Blue is a Civil Rights Color Too

No American group has the market cornered on unfair treatment. I type this as an American raised in the South and stand by my statement. That said, our police officers are a US group mistreated like no other. The blue ( and other colors ) of their uniforms places them in a unique minority status. In the era of camera phone transparency, one-sided footage ends careers or burns portions of cities. While strategic " blue flu " outbreaks express displeasure, officers are the sole minority which can't voice their opinion. Police unions are the exception to this vocational gag order. Their representatives and attorneys speak forcefully for silenced peers.

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My suggestion is they shouldn't speak alone. Stakeholders should stand beside police unions to form a united front as active in uplifting officers as opponents are in tearing them down. Urban stakeholders especially can draw upon our own minority experience to better understand the few who wear blue. Opponents hostile to inner citizen and officer alike pit both against each other. The key to defeating very destructive plans is unlikely unity between these groups. Otherwise, free reign is granted career criminals and political agitators to be held harmless no matter what they do. Hostage inner citizens and urban officers are most at risk in this scenario. It behooves them to put aside inflamed issues and fight a common threat. The officer responding to a call for service in a low income, high crime area is also a minority. He or she feels stereotyped; over-scrutinized by prejudiced spectators; demonized by media; subjected to selective enforcement and malicious prosecution and, ironically, concludes police lives don't matter either. It's high time we realize blue is a civil rights color too. Lives will be saved when we do.

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