[lbo-talk] San Jose Cop Kills Vietnamese Woman and Found Not Guilty

Thomas Seay entheogens at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 4 13:31:41 PST 2003


--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Dorene wrote: ". . .for instance not enough cops
> from communities of
> color. . ."
>
> Most of the cops who murdered Fred Hampton were
> black. Cops are cops.
> They are one of the categories in which the
> intentions of the actor
> don't count. Cops as cops are the enemy.
>

Ok, well, how to deal with the situation? On the one hand, it is true that cops of color are placed in communities of color as a more efficient form of social control. A vietnamese cop told the San Jose Mercury that he told members of his community that he would have probably acted similarly in the same situation.

On the other hand, in an imperfect world, I would still prefer having vietnamese speaking cops, as opposed to say english speaking ones, in my neighborhood if I were vietnamese. Perhaps, as the above cop suggested, he would have done the same. On the other hand, given that the woman spoke almost no englsh and the cop did not speak a word of vietnamese, the situation MIGHT have been prevented from ending in tragedy.

It would be an important demand, on the part of the vietnamese community, that vietnamese cops get assigned to their community; on the other hand, it would be important for them to understand the nature of the police system in this society-no matter the race, etc, of a given member of that system- in general and not have any illusions about that.

__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list