Our Belief in Authority
a prejudice against the small man
a
Good Citizen of Humanity |
We tend to believe those in authority, or some of us do. I am a white man and my experiences with authority are reasonable although not perfect. But if I was a black man, perhaps my experiences would be different and I would not believe people in authority.
Another black man has been shot. It is very similar to the Hispanic gunned down by four police in California last month. The cop shooting the black man was charged with murder. The hispanic was an illegal immigrant, so apparently it was alright to shoot him. He did throw rocks at cars and was probably mentally ill. So, no charges against these police.
And then there is Rodney Jones killed because he sold single cigarettes. Does this wrench the gut out of you to know that police are arresting/harassing a man for trying to make a living selling single cigarettes. I am not big on cigarette smoking but I know a person with an addiction and no money sees Rodney Jones as a savior. Police see him as a threat. A threat to what, collecting more money (taxes) from those that are buying single cigarettes. Have we sunk so low that we have to bleed blood from a turnip. And, does it make anybody else sad as hell to know that is what our police force is doing? Not to mention they killed someone over it.
It hurts me to see these videos. It makes me cry, my throat clinch and it's hard to breath. Am I the only one that finds this painful and unacceptable. It is the rare exception that a police officer gets charged with killing a black man, apparently never for killing an Hispanic, especially an illegal. Have we become that hard as a nation?
So, what is it about authority that we assume they are right and the citizen is wrong. Even when there is what appears to be evidence to the contrary, we (meaning grand juries) declare nothing is amiss. The prosecutor works with the police so he can’t be impartial and try to get a conviction of a team member, a policeman (that is part of the police force that he needs to work with on an ongoing basis). So I understand why he comes up short with presenting a convincing case with the grand jury , but why do we put up with it and not demand reform of the system. The new system would have a special prosecutor, someone out of state perhaps, when a policeman is the one being charged with a crime. Why do we not rise up in anger over the injustice and demand a change to the procedure, the system? I'm guessing not everyone feels the pain I do when I see the videos?
It comes back to why we line up behind authority? We want to believe the authority figure is doing things right. And when they are not, we tend to turn our heads. I could give many more examples of this … but they would not answer the question of why we think those in authority are right and the abused are wrong. It is very similar to why we always think our country is right in any conflict. (See the new Social Progress Index.) If our country does it, they must be right. If the police do something they must have a reason.
Is it our fear that if authority figures are wrong there might be something wrong with the entire system, the entire culture. Perhaps we are not as great as we think we are. Our police are no better than in other countries where the authorities are abusive to citizens. We might be just like others in the world. Would our compassion then have to extend to all of mankind? and ourselves? Would we then be able to be judgmental about the failings of other countries, of the poor, of immigrants, etc. Just who would be the good guys and the bad guys? Perhaps that would be our first lesson in compassion.
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