"Don't Judge the Police Using 20/20 Hindsight" or: Forget Rational Thought Regarding Public Safety

The title of this post must be read with an understanding of what I'm talking about. In most mostly-white communities, the police are the people we depend on to help us create a sense of public safety. ('Public safety' actually existing and being a thing is its own debate, which I imagine I'll turn to at some point in the near-ish future.) They help find stolen items, solve violent crimes when they can, and generally can be seen and interacted with as officials that represent state-sponsored control. Or more generally, law enforcement officers (LEOs). I have known many LEOs through my friends who chose that career path, through dealing with police personally, through a whole bunch of second hand accounts, through my life as a sociologist and criminologist, and now through the lens of a law school grad. DISCLAIMER: for the most part, I personally believe that most LEOs are good people, and want to be good people, and want to be forces for good. This, I believe, is generally indisputable. That there are 'bad apples' or people who aren't actually good people at their core that also join police forces is also pretty indisputable. But there are problems with simplifying the issue down to the previous three sentences.

First, because those three sentences are generally indisputable, it does us little to no good to have that conversation. They are a given. Like gravity. Or that the earth is a spherical planetoid. Or that #mentoo is stupid, and men don't need to interject and include ourselves in women's fights for equity so that we can be included in the 'victim' column. (Women were standing up for male victims of sexual and interpersonal violence before it was cool.) Y'know, obvious shit.

Second, the 'good people' and 'bad people' issue is wholly unnecessary if we're talking about a systemic problem. Systemic problems are not started by just having 'bad people' around doing their 'bad people' stuff. It's a ridiculous argument to make that any police officer who does something shitty is just a 'bad person' and needn't be taken as a representation of a systemic problem. That's also an old argument that just...doesn't work anymore.

Third, if what people were really concerned about (as they addressed the issue of police violence in the US) were 'bad people' becoming and working as police officers, this conversation would be about HR practices and hiring metrics. This conversation is not about that. Humans, please.

The issue of unnecessary, unwarranted, and ultimately unjustifiable violence by LEOs is a systemic discussion. It is one that must start at the beginning (the first 'police' departments grew out of the tyrannically racist slave patrols) and continue through today (police departments as one arm of a criminal justice system that implicitly and explicitly negatively affects our larger society, but much more acutely communities that aren't mostly wypipo). The part of that discussion that no one wants to have is the one where juries of normal people continue to absolve LEOs of such unjustifiable violence. This absolution comes through our Supreme Court holding that the only requirement for the justification of homicide by LEOs is being afraid. On top of that, when juries are counted on to make these distinctions, they are only allowed to place themselves in the defendant officer's shoes within the moment of the violence. No 20/20 hindsight, no reasonable and rational look at whether the violence (often homicide) was reasonable and rational within our societal context. THIS IS A HUGE FU**ING PROBLEM.

First, if we are making the case that LEOs are better people than your average US citizen (as the case has been made during all this police officer hero worship), and we demand that these people receive extensive training about how to do the job well, how can the justification for homicide be, "I was afraid for my life." That is ludicrous. Simply, utterly, ludicrous. I'll even give you that LEOs are generally not better people than the rest of us, but they certainly do get trained to behave better. Even then, being afraid as a highly trained officer of the law cannot be enough to excuse homicide. It just cannot. LEOs ARE PAID TO BE AFRAID AND HANDLE IT BETTER THAN THE REST OF US. Popping off five shots into some guy because you can't handle the stress simply shouldn't cut it anymore. Your job is to deal with the stress the rest of us don't, and shouldn't, need to. The real absolution should only come after this additional jury instruction:

As a law enforcement officer trained in emergency management and subject de-escalation and control techniques, is it reasonable for this officer to have killed this person in this situation?

Even this would probably produce some questionable outcomes, but we sure do think police are mighty fine, and if they happen to kill some folks, well, they were probably askin' for it. But to instruct a jury, or anyone else for that matter, to drop rational thought when glaring back at a tragedy to determine whether violence was justifiable; it's idiotic. Humans, please. LEOs in general need to be held to a standard that demands they behave better than early homo-erectus. See a tiger running at you? Being scared is a fine reason to kill that tiger. It's a fu**in' tiger! But a person who's lying on the ground handcuffed or walking down the street while not being a white person? LEOs shouldn't get to fall back on fear as an excuse. Their job is to be better than we would. Their job is to overcome their base instincts, like we sometimes can't. Celebrate LEOs for saving people in burning buildings? Absolutely. And if those LEOs can suppress their base instincts to run into a burning building, they can suppress their base instincts in killing someone out of fear. If we as a society continue to allow LEOs to kill us because they were afraid for their safety while trained to overcome that fear and operate rationally in emergencies, 'public safety' is a joke. ('Public safety' already is a joke in many places where the majority of humans aren't white folks. This is a fact. And the police shouldn't be part of this problem.) This could be different. But it won't be different until our standards line up with our expectations, and our legal system brings accountability to our streets.

Back to Life

I felt like writing a little, but I wasn't quite sure what to write about. There are multiple constitutional crises happening right now in the US, and it's bad. Very bad. SAD! But there are already many peoples who have that covered. Our Supreme Court has decided a number of impactful and seriously important cases over the past couple terms. Again, other folks have that covered. So how about this: what's up with me, and why does it matter?

I recently graduated from JFK University College of Law. That's right, y'all, I earned a JD. This was after I spent three years in Hawaii working on PhD level course work, teaching 5-6 sociology/criminology courses per semester, and learning a whole helluva lot about racism and whiteness, gender and all it's effects and implications, and the relationships both implicit and explicit within our societal and cultural frameworks. (I also pushed a couple 'official' publications out during, so not a total loss of time and effort professionally.) Prior, I earned an MA at Cal State Fullerton, after earning a BA at Cal State San Bernardino. This has been documented on this blog before, but hey, a little round up can't hurt.

During my legal education, I felt like I was in the right place at the right time, specifically in terms of what I was learning and how I was learning it. I loved learning the law, as much as it contributed to a sense of isolation and some personal...hiccups. JFK is a CalBar school; it is not accredited by the American Bar Association, which carries certain implications. (1) I cannot practice law outside the state of California for five years after I am certified in this state, unless I go through a decent amount of bureaucratic wrangling; (2) many folks in the legal community might view my JD as less than impressive (seriously, it's law school, and it wrecked me, and I fucking kicked ass); and (3) I am now more than $400k in student debt. Yep. 400,000 ugly electronic dollars, and some odd cents or other. This is the culmination of my total educational debt, worth three degrees and three years of out-of-state tuition in a very pretty, but very expensive US-controlled (read: colonized) island in the Pacific. So there's that coming. The student loan payments. Much of it is federal, which is slightly less shit-tastic, but some of it is private, and they don't give a shit about my income. They want their damned money back with hella interest.

Okay, section two, or why this matters at all to anyone else: law school debt and post-grad employment has been discussed ad nauseam over at Above the Law. They are a fun and pretty solid journalistic outlet for legal news, gossip re: the legal world, and some fun stuff that ties in to the legal profession in general. It became required reading after starting law school, and I still tune in pretty often. But here's the deal: a legal education costs a great deal of money, no matter where you acquire it. It is simply expensive to get almost any education, especially at the graduate level. Before choosing to go to law school, one needs to be certain they WANT TO ACTUALLY GO TO LAW SCHOOL, or that one has the time and money to just give it a go. This is a personal decision, and no matter how much my student loan payments hurt, it was right for me. I have no regrets on that front. But going to law school means that you will be making a conscious choice to have far less of a life than you would have been used to. You WILL NOT be able to retain certain niceties and comforts to which you have become accustomed. You will have to focus, non-stop, on learning how the third article of our constitution works, both in theory and in practice, and that is simply a monumental task. Just to be clear, if that's what you want (to intimately learn the law, and say goodbye to seeing most of your friends and family in any regular way for three to four years) I've got your back. But know that it can feel like a shitshow for no apparent reason, and feeling haggard and worn out for years at a time is kinda the norm.

A further caution to every person who comes across this blog, regards the reality of mental health during graduate education (hell, even undergrad education can really stick it to someone). Throughout all of my graduate programs, I dipped in and out of homelessness, struggled mightily with money, still managed to be relatively 'successful,' and during all this I did my absolute best not to let it show. At all. This may have been a mistake. I reached out for real help only occasionally at most. We don't talk about how to ask for help, so we sort of have to learn that skill on our own. But it can be very important, and it can literally save lives. If you choose to work toward graduate level degrees, if you're an undergrad, if you're a person at all, ask for help from someone you trust when you feel like you might need to. It's okay. Every person needs, and receives, help in some way at some point. It does not make you weak; asking for help proves the depth of your strength, in fighting against the internalized fears and the sense of failure. You are more than an isolated case of nerves; you are a person with other people in your life who care about you.

I'm now working as a graduate advisor supporting the graduate students in the Economics department at UC Berkeley. It's temporary for now, as I needed a new gig and they needed somone competent help to fill the spot for a bit. But it's really a joy to work with grad students (and undergrads occasionally) and help the internationally recognized program keep flourishing. I'm not sure what will happen in the coming months and year, and I'm taking the bar exam in February (wish me luck and stuff), but I'm going to enjoy every moment I can. I can breathe, and studying for the bar, while definitely time-consuming, is fun again. I needed a break, and I took one by choosing to put off the bar exam until the next round post-graduation. So off we go, on this new adventure. We'll see how things go from here.

I guess that's my entrance back into the blogosphere. Looking forward to it, and hopefully more comments than I used to have. I see those clicks, y'all, I know you're reading. Although, I guess that's enough.

The Move Back Home

Aloha, California!

It's been three weeks since I officially moved back to the Golden State (The California Golden Bear has returned). In that time, I have performed a wedding ceremony for two of my favorite people on the planet, have received more support, love, guidance and advice from those I trust than ever before, and got my motorcycle shipped, registered, and I passed the fuck outta the license tests. Also rode Amtrak for the first time ever. Met a couple new folks who I really dig. Have spent time with some of the people who are parts of the overall reasoning why I moved back, and will be spending more in the next week and a half. Agreed to jump into starting a business with another of my favorite people. Was invited back up to Bearskin which set my heart aflame. And that's not all...

Towards the end of my time in Hawaii, my perception of how things happened was pressured, so I've given it all some thought during the whole transitiony thing. I was absolutely disappointed about a lot things, but I don't usually talk about what I don't feel good about. Not typically my style, although I've done enough of that since getting back to last me months. I tried to work my ass off to earn a Ph.D. which didn't work out. Of all the reasons, I think the most important is that the place I was living and working in wasn't the right place for me. People have asked me a number of times, "so you miss Hawaii, don't you?" And I have to say, not so much. I miss many of the people I met, especially the folks with which I built friendships. They, I miss. Hawaii, with its expansive physical beauty, its stunning sunrises and sunsets, and brilliant snorkeling, is a fun place to hang out. All of this was overshadowed, for me, by the sheer nastiness of the cost of living. And why was it so expensive, you might ask? Well, my inquisitive friends, a great majority of the food, transportation junk, and everything else is shipped into the state.

Think about that for a minute. If shipping lines were disrupted, there's approximately enough food for the population living there for a maximum of roughly 3-4 days. This coming from the state gub'mint. I mean, holy grass skirts Batman! So yeah. There's the economic bullshit. Then there's the rent, which is somewhat comparable to San Francisco or Los Angeles, but is complicated by the realities of building shit in a tropical place: wood gets gobbled up by termites relatively quickly, metal gets nom-nom-nom'd by the salty air, and bricks don't make good windows. And the fuckin' Cane Spiders!!1! Those little bastards charge the shit outta humans! Fast! What the fuck?!!? Impressive little buggers, but what the hell, man. What, the, hell.

There were also some goings ons in my professional life that really sucked, but I'll leave out the details. I'm simply grateful that I'm for the most part leaving the larger thing of academia behind me. I'll always enjoy teaching, and I think it's something I want to keep doing in some form or another if possible. As a full-time gig it's brutal. Got mad respek for academics, as for the most part they are brilliant, interesting, and delightful after just enough booze. After teaching six undergrad courses in one bitch of a semester, I can honestly say that I love it, but I can also honestly say: fuck capitalism. Fuck it, right in its ear. That being said, I really loved teaching at HPU, and got over my reservations regarding private universities pretty quickly. I felt very supported in my work by the department administration, and really all of the administration I worked with at some point or another. The other faculty were welcoming and interesting. Also, the students were great! I enjoyed both the in-person and online courses there, and the folks earning grades with me were a lot of fun. My students at UH I will miss greatly, as they were very much my motivation for doing good work.

Also took the LSAT last week. Pretty sure I punched it in its solar plexus, although until my score surfaces from the depths of the LSAC intertubes I won't really know. So yeah, law degree or something. It's been an interest of mine for years, I just never pulled the trigger out of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, misinterpreted advice, yadda yadda. After getting through the professional shit-show that was my life on the island, law school and a startup: that I can and will do. Hell yeah.

My people are spectacular human beings. All of you. And to anyone thinking of moving to Hawaii: if it's really what you want, be prepared to kick some serious ass. Avoid acting like an entitled dickhead; Hawaii has a history, a relatively recent colonial history, and it would behoove you to read up on the actual history of the state we know as Hawaii. I never felt threatened or unwelcome anywhere, but I was challenged occasionally. I welcomed it, and it made me better. I'm a living sign of social privilege, regardless of my own challenges that I face. Be aware of what's been going on, and take it to heart. Avoid thinking you already know everything you need to know about being a good person in a given context.

The three years I spent on Oahu were perfect. I learned a shit-ton, possibly a metric shit-ton. Took opportunities as best I could. Worked my ass off both personally and professionally. Learned a lil bit of pidgin. Swam with fish who were literally eating each other alive. It was exactly where I should have been, until it wasn't. And that's a good thing to figure out; how to measure whether a place and space is working for me or not (and the complimentary part: whether or not I'm working for a place/space is just as important a thing to be able to see and internalize).

Alrighty then, time to get back to life. Or something. Holla atcha boy.

-Nick G.
a.k.a. The Golden Bear
a.k.a. Gibbey
a.k.a. Gibbo
a.k.a. Bigbo
a.k.a. Gibbs
a.k.a. Muthafucka
a.k.a. Haole Boy (thanks Shawn)

How is it that we know relationships are worth our time? Is it that we make a singular commitment, or is it that we make a collective agreement? When do we decide, in terms of what we will promise someone, that we are willing to commit more than just passing interest?

I think this comes back to the question of, "who am I?" The reason I say this, is that anytime I have ever wanted to know the answer to a similar question, I have only had to ask myself: what will I contribute to this situation? Who am I, and who do I want to be given my current choices? Seems simple, yeah? Maybe not as simple as we might have thought...

My guess is no one actually plans on having to define themselves. We expect a self-definition from everyone else, but when asked who we are: "I am who you see!" I believe that in order to thrive in a social environment, we must admit that we are all products of our cultural training, societal conditioning, and the experiences we have over the courses of our lives.

The only thing we have to count on, really, is that we know where we, as individual human beings, stand. There is no guarantee that anything anyone tells us is actually going to matter. And this is not a negative thing; I would argue, that knowing we cannot necessarily count on everyone is a truly clear and present reality that allows us to make our own decisions, and account for ourselves. Other than that, we need not be concerned with anything else. This may seem pessimistic, but it seems to me that if we want to depend on others, we only need to depend on their records. Records give us dependable statistics, and histories with which to compare present experiences. Records and histories do, in short, tell us what we might expect.

This is not to say that we cannot choose to take people at their word. Building trust requires a bit of faith, which is the most important chance we can take. As my closest friends and I have built our relationships, we have taken risks so that we have been able to depend on each other over time. This, I believe, is the key to sustaining valuable connections with people. It is the risks we take, and the dependability we find in each other, that makes all the difference in the world.

The 'adulting' movement

Something I've been thinking about for awhile now is the idea that as we grow older, we mature and become 'adults'. I'm not certain what this means, as many folks would explain being an 'adult' as sustaining a family, living in one place, having one job, and growing older. Some folks would say that being an 'adult' is more about attitude; this in and of itself is not necessarily wrong, just obscure and unspecific. Others might say that being an 'adult' is about handling the relationships you have in a 'mature manner'. However, most people who say this aren't mature or adulty, at least as far as I can tell. Then we come the idea that being an 'adult' is a very obscure thing. It is quite an eye-of-the-beholder type of concept, but we can say a number of things about what being an 'adult' means for certain, and this is what I will talk about today.

I know, that being an adult means that I am not supposed to be silly. What I mean by silly is...well, I'll give you an example. My friend Will and I seem to find ourselves 'sillying-out' on occasion, or going so silly we actually become the definition of the term. Instead of going from one specific topic of 'adult' conversation to another with high levels of regularity and subtle seriousness, we sometimes will be speaking of very important topics such as wealth and race and gendered sexuality, and will suddenly start discussing how to best apply sunscreen to a walrus. It isn't that walruses have an ever-pressing need for sunscreen, but if one were to investigate the best way of applying sunscreen to a walrus, I am certain the data would be useful for any number of social science projects, and possibly the military.

I believe silliness to be a necessary skill for coping with life, but I know some folks would disagree. Mostly, when we talk about being an adult, we talk about having a sense of humor balanced with the concept of maturity, but again the definition of such is obscure to the point of ridiculous. Do we really believe that a sense of humor is only about being able to entertain someone else in a way they find enjoyable? Why is a sense of humor not a reciprocal engagement of figuring out how two people's definitions of fun and funny can mesh or coincide? This is the primary question I find myself asking. Why is you thinking I have a good sense of humor predicated on my being able to ENTERTAIN YOU? That seems a little fishy, definitely self-centered, and not at all fun for anyone but you. I also will give, that most folks don't think about this issue this deeply, although if you've only been reading for a couple minutes and are already thinking I've gone off the deep end, you need Jesus.

So here's the dilemma: do we really believe that in order to be considered an enjoyable 'adult' we must be able to entertain people, assuming we really enjoy that ourselves? And in conjunction with this, are we to also believe that sustaining a cartoony definition of the American Dream is the only way to be seen, or perceived, as a responsible 'adult'? If one were to choose to never 'settle down' and start what we collectively believe to be a 'normal adult life' most folks at least in the United States would try to find a way to say they were fucked up. If they happen to like said person, they would try to find words and concepts to explain away the person's seeming lack of maturity. Now, sometimes we glorify this lack of maturity, in the cases of high-level male executives who just never find the right person; they were busy building their career and 'sowing their wild oats' whatever the fuck that means. But when the high-level executive is female, this romantic idea disappears and we wonder, "Why wouldn't she want to have a family and kids? Is she lesbian? Is she too fucked up emotionally?" Beautiful double-standard to say the least. Misogyny to be precise. But that idea of what it means to be an 'adult' is fixed within a temporally fluid conceptual maze of everyday assumptions about what our lives are 'supposed' to look like, and gender is a highly flammable concept to address head on, especially when people think they know what's best for everyone else.

In any case, I'll give a simpler example. I know a number of young adults who work jobs, go to school, and sustain relationships and friendships that mean a lot to everyone involved. Why wouldn't these people be considered adults? Because they like to laugh out loud in public? Whenever we see folks laughing in public, everyone seems to get all insecure and weirded out. "What are they laughing about? Is it me? Is it that other dude with bad hair?" Instead of catching the fun bug, we get all paranoid about people HAVING FUN TOGETHER. My friends and I constantly bring absurdity into our conversations. It's funny. It makes us feel good. We deal with a lot of emotional weight by getting absurd about ourselves, each other, and everything else. See his post about the historical genealogies of dinosaurs if you'd like a more concrete example...we have conversations like that all the time.

I firmly believe that as we get 'adulted' we start to lose touch with the absurdities of our world. We start to think that the absurdities aren't absurd and funny; that they are normal, natural, and unavoidable. We think that if we aren't serious enough, we won't find success, happiness, or immortality. I would argue that success is again a fluid, and contentious and ultimately unnecessary concept wholly absorbed within the capitalistic ideologies of the 'First World'. Happiness too is a place littered with assumptions about what we are taught 'should' make us happy. And immortality is nothing other than those who outlive us remembering us for how we treated them, ourselves, and our communities. If we don't take time to talk about the subtle differences between gray and green aliens, or how we have trained ourselves to answer the call of the commercial, we'll lose our minds. Collectively, and eternally. And is that what being an 'adult' is really about?