A Few Days Ago, I Made A Mistake

[Rev. Rye]

Maybe an example would help.

Let's say we have Sam. Sam is a wonderful person he donates blood and gives cookies to old ladies. Sams's occupation is as a police officer who by the very nature of American policing enforces state violence disproportionately against the poor and minorities. Sam doesn't like this but his duty and organization demands it. Sam wouldn't be patrolling a poor area of town to bust some young black men for dealing weed. The police officer as an enforcer of irrational and frankly draconian drug laws will. If I said all cops were evil. I'm talking about the former not the latter. Karl is still a wonderful person. The police officer is an enforcer of state violence and the organization of the police makes that possible.

And there's the problem with ACAB. An individual cop can be good, even as the organization he belongs to basically commits racial terror. We protest the system that's led to these racial terror campaigns, and yet the phrase "All Cops Are Bastards" makes it needlessly personal. You want a good slogan that doesn't fall into that trap? Well, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre came up with a very simple and elegant one a few years before I was born:

The only downside is the FCC might not allow the phrase airtime, but how likely is that going to be a problem for most of us?

And, full disclosure: the only reason I'm not posting the song is because I don't know whether a song that drops the N-bomb 8 times violates the rules.