University's 'Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging' Office Promoted Article Calling 'All Cops' 'B*st*rds'
Are all cops b-st-rds?
If so, why?
For a year, students at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls have had the opportunity to find out.
As reported by Campus Reform, the school’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging office’s “Education & Resources for Allies” webpage previously promoted an article titled “A Guide to Allyship: Black Lives Matter & Why ‘All Cops are B-st-rds.'”
Per a web archive, the piece explores, firstly, the tragedy of George Floyd:
On May 25th, George Floyd was in Minneapolis on business, far from his family and community, when four Minneapolis police officers served as judge, jury, and executioner on an unarmed, non-violent, handcuffed Black man.
“He was dragged from his car,” the text continues, “pinned to the ground, and choked even as he begged for air by officers using unnecessary and deadly force.”
In light of what occurred:
We must contact those in power and urge them to defund the police, support those fighting on the frontlines in the global protests, and donate to the people and organizations who need it the most right now.
The article goes on to insist readers should “stop demanding [their] Black peers to education [them] on social issues” and “stop playing devil’s advocate when discussing racism with Black people.”
Furthermore, the write-up provides a breakdown titled “Why ‘All Cops are B-st-rds.'”
“Good cops do not exist,” it states.
The notion of okay officers comes from what appears, as of late, to be a ubiquitous place:
The claim that individual cops can be good is rooted in white supremacist mythology that suggests racism is an individual act committed by anybody.
Forget individuality:
Policing is not a question of individualism. It is not as if a random individual gets a gun, a badge, a police car, and a blue uniform.
It’s a case of systemic racism:
The police are a highly organized institution with systemic power. In order to understand any institution, it is important you start with the history of that institution…
It sounds as if there was never law enforcement until American slavery:
[T]he institution of modern-day policing evolved from the slave patrol system.
That notion’s been in the news before. In April, a teacher at California’s Cypress College made headlines for her correction of a student who called cops “heroes.”
She laid it out:
“[T]he whole reason we have police departments in the first place, where did it stem from? What’s our history? Going back to what [another classmate] was talking about, what does it stem from? It stems from people in the South wanting to capture runaway slaves.”
Back to UW-River Falls and being b-st-rds:
To suggest that there are good cops is like saying there’s good slave patrols or good colonizers.
It’s also, the piece asserts, like claiming “policing is an individual act that isn’t a product of racial capitalism.”
What is racial capitalism? The combination of skin color and the ability to own one’s own business? The article doesn’t say.
Regardless, good intentions don’t matter, and they don’t make a policeman good:
A cop might have “good intentions,” but these…don’t change the fact that they are a part of a system that is rooted in anti-Blackness.
To drive it home:
These “good intentions” don’t change the fact that the system they work for criminalizes the whole Black community.
The author goes on to prove “police do not keep us safe.”
Police protect Nazis and white supremacists.
Police frequently kill Black, brown, and queer people
Police kill more people than mass shootings each year
Police do not stop gender violence, they cause it
Sexual assault is the 2nd most common form of police brutality
Trans people are 3.7x more likely to experience police violence than cis people
Police assault their partners 2-4x more than domestic violence in the general population
Police have not kept schools safer, instead the school-to-prison pipeline targets Black and brown youth
Evidently, it’s a failure of cops that more rapes don’t result in guilty verdicts in courts:
Less than 1% of rapes lead to felony convictions
Conclusion: “We must defund the police.”
By nature of the school’s own office promoting the article, are we to understand the University of Wisconsin-River Falls shares the opinions above?
It wouldn’t seem a gigantic leap.
As noted by Campus Reform, the webpage was published on June 9th, 2020.
However, following a report on it by Wisconsin Right Now, the content was removed on June 22, 2021.
Speaking to CR, University Communications and Marketing Director Dina Fassino said the posting was regrettable.
To be clear, the article offered other information — such as “Why ‘All Lives Matter’ is Harmful.”
No word on whether the college regrets that, as well.
That portion poses, “Do you crash strangers’ funerals shouting, ‘I too have felt loss’?”
Most people certainly do not.
However, it would seem we’re all in this together…if all cops are b-st-rds.
If, more narrowly, their white supremacists, that’s another story.
Personally, I’d expect a b-st-rd to be bad to everyone.
Either way, Dina said the school’s “taken steps to develop a process for reviewing such content in the future.”
Post a Comment