Bad Cop, Bad Cop

So while our government of spoilt truth twisting brats continues to behave as such, a victim of racist policing is sent down in the States.

I have no doubt Derek Chauvin is guilty. He publicly murdered a man by stepping on his neck for ten minutes. What I mean is that somewhere along the line it didn't occur to him that was a killing move. It didn't occur because at no point in his training or any aspect of the institution of policing in America (and beyond) was he told that doing such a thing could kill. Not only that but the institution bred out of him, as it does every cop, the possibility to question that tactic. So he did it because that's what cops do. It just also happens to be a racially motivated act. So yes, Derek Chauvin is a racially motivated murderer. The tragedy for him is that he doesn't understand this.

Therefore nothing will change and Chauvin will be a sacrificial lamb to ease tensions. But the fundamental problem that causes those tensions to exist, the racist capitalist American cultural hegemony, will remain. Certainly Biden won't do anything. In fact, while I reject the ageist politics his opponents used against him during the election, I have no doubt he is, ultimately, a fossil. He speaks with no fire, no passion. He's just another rich old white dude.

Is that fair? probably not. Is it nice? Probably not. It is true, though. 

The police exists to protect the laws that protect capitalism. They have the monopoly on force to do this. Racism feeds into this because of long standing ignorance and the structural inequalities that exist betwen communities of colour (including white, the dominant). George Floyd was pronounced guilty straight away. The only way the cops can deal with him is to sit on his neck. It is more important to them to subdue him than stand up and let him breathe. Of course he's going to complain he can't breathe, because that's what all guilty people would say. It's no different than saying I'm innocent! Yeah, of course you are. Except he is, because nothing he was alleged to have done warranted his murder, yet the conditioning that American cops receive prevented any other outcome.

If you want change, then not only do the cops need defunding, but the whole institution they exist to protect needs to go. Remove the need for them. They don't exist to fight crime, except on a very trivial level. If that were actually true then they'd need to go just because they suck at fighting it.