It depends, though. There are an awful lot of people who believe the cops would never shoot THEM, only "people not like us -- people who [biasX] [stereotypeY] [mediadistortionZ]."
And there's a lot of people buying the media smear campaigns of every victim, and/or sitting in their Fox News filter bubble which presents a different version of reality from the one you or I know. They believe that cops for defending themselves against violent thugs. They believe that protestors are violent and don't have legitimate concerns. That's the twisted reality they believe in. They don't know the real story, the unsettling truths. They don't believe in or know about or want to hear about institutionalized racism and shocking real-world examples of such. They don't think it's happening. They don't see that militarization of police is dangerous, even apart from the horrible racism. They don't think about the fact that the police should not be judge, jury, and executioner, and that the death penalty even in this barbaric country is reserved for rare crimes not everyday offenses.
They are living in a different world. Only some of them actually feel endangered by the police. Many really are that clueless.
(And, thanks to institutionalized racism, they are partially correct: white people are in far less danger of being shot by police than blacks, so for some of us, police brutality can be considered as more hypothetical than a clear and present danger.)
Anyway, I'm sorry, Minty. It's very frustrating, unnerving and dismaying when close family members you don't feel comfortable confronting are actively taking a stand against causes you support.
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carisma_sensei
no subject
Date: 2015-01-08 05:20 am (UTC)And there's a lot of people buying the media smear campaigns of every victim, and/or sitting in their Fox News filter bubble which presents a different version of reality from the one you or I know. They believe that cops for defending themselves against violent thugs. They believe that protestors are violent and don't have legitimate concerns. That's the twisted reality they believe in. They don't know the real story, the unsettling truths. They don't believe in or know about or want to hear about institutionalized racism and shocking real-world examples of such. They don't think it's happening. They don't see that militarization of police is dangerous, even apart from the horrible racism. They don't think about the fact that the police should not be judge, jury, and executioner, and that the death penalty even in this barbaric country is reserved for rare crimes not everyday offenses.
They are living in a different world. Only some of them actually feel endangered by the police. Many really are that clueless.
(And, thanks to institutionalized racism, they are partially correct: white people are in far less danger of being shot by police than blacks, so for some of us, police brutality can be considered as more hypothetical than a clear and present danger.)
Anyway, I'm sorry, Minty. It's very frustrating, unnerving and dismaying when close family members you don't feel comfortable confronting are actively taking a stand against causes you support.