Us and Them

I have, on rare occasions, had the experience of those I know speaking disparagingly about “those people”. As I am a white, cis-gendered female(born female, identify female) and a US born citizen there is literally an ENTIRE WORLD out there of ‘other’ to whom my friends, or family, or facebook friends could be referring. Most presently this Other has manifested itself as: “black people” or more accurately, “not the nice black people, I like them, but the black people who commit crimes, you know: see Chris Rock, you feel me?” (even if your racist self doesn’t say it, I know what you’re talking about, you feel me?), and “transgendered people”. [On that last point, I dedicated 2 years of my life to writing about the development of understanding how the world around you is changing if this bathroom legislation is making you uncomfortable. Please, please, please, please, message me for a 100% confidential, nonjudgmental, supportive yet gently challenging, but open minded conversation if you’d like to talk out your discomfort.]

However, during my morning ritual of breakfast, coffee and the news, something caught my eye, and I’m going to focus on a specific other today, apart from the above. I came across this article: Twin blasts target police in Pakistan's northwest and stared at it dumbfounded. In terms of death toll, it’s the smallest one of my morning perusal. The Daesh (ISIL) suicide bombs in Baghdad have claimed over 70 lives this year, including 38 on Tuesday alone. Sri Lanka’s monsoon season has hit a section of the island country horrifically this week and potentially buried 200-300 families. One woman was interviewed and dazedly informed the reporter that all nine of her children were currently unaccounted for.  And in terms of big deals, one of the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Harem has been found: the news is so new they haven’t even written an article about it, but it’s such a big deal that my breath caught in my throat when I read it.

So why the Pakistani policeman? One dead, ten injured in twin explosions. I know why, but I also know, that if I am to be fully honest here, I’m going to upset someone. I suppose, that was your disclaimer.

It is so easy to characterize anyone and anything outside of our comfort zone or even just country or outside of those that look like us, as the “Other”. I see it happen every day on social media, on the walls of those I know and love. This becomes a very difficult battle for me, someone who has done years and years of research on how to encourage those to see things from multiple perspectives, to encourage empathy, and to help others check their privilege. The last tends to be the hardest because having privilege doesn’t mean you had it easier, it just means you were dealt better cards – it doesn’t mean you necessarily got a chance to play all of them, put in the most simplified terms possible. But, that’s hard, and it requires you to look outside yourself, your life, and your family – and some people just aren’t interested.

Here is where it gets murky. Anyone who knows me, knows how much respect I have for law enforcement of all kinds. My father is a combat veteran, my brother, and former navy. We’d be here all night if I listed off all the Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) in my family,  and I have had many a LEO save me a time or two in compromising situations with students/when someone tried to break into my apartment/when I was in car accidents, etc. Those who know me very well know that I have filled out applications for police departments and the FBI on multiple occasions, but never submitted them. In the same vein, I am also highly critical of LEOs who abuse their power, are racist bigots, or are down right dirty. How can we glorify the good ones if we don’t take the bad ones to task? This isn’t about a blue wall – it’s about making sure that everyone is doing their job, so that anyone going out will be the type of officer/agent/LEO we want responding to a call.

I’ve gone far afield, let’s bring it back.  The summation is, the ones that I see unquestioningly supporting LEOs, are also the ones that I often see unquestioningly believing the stereotypes of the Other. I won’t go into all of them (this is already far too longwinded), but specifically let’s look at Pakistan. I’ve seen facebook friends (and family members, hello!) who talk about Blue Lives Matter, disparagingly talk about bombing the shit out of those who our troops are fighting. If they were in charge we’d have Stalin-style scorched earth the entirety of “every damn ‘Stan out there” and brought our troops home (Note, the US is not waging any sort of war in Pakistan, for the record – as far as I am aware of 20 minutes ago).

But out of all those Others there is a family today, just like a family in the US, grieving for their fallen officer. He was a victim of a terrorist attack. He was likely married, likely with children. I couldn’t find his name.  He went to work that day and he’ll never go home. He was killed in the line of duty, doing his job like so many of our fallen brothers and sisters. We are so much more similar than we are different. I worry for all my LEO family members and friends – for what you deal with every day. The Other has police officers too. They put on their uniforms, kiss their families good bye and go to work. They have good and bad men and women on their force, and they deal with people who have made bad choices and they deal with plain bad people – like every other LEO around the world.

Except this one, for his watch has ended.  Maybe in his honor, the next time you think of “Them” you can maybe think of “Us”.