Jim's Eclectic World: I Hate the Police (September 2021)

About Me

Location: Bozeman, MT, United States

Hi, my name is Jim Macdonald, and I have an odd assortment of interests. In no particular order, I love Yellowstone, I am an anti-authoritarian activist and organizer, and I have a background in philosophy, having taught at the college level. My blog has a lot more links to my writing and my other Web sites. In Jim's Eclectic World, I try to give a holistic view of my many interests. Often, all three passions show themselves interweaving in the very same blog. Anyhow, I think it's a little different. But, that's me. I'm not so much out there, but taken together, I'm a little unusual.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

I Hate the Police (September 2021)

I wrote this poem in September 2021, reading it at an open mic poetry night over at the Steep Mountain Tea House. It was in response to police brutality here in Bozeman.

I hate the police

I hate police passionately
Never met a cop I liked
Hate how they beat black men in the streets
With my own eyes, I once witnessed
More than a dozen DC police
Beating one black man

Now they also hog tie women
Here in our town
Here in Bozeman

But what I hate more than police
I hate that we think we need them
I hate that we think we have no power
To take care of each other
To protect each other
To stand for justice together

I hate the radical disempowerment
The powerlessness that people feel

And I hate that when another cop
Assaults another person
We think there are just a few bad apples
Not that the system is rotten
Not that we have given up our power
To them
To these abusive monsters

I hate the police
And I hate that we think
That collectively
We can’t do anything about them

I hate that I will share this poem
And you, you who sit there
If you’re even listening
Will think my radical words
Unrealistic

Somehow, humans lived 150,000 years
And only dreamed up police
In the 1800s to protect property in the North
To protect slaveholders in the South

And we think this is normal
That we can’t live without them
That we need them to protect us!
Less than 200 years wipes out 150,000
Just like that
That I’m the radical one
When there’s nothing normal
Sane, or conservative about a

Militarized police force

And sadder still, you’ll think that
We are powerless
That solidarity is useless
That we can’t possibly do anything
Such a self-fulfilling prophecy

Or you’ll vote
You’ll vote for someone else
To take the power from you
And hopefully do the right thing
And when they don’t
You’ll vote again
And again
And again
And what will ever change
When did any significant change
Happen by voting?
What if MLK and Gandhi had decided
To wait for someone else
To make change and simply vote

So, I hate the police
And I hate that so few of us
Believe in us
In all we can do together

But I still believe
So, if you still believe

Find me, and let’s get to work

-jsm 9/24/2021