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| The System/2 |
Corruption The system has power; they have the last say. We the people have to live within the system. This is just the way it is, and it is not going to change. Not all people agree with the way the government sees things. The government uses police officers to enforce its rules. The police are supposed to keep peace among us; they keep our society in order. In the abrazo "The System/2," Galeano says: "The law of reality is the law of power." The system has power over us, which sometimes gets abused. If a policeman is a bigot or a racist, then when he is to perform his job as a police officer, his ignorance will get in the way of his ability to fairly evaluate a situation. Galeano talks about "double language, double accounting, double morality: one morality for speech, another morality for action." Double language means when you say one thing and do another; cops say that they are fair and give everyone equal rights. But often they decide themselves who should be punished and who not, based sometimes on a person's race, gender, or economic or social status. The people enforcing laws are humans and sometimes make poor judgments. There are statistics that show cops busting someone for something they did wrong, and then the cop turns around and does the same thing. By the end of July 2000, the LA Times reports, "Roughly 70 officers [in Los Angeles] are under investigation, suspected either of committing crimes or knowing about criminal conduct by the officers and failing to report it. There were around 100 criminal convictions which were overturned as a result of alleged police misconduct" (Lait et al). Policemen are supposed to follow the same rules as everyone else, but instead sometimes they break them. Some policemen use their power not to protect and serve the people but for their own personal reasons. Sometimes their personal biases gets in the way of their decision-making. Not everyone's interpretation of laws is the same. That is why people sometimes have a hard time dealing with policemen, because police sometimes abuse the power we entrust them with. No one can stop them from pulling you over or beating you to the ground because they said you became a threat to them. Every day we try to follow the rules of the system, to be good citizens. Just because a police officer has the system's power behind him, does not mean he can abuse this power whenever he feels like it. Galeano also says in the abrazo: "The morality of action is called realism." That is just the way things are. We act in the way the system tells us to, we follow the rules because that's the way it has always been. It is never really going to change. The people have some rights protecting them, but the system has the last say in what rights people receive and what rights are enforced. Sometimes police officers do not make a suspect's rights clear to him. Victims who have been harassed by the police can feel helpless, because the cops have power over them. So you get police brutality and people lashing out against officers. I am sad to see this problem in our society. I know many police officers are good cops, I just wish they all were.
Work Cited Lait, Matt and Glover, Scott, Staff Writers, "LAPD Charges 6 Officers in Rampart Case", The Los Angles Times, July 26, 2000, p. A-1 March 5, 2000 |
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