Poverty, Police, and Prejudice

I have a friend who is a staunch Republican, and a police officer in a bad part of town. Like many ghetto cops, he comes very close to be openly prejudiced against certain ethnic groups and the poor. He uses his job to rationalize his prejudice, and he is convinced that if his liberal friends would just do a ride-along with him one night, we would all change our minds and see how right he has been all along. The following is an actual Facebook conversation with him.

Republican Cop Friend:

"Why won't my liberal friends EVER come up here to Milwaukee and allow me to show them for themselves what I see every day?"

Me:

What you see every day is because you are a cop in a bad hood, Dude. Yes, we know that there are bad neighborhoods, and that people do very bad things in them. What point are you trying to make with this ride-along? That Liberals have it all wrong when it comes to helping poor families feed their kids? You know very well why I won’t do a ride along with you, because I have told you plenty of times. I have actually LIVED in the ghetto. I lost countless nights of sleep because people were trying to break into my apartment, and from getting up to check that my piece of crap car was still there. I feared for my life just walking to the supermarket, which was actually just a mini mart attached to a liquor store. There were three crack dealers in my building alone. I HAVE seen it, because I have lived it, and yet I still don’t think all poor and ethnic folks are worthless, or that they are always up to no good.

The difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals are trying to FIX the ghetto problem, while conservatives are busy trying to blame the victims. It is true that some people in the ghetto believe that the system will never allow them to get out anyway, so some of them have embraced the thug lifestyle. I am not denying that, and I am not excusing it. No one on my side is denying or excusing it, but we also know that where you come from is who you are in this society. Getting out of the ghetto isn’t as easy as you seem to think it is. It isn’t a simple matter of just getting a job. For starters, there aren’t many legitimate jobs to be found in the hood, and trying to get a job outside the hood isn’t as easy as you wan't to believe, either. Aside from the transportation costs and problems of getting to the interview, employers have an eye for ghetto folks and think they can’t be trusted. Then there is the biggest problem of all- education. Most ghetto kids don't go to preschool because it costs too much, which already puts them at a disadvantage. Then their elementary and high schools are underfunded and overcrowded, with one teacher to forty students per classroom. This drastically decreases their chances of getting into college, or graduating even if they do get there. Without a decent education, the only jobs they are qualified for pay much less than crime does. FIX THAT, and you will fix the other problems in the hood. The ONLY solution is through education, which your side wants to cut the hell out of.

In short, we KNOW there is a problem.  We are just looking for permanent solutions to it, instead of just locking people up, and wasting tax payer dollars on feeding and housing them while they are behind bars. You complain about welfare, but what about the money that goes into the prison system? How are my tax payer dollars going to any better use that way? It has been statistically proven that prison does not reform people. It just teaches them how to be better criminals, and that does nothing but create a continuous cycle of crime and poverty. But at least it keeps YOU in a job, right?