The Problem With Police Officers Being the Problem
Every System Is Perfectly Designed To Create The Outcomes It Creates
It’s easy to feel nothing but disdain for police officers these days, at least it is for me. Watching George Floyd have his life callously snuffed out by police officers, watching a 75 year old man get beaten to the point of brain damage by police officers, watching clip after clip after clip of police officers pepper spaying and launching projectiles at people peacefully exercising their first amendment right to protest — it’s easy to agree with N.W. A.’s famous song F*ck Tha Police.
Yet I can’t shake the idea that it’s not so simple. Can it really be that every horrible thing we have seen the police do lately is because nearly all police officers at all levels are evil and corrupt? Sure, corruption, lack of moral integrity and individual choices are part of the problem but does that explain it all? Human beings are pretty complex and the more I live in the world the more I realize that things are rarely simple or black and white.
When I lived in San Francisco there was an older woman in my neighborhood everyone knew, I’ll call her Gail; she had been living in the same rent-controlled apartment for over 40 years. She had a lot of health problems and was severely bent over with scoliosis. I…
