The three words “I Can’t Breathe” refer to what some police brutality victims, like George Floyd, Eric Garner and Manuel Ellis, said before their untimely deaths at the hands of law enforcement.

  • ReCursing@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’ll explain for you in case you’re not trolling. We must All Cops Are Bastards because enough of them are and there is little enough oversight that when some of them do something wrong they get away with it far too often. It is therefore self defence to never trust a cop because they can fuck your life up six ways to Sunday and suffer no repercussions of note. ACAB does not mean there are no good cops, it means we must assume any given cop is a bad cop because one false negative has the potential to go so far wrong.

    Your even spicier take is actually just bonkers. It’s not a uniquely US thing, no, but it is not designed to do anything but protect us the non-cops!

    • Number1SummerJam@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      16
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      What if you replaced “police” in your comment with another group of people like doctors? What if you had to be a police officer to make a living? Don’t fall into the trap of generalizing a whole group of people, it’s no different than being racist. Please go after specific corrupt police departments but I can assure you that a lot of police officers join for good reasons.

      • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t think this is a good faith understanding of what’s happening, as ‘acab’ is pretty clear to the American pubic at large. We’ve all, all, experienced very negative, low quality officers in our life. Hit by a taxi on my bike, cop saw and slowly drove away while we locked eyes? Completely fake ticket for ‘running a red’ on my bicycle, which photographic evidence showed was impossible in court? Officer putting his hand on his pistol when my mom needed to get my dumb diabetic ass some emergency juice in a “no parking zone”? Yes, just from personal experience.

        Enough of us, that we’ve all collectively agreed that it’s safe to assume “all cops are bastards” when forced to interact with them.

        While I appreciate the bravery in opposing such a heartfelt sentiment by a large portion of the American general public, the reasoning behind said sentiment is pretty clear, and the seeming lack of understanding is suspect.

      • ReCursing@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        it’s no different than being racist.

        People choose to be cops. People don’t choose to be black. Cops choose to shoot people for being black.

        Some cops may join for good reasons, but the institution as a whole is so corrupt and full of "one bad apple"s, coupled with them necessarily dealing with the worst in society and also non-cops that they soon fall prey to the environment and become awful themselves.

        Be safe, assume ACAB