Education today...

[Gob]

A California community college professor has slammed one of her 19-year-old students after he called police 'heroes'.

The student, Braden Ellis, got into the heated exchange with his communications professor at Cypress College after he gave a Zoom presentation about 'cancel culture' in the United States.

Footage of their exchange, which he says came immediately after his presentation, shows the professor repeatedly interrupting Ellis after he defended police.


The female professor, who wasn't immediately identified but is an adjunct professor, kept insisting that police were bad.

At one point, she suggested police were created in the South to track down runaway slaves and that it was a form of systemic racism.

'I think cops are heroes,' Ellis, who is a business major, said at the beginning of the exchange.

[Joe Guy]

The professor is an ass.

[Crackpot]

Sounds a bit like assholes all around, but the student is not positioned as the authority figure here.

[Bicycle Bill]

Sounds a bit like assholes all around, but the student is not positioned as the authority figure here.

No, merely positioned as the intelligent one.

-"BB"-

[MGMcAnick]

Not all police are bad, but certainly some of them are. At least one of them murdered George Floyd.

[Scooter]

At one point, she suggested police were created in the South to track down runaway slaves

Can't imagine what would have caused her to say that, except because it's true.

[Gob]

Only if you take a VERY warped perspective on how and why policing was started over there.

Modern policing began to emerge in the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced by the British model of policing established in 1829. The first organized publicly-funded professional full-time police services were established in Boston in 1838, New York in 1844, and Philadelphia in 1854. Early on, police were not respected by the community, as corruption was rampant.

Slave patrols in the south were abolished upon the abolition of slavery in the 1860s

[Scooter]

How policing was established in Northern cities is irrelevant to how it developed in the South.

And even after the abolition of slavery, policing in the South was very much dedicated to finding ways of incarcerating blacks in order to feed the convict labour economy, used as a means of perpetuating slavery in a way that was allowable under the 13th Amendment.

[Crackpot]

Because it wasn’t “created” in the south at best (or worst) it was “used” for that purpose in the south.

[Econoline]

Only if you take a VERY warped perspective on how and why policing was started over there.

Modern policing began to emerge in the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced by the British model of policing established in 1829. The first organized publicly-funded professional full-time police services were established in Boston in 1838, New York in 1844, and Philadelphia in 1854. Early on, police were not respected by the community, as corruption was rampant.

Slave patrols in the south were abolished upon the abolition of slavery in the 1860s

From Scooter's link:

First formed in 1704 in South Carolina, patrols lasted over 150 years, only technically ending with the abolition of slavery during the Civil War. However, just because the patrols lost their lawful status did not mean that their influence died out in 1865. Hadden argues there are distinct parallels between the legal slave patrols before the war and extralegal terrorization tactics used by vigilante groups during Reconstruction, most notoriously, the Ku Klux Klan.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think 1704 happened before 1829?

[Bicycle Bill]

I believe there's a difference between a police force created to protect people and property, uphold the laws, and apprehend those who violate them — and a posse/vigilante group/lynch mob that assembles for one single, specific purpose.

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

And yet police forces across the South acted as both. At the very least from Reconstruction onwards, they gave aid and comfort to said vigilante groups, as well as to do everything they could to criminalize being black.

[Econoline]

I believe there's a difference between a police force created to protect people and property, uphold the laws, and apprehend those who violate them — and a posse/vigilante group/lynch mob that assembles for one single, specific purpose.

-"BB"-

The slave patrols were [legally] created to protect [white, slave-owning] people and [their black, human] property, uphold [some of] the laws, and apprehend those [black slaves] who violated them — and they were not, by the standards of their time and place, a posse/vigilante group/lynch mob. Moreover, they predated the organized police forces in England and New England by more than a century.

[Gob]

And yet police forces across the South acted as both.

But what does that have to do with today's police, which was the subject under discussion?

[MajGenl.Meade]

And yet police forces across the South acted as both.

But what does that have to do with today's police, which was the subject under discussion?

F-all as any sane person knows

[Big RR]

I have to agree; if we use that argument, we would have to say any and all law enforcement is suspect because it was used to suppress the have nots on behalf of the haves--look at the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood. Face it, those in power always use law enforcement to control and bend the will of the people to their (often immoral and selfish) ends.

[Bicycle Bill]

I have to agree; if we use that argument, we would have to say any and all law enforcement is suspect because it was used to suppress the have nots on behalf of the haves--

So the lawmen who took down John Dillinger and Al Capone — or, going even further back, Billy the Kid or Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch — and spent so much time and energy trying to track down D.B. Cooper were only doing so at the behest of the 'haves' (you know, the people who put their money into banks back in the days BEFORE the FDIC, or the "I work for Mr. E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad..." people — that particular breed of powerful, ruthless high roller) and not because they were breaking the laws that said is was NOT OK to rob banks or trains, make and sell booze, extort money by hijacking aircraft, or going around shooting the hell out of other people??

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

If I had said that, I would answer the question (although it was likely rhetorical).

[Scooter]

And yet police forces across the South acted as both.

But what does that have to do with today's police, which was the subject under discussion?

Because looking at how institutions originated and developed over time is relevant to how they operate today. The racism that was intentionally built into them doesn't get eradicated by magic. Particularly when the same guys who are wearing a badge are donning hooded sheets, whether literally or metaphorically.

[Jarlaxle]

Not all police are bad, but certainly some of them are. At least one of them murdered George Floyd.

No, not all police are bad, only 99.9% or more...there might be a couple dozen that aren't. Maybe.