Let’s grieve for Ken Jordan. Let’s grieve for him as a beloved son, a cherished brother, a loving boyfriend. But must we grieve for him as a slain police officer, one who died to protect us? He didn’t give his life. His life was taken from him by a drunken asshole. Just as the lives of the teachers at Columbine were taken, the lives of relief workers and journalists in Iraq and elsewhere are taken, the lives of nuns caring for the downtrodden in dangerous countries are taken.
Since 9-11 we’ve been conditioned to worship the “public servants” who fight our kitchen fires and bust our teenagers for tinted windows. Does anyone really believe these guys chose such a career because they care about us? The same can be said about our soldiers. With rare exception, men who choose a career in police/fire/military do so because it works for them. They don’t want to work at Wal-Mart, can’t work at Apple. The idea of carrying a gun appeals mightily to the kid whose head was bashed into the gymnasium locker by the big jock with the cute cheerleader on his arm. The idea of dressing up in a dapper uniform and becoming part of a powerful club resonates with the guy who has a lot of testosterone, quite a bit of adrenaline, but little else to distinguish him. They love their institutional authority. They enjoy pulling over the red BMW and watching the rich guy quake in his Bruno Maglis. They relish wiping the tears of the pretty girl who didn’t give them the time of day in Junior High.
I saw the procession for Officer Jordan yesterday. And, yes, it brought a tear to my eye. But not because he was a cop.
I’m sorry, Marie. I just don’t feel that Ken Jordan was a super duper hero at all. I’m fed up with this American authoritarian cult that centers around uniforms with guns. That is not to have wished for this cop to have been shot down like he was though. Still, I have a real problem for shedding a tear for this man, while there are so many others perhaps far more deserving of them than he was.
How many welders die from building out buildings? How many truck drivers crash while trying to raise their families? How many nursing assistants break their backs while helping out the elderly? How many meat cutters have bits and pieces of them chooped off while preparing our food for us? And instead of being declared heores and parades being done in their honor, they are even getting deported, like today in Greeley, where INS showed up at a processing plant to deport these meat cutters and packers for their efforts.
I could go on and on, but you get the gist. There will be no parade and talk of heroes for all us ordinary folk, who have our tax dollars pulled to support this damn police state we are now living in, and often get injured and die from the work we do. We are not called heros ever. Instead, the government, instead of arranging parades before our funerals, mainly treats us with contempt. They treat the poorer amongst us as criminals for being poor, and have their damn cop thugs harassing most of us constantly.
I don’t want to appear like a cold hearted hard ass about this at all. But I have seen in my time enough of these damn cops. I don’t like them. I don’t feel protected by them. In fact, I feel threatened by them. And in fact, they are there getting paid to threaten us, and to keep us in line. And I sure as hell don’t think of them as heroes. I don’t even want to pretend that I do.
That all being said, I am glad that you can stilll shed a tear for this murdered man, even if I cannot. That’s what happens when we have a society where one economic and poliitical class devalues another. We tend to guard our tears for our own. It is self defense.
I just don’t think of cops as being anything other than paid thugs for the well-to-do. Not even for a second do I think that they are getting paid to protect me or my family. A lot would have to be changed before I would ever even begin to entertain such a notion.
Marie, may I say I find your complaint a tad disingenuous? You might find it annoying that a working class man-in-blue can assert authority over someone his better, but you know from personal experience that patrolmen ultimately show favoritism for the well-heeled and their offspring.
What you get right is the mention of Bruno Magli loafers. Those were OJ Simpson’s famous shoes. The police do specialize in hounding black and brown drivers. If anyone can complain about police bullying and brutality, that’s who.
I never much cared for cops. They handcuffed me and then beat me up while handcuffed many times for talking back to them. The first time I had just turned 16, very skinny to the point of being underweight, the cop’s name was Rogers, of the El Paso police department. He decided he was going to “teach me a lesson” because I didn’t call him Sir when addressing him.
It was a lesson they taught me many many times. But you know what? I still can’t bring myself to grovel to them.
There are a very few people who I would deliberately kill.
And the number grows fewer each day.
Cops seem to think it would be a good idea to beat the pacifism out of me.
I personally think that is insanity at its finest.
But there is one saying of Siddharta that I like, “if you sit beside the river long enough, and just wait, sooner or later you will see the body of your enemy float by”
I will try not to hate them, I feel it is good moral exercise.