This System Is Broken: ACAB, FTP (part 1)

Columns February 23, 2022

Do you remember the superhero title bestowed upon police officers when you were a kid?

I do.

I can recall my mother befriending local cops and introducing me to them with such excitement and awe on her face. These were members of our community, people we knew, who, like Peter Parker, flocked to scenes of crimes to serve justice and save lives. What heroes. 

Nowadays I avoid police officers as much as possible. Not because I’m engaged in illegal activity, but because I am disheartened by what I understand that job title to be. The royal canadian mounted police do not necessarily have the best interest of their local communities at heart, but rather the best interest of their funders.

I still come across an occasional officer who appears to be a genuinely kind human, but, unfortunately, regardless of that, they have signed over their life to be dictated by the interests of our government and its rules.

This System Is Broken is a column appearing in every issue of Nexus.

The laws created by our current government system are extremely black and white, one size fits all. These are becoming increasingly hard to apply to situations in our current day and age. Human existence is evolving and proving difficult to fit into rigid categories, and more and more our youngest generations are demanding the abolishment of such categories whatsoever. 

Still, the outdated fear response of “call 911” is instilled in our children.

The hereditary chiefs of Wet’suwet’en territory have withstood three militarized raids in the last three years. This showcases the intricate ties between rcmp and the canadian government. Aren’t cops meant to serve and protect common citizens as a whole? Here we see their complete service and protection offered only to those who support the government’s illegal pipeline project.

Across the globe, communities are speaking up and begging this pipeline to stop, and instead of listening to and supporting members of such communities, police officers suit up and march into unceded land to forcefully remove Indigenous peoples from their homes.

This stands as a blatant example of officers flexing the power their title gives them while proving all too well that they are shallow, narrow-minded racists upholding the agendas of the shallow, narrow-minded racists who fund them.

I see now that working for the rcmp clashes harshly with my values and beliefs, and I no longer respect words or assistance offered by cops. Quite the opposite. I feel sorry for them, drunk on a false and flimsy sense of power rooted in the rehearsed practice of judgement, racism, and patriarchal classism.

Rather than immediately hauling “criminals” off to jail, what if we called a phone number that dispatched workers with de-escalation and counselling training, or mental health and addictions training? 

What if we built a modern system to replace this outdated, broken one?