Rooting for the Cops? Well, Yeah

Some say yesterday was a sad day in Ottawa, but I was pretty elated.  After two years of watching cops repress Black Lives Matter protestors, I am now rooting for cops as they arrest far right extremists that have occupied downtown Ottawa.  Does that make me and mine hypocrites?  No, for a couple of reasons focusing on both the conduct of the protests and the content.

First, I don't remember BLM protesters using kids as shields.  I don't remember BLM groups trying to use arson as a tool of mass murder (yes, some BLM protests had fires, but no attempts to lock down and then burn an apartment building).  BLM groups did not harass and assault health care workers, the media, or passersby who were masks.  This has not been a peaceful protest despite the hot tubs and singing.  The far right extremists in town have been bullying storeowners and threatening the residents.  

Second, the content also matters.  BLM protesters were protesting police brutality, and the police kept on providing more evidence that the BLM cause was just.  The far right extremists in Ottawa were opposing ... heaps of stuff as their crazed conspiracy shit metastasized.  They oppose vaccine mandates and mask restrictions at a time where these are two of the best ways to mitigate a pandemic.  Their MOU (a memorandum of understanding because a manifesto would have sounded too commie?) called for the elected government of Canada to be tossed out by those who don't have the power to do so (the Governor General and the Senate).  They are really upset that Trudeau is in power--but that is because the parties they favor and that pander to them lost.  The election was partly over mandates with the Conservatives pandering to the far right and the far right party focusing very much on this.  And they lost.  60% of Canada voted against these two parties.  Yes, Trudeau only got a third of the vote, but the pro-vax mandate, pro-mask restrictions parties won bigly.  Oh, and most of the restrictions are actually set at the provincial level.  

For three weeks, Ottawans were not upset at the cops for being too brutal, but that they didn't do anything at all except seemingly empower the worst of the worst.  We sincerely worried about white supremacists within the police force.  So, when we finally saw the police carefully, slowly, methodically push back and use much less force than the police forces of the US at the various BLM protests, we were and are elated and relieved.  The behavior of these cops has been quite restrained--so far, no one has been beaten.  Yes, windows were broken when folks refused to get out of their vehicles.  But they had been repeatedly warned.  I do wonder if any kids were taken into protective custody, but that is on the parents, who were repeatedly warned.  

While the far right media are trying to make this thing a colder version of Tianamen square, we have to remember that (a) the protesters in China were pro-democracy while those in Ottawa are anti-democracy; and (b) we have no idea how many were killed that day in China, and we know how many were killed in Ottawa (zero).  

Ultimately, it comes down to this: we want the cops to protect and serve the public, not themselves and not far right extremists.  Yesterday and again today, the police in Ottawa are serving the public.  

And, yes, there might be a hint of bias in all of this because:

 

Policiing is Always Political

 One of the most misunderstood quotes in all of civil-military relations is that war is politics by other means.  I was reminded of it as folks were tweeting today about the current mess in Ottawa having political and policing dynamics as if policing is not inherently political.

Politics is a term to describe pretty much anything where the decisions are being made that affect the public.  Sure, politicians do politics all the time as they try to make decisions that will allocate, redistribute, regulate, etc.  But other actors also do politics, and, of the various actors in any place, the police are among the most political.

There is no private space for policing--everything they do involves the public.  And there is a heap of decision-making because they have finite resources, time, and energy, so they are constantly having to make decisions about which laws to enforce, what constitutes a sufficiently egregious violation to warrant attention, whom to watch, whom to stop, etc.  As someone who speeds much of the time, I am very well aware that the cops don't enforce the speed limit at exactly one mile or kilometer/hr over the speed limit.  We tend not to think that much about the politics of speed limits except when photo radar gets proposed that would reduce the discretion of the speed-trap monitor.  But when photo radar is brought up, the politics does not end since the question remains--where to install it?

Of course, I can speed because I am a white dude.  I don't fear a traffic stop like people of color do, as my death or beating is not a likely outcome of such an encounter.  This gets us to the deeply political nature of policing as police don't treat every person the same.  There is much politics involved in who gets policed.  Stop and frisk everyone?  Nope, mostly people of color.  The current crisis in Canada, which has angered heaps of white folks, shows that policing is political as the white supremacists, far right extremists have faced far less policing than the average Indigenous demonstration.  There have been plenty of pictures and videos showing cops being pretty damned friendly with those holding Ottawa hostage. So, who gets policed is up to the discretion of the cops, and they have used this discretion in ways that have deeply challenged public order.

For the past few years, it has been abundantly clear that the cops in North America have been out of control--that they have used their discretion as they see fit, treating far right folks with kid gloves and brutally beating those people who have the temerity to protest police brutality.  When mayors and city councils have tried to regulate them, when authorities have required mask and vax mandates, police unions have pushed back, just as they push back against any accountability for police brutality.  If that were not problematic enough, the way things seem to work in Canada is that the politicians don't think that they have the power to direct the police.  So, the cops are even more autonomous, even as they make decisions with bigger and bigger political consequences.  The Mayor of Ottawa talked about the failures of policing using the passive voice today, as if he didn't have any role in this.  

I see people of color online noting that the white folks seem to be surprised that the cops are out of control, that they police selectively, and their selectivity often seems to favor white supremacists.  They know it has always been thus, but that white folks didn't really understand it in Ottawa, anyway, until now.  So, no, this is not really news.  I have long assumed that the cops here were out of control--what I did not know is that the politicians thought that this was normal and acceptable.  

Maybe that will change now.  Or maybe the citizens will have to do what the cops refuse to do.  I am writing this as my colleagues and friends have joined counter-protests that are keeping the extremists from reinforcing downtown with yet more assholes.  When told by the cops to move aside, that the cops will handle it, the crowds scoffed and remained in place.  Because, of course, they have no reason to believe the cops.  

There are several unanswered questions but two come to mind:

1. Will any politicians pay a price in the next election for screwing this up?
2. Will the police pay a price for their refusal to do their job?  

If those who have failed us don't experience consequences, any chance to learn from this, to do better next time, evaporate.  And that, too, will be political.

Baltimores

I am heartbroken about Baltimore.  While the problems presented over the last couple of weeks are not unique to Baltimore, I know something of this place and not just because I watched The Wire.  I spent eleven summers of my life at a camp in Maryland where the kids and counselors mostly came from DC and Baltimore suburbs.  Because one of my best friends lived in Baltimore, I visited quite often once I got my driver's license. 

So, it is with heavy heart that I post this Brian McFadden cartoon:

Again, it is not just Baltimore, just as The Wire was about the decline of American cities and not just one city.