[nytimes.com]

In reading some comments of the Dallas cop that shot a man in his apartment it's amazing to me that people are trying to find some "reasonable" explanation for her to have shot an unarmed black man in Texas. I find that amazing given the history of policing that people are still doing whatever they can to give cops the benefit of the doubt. Then I recognize that these people were raised with an entirely different perspective of police than I was. That they were programmed regarding police as theists are programmed in relation to their religions. Programming done before they can effectively question what they are told about police. Programming that instills a positive, protective perspective of police. Taught to believe that police are to be honored and respected and without a counter-narrative, there is no reason to not agree with that positive perspective. So I'd like to tell everyone about my first personal experience with police outside of a classroom that told me to trust them. How the "counter-narrative" became part of my perspective regarding the police.

This happened when I was in the 1st or 2nd grade. I was walking down the street with my dad and 2 older brothers. We were going to the store to pick up some things for dinner. It was a 4 lane street and there was a lot of foot traffic in a predomantely black neighborhood. All of a sudden two police cars went racing down the street, lights flashing and sirens blaring. In the front seat of both cars were a couple of cops, laughing while speeding down the street with their hands waving in the air off the steering wheels. My brother made the point that it look crazy but fun. My dad said angrily, "And if they kill one of you having fun it'll be your fault."

I looked at him and asked why. His response was that they are not held accountable for killing people like us which is why they can do that in the black neighborhoods. That if they hit someone they would tell some lie about how you darted in front of them and they would be believed no matter what anyone else said. When I pointed out that it wasn't fair, he pointed out that fair was not something that you could count on in life, expecially where police were concerned. That was my first experience with the police outside of a classroom where they were telling me that "Officer Friendly" was someone that I should trust. A direct contradiction to what my father had told me and pointed to real life to demonstrate his point.

In my life I have had at least 3 friends die at the hands of the police. Two were people who had done nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the last "mysteriously" died on the bus on the way to county jail and we never found out why he was on his way to jail. Just like the man in Dallas, wrong place, wrong time and a cop with the right to kill you. People give their story credibility just because cops are wearing a uniform and they've been programmed to respect the uniform. I learned as a very young child that the uniform is nothing but clothing. What matters is the character of the person in it.