[ SECRET POST #6488 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6488 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #926.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm tired of "ACAB". This doesn't add anything to the important conversation. Furthermore, it's more likely to make cops defensive and not get to the crux of the issue- which is the systematic racism that permeates the culture.

For example, as a feminist, if I just went around saying 'all men are bastards" that isn't going to change anything. Some are bastards, some genuinely want to make a change but are trapped in an overall toxic culture, and everything in between. Saying ACAB is such a vast oversimplification of a real issue that definitely needs to have vast changes.

I loved John Oliver's take on the Law and Order series. I still love and watch it, but am able to separate the fantasy from reality. Rewatching Elliot now... yeah, not good at all. Olivia Benson however remains awesome. From what I gather, SVU is complete fantasy in regards to what happens with SA victims. But it's a welcome fantasy, to see rapists get imprisoned.

[(Anonymous)]

So, one, I don't think it's right to say that systematic racism is the crux of the issue with policing (assuming we're speaking about America here). Systematic racism is one issue; the other issue is that police culture and the police as an institution are just fundamentally broken in ways that have nothing to do with racism. Policing culture is abusive, police are corrupt, and police are not subject to any meaningful civilian control.

Two, I do think it's fair to say that there are issues with the ways that progressive reformers talk about changes to the police as an institution. But I think the use of the phrase "ACAB" is not a major problem in that respect. The only real problem I have with it is that people use it in a reflexive, callow way sometimes - but the underlying point that the problems with police culture are absolutely pervasive and extend to police in general as an institution is basically true. And that's the thing that people should take away from the slogan, I think: that the problem with police is not a result of individual police officers being bad, but with the whole structure and institution. I have a much bigger issue with the use of "defund", frankly.

[(Anonymous)]

A big part of ACAB is also the straight line between policing and the USA's truly abominable prison system. Even "good" cops who aren't corrupt, try to resist the (deeply entrenched) police culture of dehumanizing wide classes of people as the enemy instead of the public, want to do their jobs and are kind people in their personal lives...have dedicated themselves to a system in which them are obligated to uphold the US Prison System and feed lives into it according to arbitrary and draconian sentencing. The US Prison system absolutely destroys lives and communities and is the last bastion of legal slavery. That's not hyperbole, that's literally the law.

All Cops are obligated and hugely incentivized to send people into that system regardless of the morality or proportionality of the laws broken - minor marijuana possession, a sodomy charge before 2003, a homeless person urinating in public. And they generally cope with this by embracing that corrupted police culture. "Well, they broke the law, so they pay the price." Their own morals don't matter: they enforce the law. And the law is in many places and many ways deeply cruel. Even if cops don't want to be cruel, in upholding the law, which is their duty, they enact cruelty.

That's why All Cops Are Bastards. And yes, prison reform and legal reform are necessary components that individual cops can't accomplish by themselves, but as AIRT points out, that profession is a CHOICE.

I do think ACAB is overused and can make people defensive, but there's absolutely utility in breaking down the sheltered liberal idea that "nice cops" are the same as "good cops" - that being friendly or reasonable somehow exempts or absolves them from their active and important role in that system.

[(Anonymous)]

I see where you're coming from, but I view it very differently. You don't get to chose how you're born. You DO get to chose your profession. Not all cops are terrible people, no, but participating in and benefiting from a system that corrupt is still bad. Pointing that out to a "good cop" shouldn't make them defensive if they would like the system to be dismantled. And also as that other anon said, systemic racism is only one facet of something that is fundamentally broken. The whole thing needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Assuming, again, this is the US we're talking about.

ACAB is absolutely a simplification, but who is going to take the time to type out a very nuanced take on the police in a fandom secret?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, ACAB is just a vent. Even though it tends to be true more often than not. Of course we know there are good cops. We also know what happens to good cops... the ones that call out corrupt behavior get pushed out or punished, and the ones that don't, they turn a blind eye and enable the system, which makes them no longer good cops. Either way, the end result seems to lead toward bad cops and bad cop behavior. Therefore, ACAB.

Of course, real change doesn't come from a social media vent. It comes from conversations in the community and better legislation, and voting in those who fight the corruption at all levels. But for those who feel powerless to change things, or for whom change seems to be a long way off, "ACAB" may be a way to blow off steam.

(And maybe there's a unicorn town out there in the USA where all the cops are cool with all different sorts of residents and don't profile or bully, but I have yet to hear of one.)