Self Policing Isn’t Being Anti-Police

Self Policing Isn’t Being Anti-Police




Policing ourselves is the sane response to state-mandated mass hypnosis that a handful of government employees are the only ones keeping society safe. This isn’t a combative statement in the least. It’s an affirmation that the public must do its considerable part to secure itself and not hand all power over to the state.

My three-legged stool of safety: self defense, private security and police/community unity leans dangerously when the third leg is sawed by a passive public, politics and predators.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVEnziCrime90514.html
Police officers represent the state and, despite community policing initiatives, rely on the threat of legal violence to maintain the state’s definition of order—instead of negotiation.

This isn’t a knock against police.

One of the few gifts the state gives the public are committed, courageous officers who regularly stop very real threats to life and limb.

My observation about legal violence is simply an honest recognition that the state gives them life or death power at a time when conscious citizens, let alone career criminals, openly question such power. The post-civil rights movement American, of any color, often isn’t quiet about asserting his rights should he and the state cross paths.

The universality of this dynamic is found in the fact that most cop block, police video taping activists are White.

While police/Black community disunity is the usual focal point, resistance by non-criminals to the surly state is a diverse affair. When the state is arrogant, we, the public, must restrain it or resign ourselves to being hostages.

My support of police doesn’t come at the cost of not policing myself—self defense and private security—nor excusing crime committed under color of blue.

That’s zero sum thinking.

Supporting police and advocating unity doesn’t mean bowing down before them. My three-legged stool of safety is strongest only when its core fiber—the public—aren’t over-ruled.

Self-policing isn’t being anti-police anymore than self-respect somehow becomes anti-social. For American Blacks and citizens everywhere, self-policing is simply doing your civic duty to enhance safety in the face of threats—governmental & private—to what we hold dear.

By Nadra Enzi