Today at the local library, they had “Heroes Day” as part of their Summer Reading Program. My mother-in-law took my kids over to meet a police officer, and they were thrilled to have to opportunity to sit in a police car.
It would never occur to either of them to be wary or afraid of the police. The police are there to help. They protect us from the bad guys. They keep us safe.
Most people in this great nation would disagree with them, it seems.
We’ve been taught through Ferguson and Eric Garner and Tamir Rice and Freddie Gray and McKinney and God knows what else that the cops are the bad guys. That they’re racists. Fascists. Not to be trusted. Then, in true modern-day Doublethink, we are told that gun ownership is only for hillbillies and Texan separatists, and that the police are there to protect us.
Combine the militarization of our police forces nationwide with the deepening mistrust of the law and I can’t help but think that we are on the precipice of something terrible.
I plan to teach my kids that if they want to be on the good side of cops, all they need to do is follow the law. Naive? White privilege? Maybe. But it can’t hurt. While I believe that there are just as likely to be bad people on the police force as there are anywhere else, I also believe that the majority of them don’t want to unholster their weapons. So I will teach my kids to never give them reason to do so.
I’d prefer that cops remain heroes in the eyes of my kids. Maybe that’s all your average cop needs to act like like one.