Ever notice when one news station uses what seems a new phrase, every news station picks it up. One of the most recent is “re-imagining’ the police”. Imagine that? Well I imagine this as a call to fictionalize an occupation made up of individuals we call police, an organized multifaceted institution to keep law and order in a town, city, county, state or country. In the history of this law enforcement body there have been times in various places in our country when through the efforts of police and even federal officers themselves, corruption has been brought to light and routed out.
It is true in the human condition nothing is perfect: free of injustice, prejudice, hate; in fact, every inhuman vice we can name. However, what the current and so obviously well organized protests nationwide is not about is routing out such things through reasonable channels but creating more chaos than already exists. Think of spending fifty days camped out on the streets of Seattle: yelling, burning, disrupting the life of innocent citizens, destroying the property and rights of others. And also doing so with the protection of the mayor with the police prevented from restoring peace by arresting law breakers.
There is something going on beneath the surface that is perhaps diabolical fueled by forces concealed and disguised as good deceiving decent altruistic, mostly young people of all races. These are victims of the imagination gone wild. Someone suggested that instead of the Star Spangled Banner we should change our national anthem to John Lennon’s song Imagine. You might want to look up the lyrics. One of the things it imagines is a world without religion. Is this in fact what this whole movement is about after all?
DJ Pasternak, Author 
Two sides to every story. Listening to grievances and acting to resolve issues before they get out of hand may be a better alternative to brutal force. Change has never come easy.
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Definitely so and wish it always worked that way. We experienced in a lesser way what discrimination by police or rather one of them can be like. In our case a black officer treated us badly putting us in harms way on a Newark street. Another officer also black on the outside spoke kindly as we were parked in the middle of a street with cars passing ever so close. I think we obeyed the first officer because you have to give respect to the uniform. In the most, not all, publicized cases of abuse by police the person resisted arrest,
As I see it, and it is only my opinion, but in this country prejudice increased under our first black president. Also, in my opinion, this protest in cities across the US is organized & focused on the young.
One thing about our country is the freedom and obligation to express the opinions we form in words, I may not have expressed mine as well as I might. Feel free to comment and of course to disagree.
Note: We had a discussion in my diverse writing group about what to call people of the various races. Maybe I’ll write a blog about it. Love you!
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