Are the Police the "Good Guys" for Everyone?

In reading this article, several things struck me where it hurts, but a confluence of things started the mental gears moving.

Yet the primary macro-level strategies of the white-feminist-led movement against domestic violence and sexual assault continue to rely on this system, with a major focus on legislation such as the Violence Against Women Act and the push for hate-crimes laws to include gender and sexual orientation.[3] On the micro/personal level, I have repeatedly seen white, class-privileged feminists unhesitatingly call upon police to protect and serve them; have listened to white feminists advise each other on which "authorities" to go to for protection from stalkers and other abusers; and so on.[4]

Then I read this comment at Feministe:

I’m redneck white trash and believe me, the last thing I want is to call the attention of the good old boy network to me or my family. The authorities around here are misogynistic and racist, more interested in keep their perks than they are in helping someone who does not fit into their particular social class.

Then, I thought about Hope Steffey and the reaction to that case, including my reaction, as opposed to the reactions to the myriad cases that are just as egregious, just as abusive (perhaps even more so) that involve people of color.

And I saw it. I didn't see it before at all. I think that's the point, actually. We, the members of the In Crowd*, aren't supposed to see it.

When we, white* people, call the police we expect our problem to be solved, bad guys to be caught and rarely are we disappointed by more than their incompetence. What we don't expect and what normally doesn't happen is that we are treated badly and the situation is made worse for us as victims of crime followed by police brutality or indifference. The idea of this routinely happening to others is so far out of our experience that we can scarcely credit it. It must be a rogue cop or the person must have done something to trigger that reaction because for us, cops don't behave that way. We feel the need to resolve that conflict in our head--the difference between our own experience and the story of the experience of others.

So, when it happened to Hope Steffey, we were horrified (rightly so), shocked (rightly so) and angry (righteously so). Hope Steffey was presumed to have done nothing to "deserve" such treatment from the get-go and so later when we learned that she had given the cop the wrong ID, we thought nothing of it really except that the cop was a dick for telling her to shut up about her dead sister when she asked for it back. She got the benefit of there not being any doubt at all.

But if Hope Steffey had been black? Or an immigrant? Or gay? Or trans? Or poor? We would have immediately wondered what she had done. When we heard that she'd handed the cop the wrong ID, we would probably have thought she was trying to pull something. When we heard that she demanded it back, we might have assumed she "gave the cop attitude". She might have gotten the benefit of the doubt that she hadn't caused it somehow or that the reaction had been out-of-proportion to the infraction but there would have been a doubt there--there must be in order to get a "benefit of".

And that's a privilege of being white and one I will consciously fight--that difference in having no doubt and giving the "benefit of the doubt". I also don't think I'll be quite so interested in passing laws to solve problems, giving more power to those who already abuse it.


*Shorthand for white, middle-class, straight.