A Matter of Trust

Professor J,

Your series on Ferguson and the causes, effects, and potential solutions has been extraordinary. Thanks for taking the time to provide such detailed background and analysis. This story has so many layers and appears to be continuously unfolding and raising other issues such as the militarization of local police departments and most recently Witness 40 being exposed as a mentally unstable fraud.

Read the story from The Smoking Gun here.

During a time when the imagery surrounding us is of a sleeping baby lying in a manger as a lone star shines overhead it can feel uncomfortable to focus on such serious matters. However the back story of this holiday involves  a person in power who was willing to decree mass genocide rather than lose his unquestioned dominance and control. The more things change, and all that...

Over the weekend as my son was trying to get home for Christmas he encountered something that I associated with your recent postings. On a 3 hour bus ride to the airport to catch his flight the bus broke down in the middle of the desert. His description of events can be summed up as follows:

The bus hit a rock and broke down in the desert miles from anything. The bus driver LOCKED the passengers in the bus and took off down the highway, presumably to check for the mile marker. While he was gone two officers with the state patrol stopped to see what was happening. They took everyone's name and address (the reasoning was unclear as the passengers were yelling information through the glass of the locked door) and then they simply drove off. No help was offered. My son's description of his fellow passengers was that they were "apathetic" and "unconcerned." No one demanded answers or to know what the company was doing about the situation except him. He made numerous calls to the company to try to get an answer about the situation but it was early in the morning and no one answered the phone. When the bus driver returned my son requested his bag from under the bus and proceeded to hitchhike to his final destination.

What struck me about the story when he told it in person was the contrast between his attitude about things and the attitude of the other passengers. My middle class son with the private school education and college degree felt that he had the right to make both inquiries and reasonable demands. Who takes a bus load of passengers through the desert and doesn't have any water on board? No one else on the trip seemed shocked or disheartened that the authorities who showed up were unhelpful. No one else on board except one man who was belligerent and angry, made any attempt to change or improve the situation. My son, couldn't believe uniformed officers would happen upon this scenario and do nothing.

I wondered if this situation represented a microcosm of the larger story. The people on the bus seemed not to know how they could change anything but they seemed to assume that they were powerless. In domestic violence cases we know that women seem to lack an understanding that they can have control and change their lives. It's a learned helplessness. After years with a crafty abuser they come to believe that they are powerless and that no one cares.

Watch an insightful TED Talk about how we misunderstand "apathy" here.

Transfer that same idea to a neighborhood or community and our middle class perspective can shift from asking why they don't trust the police to working on ways of rebuilding that trust. Your recommendations would be a great place to start.

Most police forces already offer "citizen ride-alongs" to help the community understand more about the job of police officers. Our local police department also offers something called the Citizens Police Academy to further that understanding. Both programs are open to everyone after a background check. Doing a better job of publicizing those programs is necessary; we'd never heard of them until our police officer son-in-law informed us

I agree that go-cams for officers would go far in protecting both them and the citizens they encounter. We've already seen how useful the cameras on the cars are for documenting events and clearing up facts later, when even with the best intentions, memories are often unreliable.