{UAH} MOVEMENT TO REFORM POLICE THREATENS TO BECOME A PARODY ITS SELF

OPINION

The movement to reform police culture threatens to become a parody of itself

by Becket Adams

June 10, 2020 05:47 PM

We are fast approaching that point where a genuine social movement becomes a parody of itself.

The protests surrounding the wrongful death of George Floyd have drawn much-needed attention to the issues of the militarization of the police, police abuses in minority communities, and criminal justice reform. The protests are good. The movement is necessary.

Unfortunately, the protests and their momentum have also attracted a dedicated band of extremely loud grifters, hangers-on, and political activists whose own selfish goals, demands, and actions are distracting from the original purpose and goal of the movement. Well-meaning and dedicated protesters are still talking about criminal justice reform, but it is becoming harder to hear their message through the crackle and screech of those calling for the police to be “defunded” and those calling for censorship in popular media.

Consider the following passages from a New York Times article Wednesday:

It was only a matter of time before the protests came for “Paw Patrol.”

“Paw Patrol” is a children’s cartoon about a squad of canine helpers. It is basically a pretense for placing household pets in a variety of cool trucks. The team includes Marshall, a firefighting Dalmatian; Rubble, a bulldog construction worker; and Chase, a German shepherd who is also a cop. In the world of “Paw Patrol,” Chase is drawn to be a very good boy who barks stuff like “Chase is on the case!” and “All in a police pup’s day!” as he rescues kittens in his tricked-out S.U.V.

But last week, when the show’s official Twitter account put out a bland call for “Black voices to be heard,” commenters came after Chase. “Euthanize the police dog,” they said. “Defund the paw patrol.” “All dogs go to heaven, except the class traitors in the Paw Patrol.”

It’s a joke, but it’s also not. As the protests against racist police violence enter their third week, the charges are mounting against fictional cops, too. Even big-hearted cartoon police dogs — or maybe especially big-hearted cartoon police dogs — are on notice. The effort to publicize police brutality also means banishing the good-cop archetype, which reigns on both television and in viral videos of the protests themselves. “Paw Patrol” seems harmless enough, and that’s the point: The movement rests on understanding that cops do plenty of harm.

 

This reads like a parody, but it is not. The protests over Floyd’s death have convinced an overeager band of activists that now is the time to strike at problematic language and depictions in media. Never mind the larger, far more serious stuff. We need to have a national conversation about talking cartoon dogs in police uniforms.

There is more where this sort of silliness comes from.

On Tuesday, HBO Max announced that it had temporarily pulled Gone with the Wind from its platform because it “depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society." The streaming service plans to return the movie online eventually, but when it does, it will come with a statement reminding viewers that racism is bad.

When Gone with the Wind returns to HBO’s platform, a spokesperson said, it "will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.”

There is still a great deal of work that needs to be done to right the sort of wrongs that led to Floyd’s death. But it is going to be that much harder getting there so long as deeply unserious clowns continue to stand in the way, cluttering the conversation with activities and demands that are as crazy as they sound to the average bystander. If we want real change, we need to bring more people into the movement. The greater the number, the greater the chance for progress. But things such as radical censorship, going after children’s cartoons and the like, will have the opposite effect of growing the movement. It signals only that they are unserious people and, by extension, so is their political movement.

Ironically enough, one possible solution for this problem would be for movement leaders to self-police a little. Do not let opportunists control the conversation. Those with the loudest megaphones would do well to call out distracting gimmicks as needed.

Because if the only thing to come out of the Floyd protests is the cancellation of a cartoon and Gone with the Wind, then this will have been the greatest missed opportunity for real progress in a generation.

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
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                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
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