Wednesday, March 25, 2009
'Officer Friendly' Ain't So Friendly To Transpeople Of Color
Posted by Monica Roberts at 1:58 PM
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/03/officer-friendly-aint-so-friendly-to.html (http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/03/officer-friendly-aint-so-friendly-to.html)
One of the things that you grow up with as a person of color in the US is that when it comes to the police, the smiling countenance of 'Officer Friendly' we see in our elementary schools when we are children doesn't translate out in the real world.
As soon as we are old enough, that myth gets busted by our parents and extended family. We are told the long, sad history of police 'patrol and control' tactics in POC communities, see thanks to civil rights era video that the police were the enforcers of Jim Crow segregation and hear snippets of the in house racist police chatter thanks to monitored radio broadcasts.