Blue flu

I heard something deeply disturbing from a friend yesterday. Some friends of his from his childhood days who are in law enforcement told him that there has been a recent surge in handgun sales; mainly women (and I'm assuming white women), who apparently are "really frightened" (his words).

My immediate supposition is that these are people who watch Fox and who have been fed a diet of anti-Black vitriol (wrapped up as defending law and order and our heritage!) and incessant reporting of every violent incident committed by a person of color anywhere in the nation. (Fox needs to be shut down but  they hide behind the First Amendment to peddle their brand of thinly disguised hate speech).

But I digress; so their fear, he said is in some sense real because, and I'm quoting as best as I can recall, "the police as simply not going to respond [to 911 calls] because of the potential liability".

This is outrageous. It is symptomatic of the sense of victim-hood of those like Trump, who have been in positions of power an privilege and are now fearful that they are finally about to be reined in.  It has nothing to do with "liability" - qualified immunity hasn't been dismantled yet - so is likely just another case of the "blue flu", a way for the police to flex their power. In a sense, it's extortion: "leave us alone or we won't keep you safe" is the implied threat. And it's more invidious and less honest that going on strike - but then this isn't a bargaining situation, so what would they be striking for?

If that's the road we are on, there is no alternative to but dismantle police departments and replace them with a service that is committed to the welfare of the communities they are supposed to serve. More training is largely ineffective when it is working against the deeply embedded culture of bias and violence that so many police departments seem to suffer from.