The problem with fixating on the police is that it distracts us from just about everything else activist-orientated.
Yes, I know the activist explanation: that the police are a part of the larger state apparatus -- and often the public face of that apparatus through programs like community policing -- that works to oppress the marginalized of society.
The danger here is that police become the low-hanging fruit when challenging the state.
Because the police...well, are the police. They are the first layer of insulation the state uses to protect itself from citizens in revolt. Anyone studying political science or has been to a protest knows this.
And the reoccurring imagery and themes from last year's G20 protests including -- burning POLICE cars, heavy-handed POLICE tactics, POLICE arrests that breached our rights held in the Charter, POLICE officer "Bubbles", POLICE arresting more than 1,100 people over a three-day period -- doesn't help.
It's all POLICE...POLICE...POLICE...POLICE.
It makes activists look like all they do is spend their time going from protest to protest to confront the police.
Nevermind the awesome grassroots work done by groups like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) or No One is Illegal (NOII) or No More Silence.
I admit I get caught up in the police-trance when I notice that at least 50 per cent of the photographs I take at a demonstration include images of the police, either in the foreground, background or the main focus. They are always there, hovering around every protest as a convenient and -- I believe -- state-approved distraction from what really matters.
Activists call it a part of the "Riot Porn" scene the way is fascinates and distracts. Don't believe me? Check out: http://riotporn.blogspot.com/ and http://www.flickr.com/groups/riotporn/\
It does seem that the mainstream press here in Toronto, most notably the Toronto Star, has been caught up in the police action-fascination. More coverage is focused on the actions of the police rather than the people the police were beating up....damn, there you go, see how the police issue just kinda just sneaks up on you like that. And then bam, suddenly the conversation is hijacked by speculation about police tactics, what they did and/or didn't do and how they arrested so-and-so. Nevermind why the protesters were out there in the first place.
Case in point, the Toronto public knows more about the G20 "kettling" incident than why activists were on the street that Sunday June 27, 2010 to be "kettled" in the first place.
Talking cop is also a social thing, a way for activists to bond over their funny and tragic police stories while sipping a coffee or a beer. I'm guilty of this too. Why do we spend precious time talking about the police when we should be talking to each other about how to grow the movement and asking each other how we're doing?
Anyway, back to the Toronto Star; I am glad the paper fronted the money for the exclusive poll that found that "Most Torontonians now believe police actions during the G20 summit were unjustified," signalling "a monumental shift" in public perception.
The Toronto Star's Angus Reid poll also reports, "Immediately following last year's summit, 73 per cent of Torontonians said police were justified in their response to demonstrations. One year later, that figure has dropped to only 41 per cent -- a dramatic, 32-point percentage drop."
OK, thank you for the information. Now we "publically know" how the Toronto public feels about the police so let's get back to talking about why the G20 demonstrators were on the streets in the first place.
Enough with staring at the car crash.
Let's start setting our sights of getting a full public inquiry that will focus not only on police behavior that weekend, but also the roles of the provincial and federal government before, during and after the G20.
On the other hand, ironically, certain socio-economic and racialized groups have a hard time convincing the mainstream that the police can do more harm than good in a community; when I would bet, despite the Toronto Star poll, most Canadians see the police's role to "Serve and Protect" the good guys who fight the bad guys.
I personally believe part of this problem is experiential. It's not until you personally experience police brutality -- as we have seen with the G20 -- that people become aware that the police are not at demonstrations to "Serve and Protect" YOU.
Or "Serve and Protect" YOUR COMMUNITY when racial profiling is singling out certain individuals not for the content of their character but the colour of their skin.
I'm not saying that police brutality should not be a concern for activists -- in fact, I praise the activists who have taken up police brutality as a issue in its own right -- but let's not let the police's presence hijack every demonstration or news story.
Remember, in regards to demonstrating, it doesn't always have to be about the cops.
The media don't need the police and riot visuals to ignore real socio-political issues. They could, and most often do, just decide not to cover them; or if they do, it's on page three below the fold, after a nice headline about the Royal Couple or some Congressman's wiener.
Everybody has an opinion about the police; it's a subject that everyone thinks they know something about - like sex education and gun registration. But these opinions are easily moulded, manipulated, and shifted by the mass media. It was inevitable that as the cop misconduct stories began to trickle out and into the MSM, the pendulum of public opinion would swing the other way, at least for now.
Yes, police have become the low-hanging fruit when challenging the state, but the media are as guilty as the opposition movements in that regard. In many ways, we have tailored our strategy to going after what the media are interested in; and they are far more interested in police stories (with great visuals and intense physical conflict) than they are in critques of the neoliberal austerity agenda that the G20 was here to promote and we were here to oppose.
As long as there is police violence against protesters, the media will focus on that and ignore the real socio-political issues. That's one of the reasons for the new "naked fist" policing strategies promoted by the ruling classes and their political servants; to distract and manipulate media coverage.
In the main I agree, if maybe for different reasons.
Hardly anything is actually done at summits by leaders that already isn't agreed upon ahead of time. Which should make one wonder at why they have them. Certainly, it's a Public Relations gimmick, where national leaders get to have photo ops and put out a controlled message.
Looking at it that way, the protests last year were a resounding success. No politician got to get out his or her message effectively. And realistically, that is all that can be hoped for in such a situation, and that isn't a bad thing. In fact, I'd call that about as close to total victory as one can come.
Getting out the anti globalization message, whether it's from a labour perspective, environmental perspective, aboriginal rights perspective at such protests isn't going to happen. First, the media will lead off with the leaders mutual back patting, shifting to a superficial report on whatever intiative it was diplomats worked out weeks if not months before behind closed doors, and it will be a glossed over account. Then the media will move to protest coverage-- which invariably includes the most excentric protestors they can find to give a podium to.
The complex ideas that strike back at globalization have more effective venues.
Fixating on the police is important to an extent. Fewer and fewer people still think that all victims of police wrong doing "must have been doing something wrong". As an arm of oppression, they have been exposed as such to bigger and bigger sections of the middle class. It helps that there are constant examples from across the country not only that police do in fact act like thugs from time to time, but that they are granted what amounts to near blanket immunity by people in authority.
The challenge now is to shift the focus away from the rogue police to those in higher authority who aid and abet them. Your various Chiefs, Crown Attourney's, Attourney Generals, Judges, etc. We are getting to a higher level of the power structure that way, and exposing them for what they are.
Meanwhile, bridges have to be start being made with rank and file "good" cops. Because any meaningfull change depends upon the police, at some point, understanding that their interests are not well represented by those who have been using them as thugs.
By accident or design, the protests at the G20, and the focus on police wrong doing has been a total victory, a total Public Relations victory.
What is needed now is to take this to the next level, and start getting more tangible rewards from that shifted public opinion.