Subtlety Appreciated

Your recent, simply put, and short article “Cop Calls for Service” was both subtle and welcome in these times when thinking is all there is to do.

I began to seriously question the duality of police behaviors when I was a young white woman from New England, and read a Life magazine article by Joan Didion, also white, in the 1970s that noted that cops had morphed — in the white world, a distinction I came to realize later — and were no longer the kind men in blue.

My career in film and stage subsequently became in large part about the absolute necessity of coming to further recognize the racist, ugly underpinnings of our “best country in the world.” I was therefore moved to tears, on my couch, alone, by the spontaneous eruption across our country of the Black Lives Matter protests. And I was deeply struck by the equating of the Defund the Police movement as the problem and the solution.

Though it’s hard to know how endemic racist police policies are, it seems so deep-rooted, we may just have to strip down and start again. Which brings me to “Cop Calls for Service.” Being part of the national think tank, we need a lot of information to consider the good and the awful in our country on the road to become better, fairer, and the true children of our testament.

I compliment you for the subtlety and succor posting this information. I hope you continue with it.