Saturday, July 17, 2021

Yahoo News, Zack Linly, Reporting or Validating Prejudice? NYPD Tase Black Man On Subway

 

An article on Yahoo News, written Friday, July 16, 2021, by Zack Linly, has the title, " NYPD Officers Swarm and Tase Black Man On Subway After Accusing Him Of Letting Someone On Without Paying Fare". 

There are videos circulating about the confrontation and arrest on a New York subway train, July 6, 2021. People can draw their own conclusions about police conduct during the incident. One thing that needs to be pointed out is that even if a person thinks they are being arrested unlawfully, it does not give them the right to resist arrest. Resisting or fighting police is not a right. It leads to nothing but the serious escalation of violence and harm.

Reporting about the incident is one thing. Using the incident to validate stereotypes about police or any profession is unprofessional to say the least. Why Yahoo News allows unfiltered opinions that are gross generalizations and stereotypes, even race baiting, to pass as news is inexcusable.

This is the year 2021. It is not 1970. It is not 1960. It is not 1950. For many decades now, large city police departments in particular have diversified greatly. Policing long ago stopped being a white man, often Irish, profession. 

Here are a few of the pearls of wisdom from the article.....

"There's always going to be a rift between Black people and police officers as long as cops believe even the slightest challenge to their authority warrants their reckless aggression and uses of force no matter how minor the original offense was." 

"As if police officers aren't always cursing and talking recklessly to civilians they see a reason to cop (pun intended) an attitude with."

He also alludes to, "fragile blue egos". Perhaps he has independently conducted psychological testing on the hundreds of thousands of cops in the United states, and the thousands in New York City.

He apparently knows what is in the minds of hundreds of thousands of cops, what it is that these hundreds of thousands of separate individuals believe, and how they improperly, in his opinion, talk to civilians. 

As with all professions, there are the good and the bad. What does stereotyping the hundreds of thousands of men and women in a profession achieve? Cherry picking incidents here and there that supposedly validate prejudices and stereotypes does not result in better policing or anything else.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.