I’m not black, but I was poor.
If you’re poor, you involve the police as an absolutely last resort. And sometimes not even then.
There are only three things that can happen as a poor person when you call the police:
- They arrest someone you love/need for rent and food.
- They arrest you.
- They kill you or someone you need/love.
Yeah, this happens more to black people. But poor people receive the brunt of police brutality and ill will, no matter their skin color.
When I was young the chances of my family calling the police about anything was very damn slim because of those three facts above.
My family was not technically “poor” (well actually sometimes we might have been technically poor but we were free of “culture of poverty” issues). On the other hand we were kind of marginal characters in a kind of fixed liminal state and so we needed to keep our wits about us.
I still remember the indoctrination my parents (esp mother) gave me about the police (which I’ve never had reason to modify). In some ways she made them sound like rattlesnakes – they have an important role to play in the social eco-system but you want to stay far away from them as they carry out their functions and keep a respectful distance when your paths do cross. By all means don’t panic and don’t directly challenge one with your bare hands…
She also was convinced that both the police and crime attracted the same personality types.
Police and crooks are two sides of the same coin and both attract the same personality type.
I agree about the police force and criminals having personality overlap more than should statistically be the case, especially those predisposed to more physical in-person violence.