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The Abuse Of ‘Feel-Good’ Cop Videos

Ijeoma Oluo
The Establishment
Published in
6 min readAug 2, 2016
Lead image: flickr/Johnathan Nightingale

Violent and abusive police systems are not ended with ice cream.

II remember the first time a man let me know that he could kill me if he chose to. I was 19 years old. My fiancé and I had just finished an argument. I had flinched at his rage. He noticed my fear, and he told me a story.

“My ex told her family that she thought I was going to kill her,“ he said, “I mean, I’m really strong. I could hurt people really bad if I wanted to. I’ll punch holes in walls if I have to.” He pulled a sword off of the wall and casually twirled it around while he looked at me, “But I wouldn’t have hurt her. I wasn’t abusive. She should see what real abuse is.”

My heart pounded out of my chest until he put the sword back on the wall and smiled.

“I’m glad you know I’d never hurt you,” he said.

I remember the first time a man let me know that he could kill me if he chose to.

I haven’t thought about that moment in years. It’s been replaced with new fears. What will kill me now is not that man. What will kill me now could be a man I reject on the street, a future partner, or a cop.

Every day that I get behind the wheel, I am aware that there are men out there…

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The Establishment
The Establishment

Published in The Establishment

The archives of culture + politics site, The Establishment. Media funded and founded by women — Nikki Gloudeman, Kelley Calkins and Katie Tandy with Ijeoma Oluo, Ruchika Tulshyan and Jessica Sutherland. The conversation is much more interesting when everyone has a voice.

Ijeoma Oluo
Ijeoma Oluo

Written by Ijeoma Oluo

Come for the feminist rants..stay for the selfies and kid quotes. Inclusive feminism here.