However, if you would like to have high standards, you may need to offer better compensation if you want applicants who meet the desired high standards.
Heck, they could lower the bar even more and pay minimum wage and still say they’re doing the job.
Look, I am firmly in the camp that believes that certain jobs should be making 100k a year- teachers, police, firefighters, etc. That’s what I was raised to believe and I’ve never waivered.
HOWEVER, that’s not the world we live in. Cops know what they’re getting into. Police chiefs and other supervisors know who the “bad apples” are in their ranks. They almost always do nothing about it.
They should. Police jobs are in-demand because, as others have said, stability, good pay, etc. But they don’t. That is indicative of deeply entrenched systemic racism, sexism, and other power structures.
If police forces really wanted to do something about these problems, they could. That they don’t speaks volumes.
IMO, this has very little to do with pay scale. Bigotry and racism, unfortunately, crosses socioeconomic boundaries. Even stupidity does at times, surprisingly. If anything, the nepotism in some areas of first responder lines of employment are hurting not helping.
^ Facts are conveniently sparse in this comment.
@busdriver11 You misunderstood my comment about white privilege. I wasn’t referring to a cop. I was referring to the blitheness with which posters excused inexcusably bad behavior by shrugging it off as sarcasm.
Not being afraid when you’re pulled over by a cop, and easily forgiving a cop’s bad behavior when it’s not threatening to us personally: THAT’s white privilege.
Nope, it’s not. Keep trying though.
Wow, fractalmstr. That was nuanced, deep and convincing.
Yes. Sarcasm.
Or maybe it’s not. That seems quite a generalization about people whose background you really don’t know. And you are assuming you know their skin color. I have a tendency to go on the side of defending cops because my husband has a family full of law enforcement, and they are all honorable men.
It just seems ridiculous for this to have hit the national news and start another cop bashing conversation when it’s likely he’s already been investigated and disciplined.
I’ve LIVED white privilege. I spent a year living illegally in France. Cops hassled immigrant-looking people all the time for their papers – the hard-to-get carte de sejour – especially if said immigrant-looking people were black or brown. I’d be waiting at a metro station, watching flics rudely questioning every POC they came across, their eyes scanning the waiting passengers, looking for their next victim, inevitably a POC. They never, not ONCE come up to me… a white woman… living there illegally, happily and hassle-free for the entire year.
But sure. There’s no such thing as white privilege.
“I have a tendency to go on the side of defending cops because my husband has a family full of law enforcement, and they are all honorable men.”
To me, that’s the problem. Whether it is within the police force or amongst the general public, defending the minority of poor LEOs just because one, rightly, respects the profession, does more harm than good. If we can’t criticize, correct, and, at times, eliminate the bad ones from the ranks, the problem and the public profile won’t improve. Yes, many LEOs deserve credit and praise for doing their jobs well but that doesn’t mean they all deserve it. The best among the police have to have the desire and support to call out and banish the ones who aren’t up to the task.
And it’s not just France. Definitely happens here. If one is a person of color or has a family member who is a POC, then you do know that things are different depending on one’s skin tone.
If 99% of illegal immigrants to France are “immigrant looking people”, and 1% are white, it makes sense for law enforcement to spend most of their resources going after the “immigrant looking people” and not white people.
On the other hand, if 99% of illegal immigrants were white and 1% were another color, it would make sense to go after white people. This isn’t rocket science…
I suppose if you wanted to call this scenario “white privilege” then I would agree with you, but the white people in this scenario were not the ones crossing over the border illegally, so why should they feel bad about themselves?
I know you want a pleasant explanation, but sorry.
At the time white illegals BY FAR outnumbered people of color. This was just post Berlin Wall coming down. There were masses of Central/Eastern Europeans in France without papers.
“White Privilege” doesn’t mean white people should feel bad about themselves. That is not part of any definition of “White Privilege” of which I’m aware.
“White Guilt” is not the same as “White Privilege”. Different definition. imho. fwiw.
Good point, @alh. I think people should educate themselves what “white privilege” means. Plenty online about the concept. Basically, if you believe racism exists, you believe there is white privilege. They’re two different sides of the same coin.
In your previous post, you pointed out the fact that you were white, so naturally I thought the “immigrant looking people” you were referring to were of a different color. In any case, clearly there was some kind of visual cue that the cops picked up on by not asking you questions. They were likely trained to profile people who they suspected were in the country illegally. A white, western looking woman probably was a low-risk target to them and therefore they ignored you. This makes perfect sense, and seems like a reasonable way of cracking down on illegal immigration given limited resources.
Nevertheless, white privilege often carries with it a negative connotation.
I wonder how many of us would like to have all their work interactions recorded, and then snippets of things we said released to the press? Even well after we’ve been disciplined for it? It would be tough, dealing with the lowest segments of society every day, drunks, druggies, people committing crimes, to never say something sarcastic.
There are things out there that are a big deal, and a sarcastic comment sure isn’t one of them.
Considering that effective policing is based on trust between the police and the general public, being on good behavior when on the job interacting with the general public is a desirable quality for a police officer.
Even for non-public or non-police jobs, what you say on the job can affect how you are viewed by other employees and others who may affect your job performance.
I also need to chime in on this pay issue for cops. There are cops in small towns etc that may not make a lot of money, but it’s disingenuous to say most cops aren’t paid well. Any cop in a mid to large city make a crapload between their base pay, overtime and the additional details they pick. They have great benefits as well so it’s no excuse that better pay will attract better applicants. They need better screening, diversity training and less militarization.
Most importantly they need to start holdingthr bad apples accountable and stop the blue wall of silence.