (not sure what that is) and promising to ‘hit back’ are probably a bad idea, considering that the entire country (yes, white people included) is kinda freaking out about police brutality right now.
I tried pointing this out to him by sending him a link to his own Code of Conduct, and his only answer was the following:
At the time of this writing, Clarke has failed to answer any question seriously.
I’ve said this before, but blanket rejection of police as individuals doesn’t particularly interest me as a strategy. I think it’s boring, and lazy. I’ve personally witnessed police officers do some illegal and dangerous things, but I’ve also seen them run bake sales, soccer games, and readathons. Regardless of what you might think of police, there are ways to handle public relations to at least give the illusion that you care about the people you signed up to ‘protect.’
Clarke is failing spectacularly at this.
But then again, none of this should be surprising, as Clarke’s re-election campaign reads like something out of a dystopian horror film. Here’s a line from his campaign site:
‘The Disney movies of my childhood may have sent the wrong message regarding the “good in everyone.” Idealism is currently a dangerous threat to our well-being.’
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. We are currently facing a national crisis of too much idealism. PR professionals, get your resumes ready. I have a feeling that somebody’s going to be hiring a Social Media Manager very soon.
And in the meantime, if anyone from Wisconsin County wants to clue me in on how this gentleman got re-elected this year, I’d love to hear about it.
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