Obey, Good Citizen

A cop with the City of Mishawaka Police in Indiana is producing a T-shirt with the slogan, “Breath Easy: Don’t Break the Law.” Although he denies it, it is a clear reference to the last words of Eric Garner as a NYPD policeman was chocking him to death, “I can’t breath.” The shirts producer, John Barthel, claims that it is merely telling citizens that they can breath easy because the police are there to protect you. Right.

The first thing that came to mind when I read this was Shephard Fairley’s ubiquitous “Obey” stickers and posters closely linked to Orwell’s 1984. All you must do, good citizen, is obey and everything will be fine. Clearly, the scary part of this is the mentality behind this thinking, which equates obedience with subjugation and law breaking with terrorism.

If only the issue was as simple as Barthel wants us to believe. In Barthel’s make-believe world, there is no such thing as racism or racial profiling or different rules for different populations and everyone is treated equal under the law. The fantasy is that if you are a good little citizen, you will never have any trouble from the police. Justice is blind. As we have seen from headline after headline over the past few months of police murdering people of color and getting away with it, Barthal’s hallucinogenic image of America and actual life on the streets are totally at odds.

“Breath Easy. Don’t Break the Law” is not “To Protect and Serve.” Police no longer see themselves as public servants but as the thin blue line between civility and anarchy, which has them constantly on a war footing and feeling above the laws they were hired to uphold. If Barthal’s sentiments are representative of the average cop, America’s law enforcement community is in serious need of an attitude adjustment.

Is Ferguson a glimpse of America’s future?

Police brutality has been around since the dawn of human civilization, and is far too often a common occurrence in marginalized areas of society. What’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri, however, goes well beyond “police brutality” to a new realm resembling a military occupation. Armed to the teeth, using terror as a tactic, assaulting and arresting the media, overreacting to provocation; these are the actions of a force not bent on restoring order, but on intimidating and expunging anyone who dares question their authority.

The riots, following the shooting of an unarmed black man by police, are a lamentable but understandable reaction to yet another attack on a civilian by a law enforcement department that does not feel it is accountable to anyone. These types of incidents are becoming more and more common, as very little is done to bring the perpetrators to justice. Police departments and their enablers in the justice system consistently turn a blind eye to police who commit crimes, encouraging an environment of lawlessness and overreach among others.

The question that has to be asked about the situation in Ferguson and similar incidents is this: What is the mindset of the police involved? Do they believe they are there to stop lawlessness and illegal activity or do they see themselves as society’s tool for keeping order at any cost? Harassing and arresting reporters definitely falls into the latter category.

The footage of the riots in Ferguson look more like a scene from some third world country where the military is routinely sent in to quell disturbances, more often than not with bloody force. Is this America’s future we’re watching? It seems to me we dangerously close to crossing the line between enforcing the law and the active suppression of Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights.