sibility entails keeping the peace, de-escalating conflict and valuing and protecting all lives. When the state gives you a gun and the right to use lethal force, you commit to being held to a higher standard. Our expectation as citizens is that the police will not callously execute members of the community with the same malicious disregard as this gunman did.
Many officers commit to this work and do it well. I rely on those officers, for instance, when I am forced to report the routine threats I receive from readers of my work. But far too many officers use a badge as an excuse to power trip. The unjust slaughter of these police officers does not obscure any of these facts for me. That all lives matter goes without saying. That the lives of these fallen officers mattered goes without saying. That black lives matter does not go without saying, and that must change. Until we as a nation can affirm that black lives matter without equivocation, we simply haven’t earned the right to say “all lives matter.”
In a revealing October Newsweek profile, Lynch callously blamed Eric Garner’s own bad choices – selling loose cigarettes and, it seemed, being overweight – for his death. And he blamed New Yorkers for being overly concerned about Garner and insufficiently grateful to police for protecting them.
“Maybe we’re forgetting what it felt like to be afraid,” he said bitterly. The writer seems to agree, arguing that “cops serve as an uncomfortable reminder of what it takes to make Brooklyn a playground for the Lena Dunhams of this world.” Lynch, he writes, “thinks that maybe it got too ‘good on the streets,’ and that people have forgotten that they need the police.”
It takes uncommon hubris to credit cops, alone, with the transformation of New York in the two decades. Demographic and economic changes; a political system more responsive to the concerns of African Americans; hard work by community leaders themselves to reduce crime and disorder – it’s a long list, and I’m not sure how many experts — outside the police department — would put cops at the very top.
But a lot of white New Yorkers would, too. A cousin of mine, a liberal, says she thought Giuliani went too far – but she’s glad the city moved beyond crime and fear. She was mugged multiple times, once at gunpoint. Once she was dragged between two buildings by some women who threatened to kill her, then let her go. “I don’t want to go back there,” my cousin confessed.New Yorkers like to feel superior to Southerners and Red Staters when it comes to race relations, but they don’t have the right. Just as Dr. King said Chicago could teach Mississippi how to hate, after he tried to challenge segregation there, New York shows what happens when fear of crime turns good people into frightened authoritarians, who’ll trade security for occasional police misconduct, as long as they don’t have to watch it on video.
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sibility entails keeping the peace, de-escalating conflict and valuing and protecting all lives. When the state gives you a gun and the right to use lethal force, you commit to being held to a higher standard. Our expectation as citizens is that the police will not callously execute members of the community with the same malicious disregard as this gunman did.
Many officers commit to this work and do it well. I rely on those officers, for instance, when I am forced to report the routine threats I receive from readers of my work. But far too many officers use a badge as an excuse to power trip. The unjust slaughter of these police officers does not obscure any of these facts for me. That all lives matter goes without saying. That the lives of these fallen officers mattered goes without saying. That black lives matter does not go without saying, and that must change. Until we as a nation can affirm that black lives matter without equivocation, we simply haven’t earned the right to say “all lives matter.”
In a revealing October Newsweek profile, Lynch callously blamed Eric Garner’s own bad choices – selling loose cigarettes and, it seemed, being overweight – for his death. And he blamed New Yorkers for being overly concerned about Garner and insufficiently grateful to police for protecting them.
“Maybe we’re forgetting what it felt like to be afraid,” he said bitterly. The writer seems to agree, arguing that “cops serve as an uncomfortable reminder of what it takes to make Brooklyn a playground for the Lena Dunhams of this world.” Lynch, he writes, “thinks that maybe it got too ‘good on the streets,’ and that people have forgotten that they need the police.”
It takes uncommon hubris to credit cops, alone, with the transformation of New York in the two decades. Demographic and economic changes; a political system more responsive to the concerns of African Americans; hard work by community leaders themselves to reduce crime and disorder – it’s a long list, and I’m not sure how many experts — outside the police department — would put cops at the very top.
But a lot of white New Yorkers would, too. A cousin of mine, a liberal, says she thought Giuliani went too far – but she’s glad the city moved beyond crime and fear. She was mugged multiple times, once at gunpoint. Once she was dragged between two buildings by some women who threatened to kill her, then let her go. “I don’t want to go back there,” my cousin confessed.New Yorkers like to feel superior to Southerners and Red Staters when it comes to race relations, but they don’t have the right. Just as Dr. King said Chicago could teach Mississippi how to hate, after he tried to challenge segregation there, New York shows what happens when fear of crime turns good people into frightened authoritarians, who’ll trade security for occasional police misconduct, as long as they don’t have to watch it on video.
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