Americans' perceptions of police drop significantly in one week
So the keyword here is &#x27;perception&#x27; - which is ultimately a game of populism, which dry realists may loathe a little bit.<p>There are some very good arguments for &#x27;critical masses of sentiment&#x27; necessary to effectuate actual change, at the same time, populism is a war for &#x27;hearts and minds&#x27; and the first casualty in every war is of course the Truth.<p>Personally, I&#x27;m far more interested in <i>real</i> nature of every day policing, which is a complex and nuanced subject, not likely suitable for the narrative-driven vignettes proposed to use every night on cable news.<p>I believe that &#x27;narrative and populist driven change&#x27; is usually not the best way forward. We&#x27;ve seen this very poignantly with the rise of the &#x27;doctors and bureaucrats&#x27; to the fore of public display during the Covid epidemic. It&#x27;s been mostly heartwarming to hear from the dry, mundane, secular, academic mandarins managing our pandemic responses behind the scenes.<p>Dr. Bonnie Henry managing British Columbia&#x27;s COVID response as a fairly good example; we&#x27;re now getting <i>actually charts and data</i> to explain and validate the inherently complex nature of COVID, and the impetus for the resulting action.<p>On TV, the narrative-drivers and those trying to make big statements completely drown out a much-need opportunity for dispassionate discussion about this issue. I feel that people are being highly misled one way or another to the point that when real facts and hard evidence don&#x27;t align with a narrative, they become anthemic to the presentation, and anyone proposing to discuss them becomes a heathen to the cause. A lot of people are spending a lot of time, decades even, in bubbles of &#x27;very incomplete information&#x27;.<p>America has made <i>huge</i> strides in all sorts of areas, and in most ways &#x27;it&#x27;s better than it&#x27;s ever been&#x27;. I wouldn&#x27;t for a second give Trump (or any incumbent president) credit for this but as avg. Black income, wage-gap, and unemployment-gaps become historically low even during <i>his</i> tenure, this is saying a lot. If you look at the broad measures of ostensible progress, they don&#x27;t really jump at points of social contention, really, it looks <i>mostly</i> good over broad units of time. Progress is mostly a steady grind, made by a lot of thoughtful people.<p>Particularly disturbing is the entrance of major brands, deciding to participate in the situation - though sometimes it&#x27;s hard to see how earnest intention may be exploited ... it definitely is. Master marketers don&#x27;t sell you products really on the basis of function, rather an aspiration - and if that aspiration has moved off the court onto the streets, you can be sure that someone hustling you shoes because of a deeply held political or social conviction ... it&#x27;s a huge red flag.<p>It takes a real kind of mindfulness to &#x27;see something bad in a video or tweet&#x27; as a data point, instead of an emblem. A quick gander through Pew polling, actual police stats, victimization reports, and decent research paints a totally different picture than one would form from reading headlines or drowning in Tweets.