DanLin O.
The police force is supposed to protect citizens and promote peace and justice. As citizens, we have to rely on the police to defend us from any type of injustice or wrong. They are supposed to protect us from rapists, thieves, murderers, and so on. Yet, after reading Tim Wise’s essay “Selling the Police,” I feel that we need to protect ourselves from the police instead.
In his essay, Wise gives his opinion on the heroism of cops. To him, cops are not heroes at all—they are racists who abuse their authority. Wise denounces the intention of the Police Museum in New York City to honor the city’s police officers because the museum leaves out incidents of police corruption and police brutality (159-60). To back up his point, Wise mentions Operation Pressure Point–a drug sting in which street dealers of color were arrested while buyers who were white were free to go home (160). Wise says that immigrants (such as Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima), minorities, and colored people are frequently subjected to police brutality and racial profiling.
Racial profiling is defined by Wise in two ways. First, it is “the overapplication of an incident-specific criminal description in a way that results in the stopping and harassment of people based on skin color” (Wise 161). Second, it is “the disproportionate stopping, searching, frisking, and harassment of people of color in the hopes of uncovering a crime, even when there is no crime already in evidence for which a particular description might be” (Wise 162). What Wise is saying is that just because there is a higher crime rate among people of color does not mean it is rational to automatically link a person of color to a crime. In fact, Wise provided statistics and reports that stated whites were more likely to commit a crime.
Bottom line is that police officers are not heroes and they do not deserve our respect. Maybe you think that working as a police officer is a risky job, but Wise notes that fishermen are more likely to die on-the-job than cops will (160-61). They kill, harass, search, and attack whoever they choose. Instead of looking at the evidence, police officers base their actions on assumptions. If cops are not going to protect us, then who will?
I found this image on a blog site. I think the picture is worth a thousand words.
