Black Men, Police, Civilization and Situational Awareness

I want to start this post by making clear I am no fan of government police.

In my ideal world, private police forces would exist which would completely change the structure of police agencies and the way they react to situations. I explain how these agencies would operate in a PPS in my book, Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person.

That said, we are far from a PPS.

I bring all this up because a copper, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin, plugged a black man with seven bullets.

 

Now apparently, the shooting victim Jacob Blake had just broken up a fight between two females and the police were either called to the scene or happened upon it.

This is where situational awareness comes in, like it or not.

Coppers in almost all cases have the upper hand. They are wearing bulletproof vests and carry a mini-arsenal on their police issued belts, and reinforcements with sirens blaring are only an "officer needs help" radio call away.

If a copper comes on a scene, it is almost always (like 99.96%) of the time best to attempt to deescalate the situation, to be compliant with officer demands as to where he wants you to stand and what he wants you to do with your hands.

Note: It is different if it is clear you are not a physical threat to the officer, he knows it and you are arguing constitutional "rights".

But if the copper is not sure that you are not a threat, DEESCALATE.

This is just sound situational awareness.

In all the videos I have seen of late of black men being shot (or killed in some fashion) by police that have brought about protests, the black men have shown some type of resistance.

This is just not bright. The actions the coppers may have taken in these situations may have been sometimes correct and at other times not correct but situational awareness would tell you resistance is a very bad move---if living is high on your value scale.

In the case of Blake, a reasonable inference might be that he just wanted to get out of there and not deal with coppers (for whatever reason). He had done nothing wrong and had just broken up a fight between two females. He was a good samaritan if initial reports are accurate. But when you have coppers arriving on a scene and they have guns pointed at you, it is very bad situational awareness to not comply with their orders.

When he attempted to get into the car, the reasonable assumption is that he just wanted to get away from the scene.

But the coppers probably did not know what his role was in the scuffle and he was not complying. They would have seen, justifiably or not, that he was getting into a potentially dangerous weapon, the automobile. So one copper plugged him--seven times.

If Black Lives Matter was serious about saving black lives, they would call for a stop to the destruction of private property that has nothing to do with the police actions and teach black men (and women) about situational awareness.

Comply with coppers in such situations but any blacks (and whites if they want) passing by should pull out their cell phones and record every step of the police action.

This is the civilized thing to do, but as trained Marxists, the BLM organizers don't want civilized reactions. They want riots.

This is all in the hands of black men (and the occasional black women) to be aware of the situation and bring civility to the forefront even when dealing with bad actor cops, or alternatively show resistance which means you will be playing copper roulette and BLM activists will burn buildings in your name if you are shot dead.

But beyond this, there needs to be a bigger battle against the state and central planning and in the direction of freedom and civility. The state has kept many black men from learning this lesson but they should start thinking about it, it is the only way to freedom and a better life.

Freedom and civility matter.

 -RW

UPDATE: Details Emerge on the Jacob Blake Shooting: Further Lessons on the Civilized Life