The ideas of the fight against police arbitrariness, proposed against the backdrop of protests, are aimed at punishing the “system soldier”. At the same time, they will not change the system itself.
This was reported by The New York Times.
The article sharply criticizes the hypocritical gestures of politicians demonstrating illusory solidarity with demonstrators. In particular, they pointed to the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, who knocked exponentially, using popular indignation in his PR campaign. In fact, this is “worth nothing and does not change anything”, NYT writes. But even those reforms that are being considered in Congress look very doubtful.
“The Democrats bill, as expected, goes further than the Republican plan, but in both cases the focus is on training, accountability, accounting and punishing the police. But these points, if they are accepted as planned, will mainly punish the soldiers of the system without changing the system itself. These bills will make officers bad guys because of their bad behavior, and they will do little to condemn or even eliminate the cruelty and gluttony of the system that requires it”, – the article says.
The US police is not a body protecting the rights of citizens. It was created to support inequality, to protect the rich, to suppress the discontent of those whom this system oppresses.
“This society creates conditions in which extreme concentrated poverty can exist, and then punishes those who react negatively to this poverty. This society systematically covers up power – economic, political and cultural – in the hands of a few elites, almost all whites, and then mourns the apathy of those who are deprived of power”, – the author continues.
Thus, not a single police reform will change the situation as a whole, because it would leave the structure of power in the United States unchanged. The least that protesters must demand, as noted in the media, is the new Civil Rights Act. Now the American establishment considers such measures radical, because politicians prefer the illusion of solidarity and action without changing the essence of the system. They don’t want to deal with issues of poverty and unequal distribution of benefits – it’s easier to ban police from using asphyxiation. At the same time, the publication urged to remember that police officers are not necessarily bad.
“They are tools of the system and manifestations of society. They are cruel to blacks because America is cruel to blacks. They are oppressing because America is oppressing. The police did not engender American violence and inhumanity. America’s violence and inhumanity gave birth to them”, – stated NYT.