As a Macromemeticist, I feel I must weigh in. We have to admit that for at least the past 300 or more years, the "police" or whatever gendarmerie have been charged with their primary function being hassling, putting in their place, catching, rounding up, inflicting harsh treatment upon as an example to others, including if necessary summarily killing African peoples in North America.
The Three-Fifths Compromise https://en.
which is written right into the very Constitution itself, makes it clear how important this system of official behavior was...and continues to be, as it has never been replaced.
Jim Crow is a logical extension to allow this collection of memes to continue to be deployed and to function as the operating system of society. It's very hard to just "throw it away" and it's sheer fantasy that it's all just going to rewire itself because of the rewording of a couple of lines of laws here and there.
Also, the rules for discriminating who gets to be on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, when, and under which circumstances, are very important and very deeply ingrained. Things like the "one drop (of African blood) test" and the "paper bag test" continue to resonate. People continue to racially identify, when, ironically, getting rid completely of such distinctions should arguably be our goal. What that might look like may be a bit unclear, however. The point is that when you have a system of oppression, you have to have some people who are targeted, like scapegoats, and those who are free of that. Of course, with homophobia, being called "gay" when one is not reminds one, and everyone, of the threat that hangs over all gays.
An aside: it's pretty clear that homophobia is a kind of support to misogyny, or women's oppression and victimization. Comparing a man to a homosexual is like comparing him to a woman. There is a lot of systemic misogyny, and this supports a lot of the goals of the system (who knows what exactly they are, controlling women is a big objective of most societies). The idea that homosexuals are brutally beaten up and killed sends a strong message to men and to women that they need to, loosely put, stay within the confines of their respective gender roles. Pages could probably be written on that subject.
Yes, racists and racist cops have all been taught to be that way. Cops oppress black people, I would assert, because their main function was, historically, to keep 75% of the enslaved population in line, through the use of brute force and violence. The intensity of that violence necessitates that selection criteria be exacting. The effect of this is that one person, slightly lighter than a paper bag, and with straighter hair, receives the polite hello anyone would expect, while one slightly darker, with curlier hair, is beaten to death by a gang of cops with the fury and violence one would expect to be reserved for the most violent and horrendous of criminals.
Linguistic signals are no doubt also important, by the way. Things that one would try to suppress or cover over in order to appear "not black." Racheal Dolezal is probably of particular interest here, since she tried to go the other way. What did she do to signal to white people that she was "no longer while?" What were the important signals she made to black people?
Anyway, the memetic solution, so far as I'm ascertained, is to replace this system of behavior so that the enactors of it have new ways of acting, which have equal memetic resonance to the memes being replaced. Honesty is required here, mainly, how bad is the behavior? What are the typical ways in which cops interact with black people?
Okay, this is the important bit. The only thing that counts is that the cop perceives that he will receive as much or more memetic resonance from some new activity, some new way of interacting with black people, no matter what that is.
A stupid example, which might nonetheless help a great deal if actually implemented, follows. Cops would carry business cards, and they would have a tear-off stub, and both business card and stub would have the same stamped serial number. When interacting with a black person, instead of whatever his usual activity, which might include putting his knee on the person's neck or otherwise chocking him, or arresting him, or performing an illegal search, or just shooting him, the cop could give the person the business card, and tear off and keep the stub, possibly writing the black person's name on the stub. The intent would be that the black person call the police station number on the card and leave a message, hopefully saying that they are well and okay.
That's it.
I can try to knock up a diagram of how this new memetic subsystem would function. A certain understanding of Macromemetic theory may be helpful. The interaction between cop and black person is circumscribed, i..e,. it has good "marking" (clear transaction boundaries). The copper creates "engagement" (actors can clearly see who is participating in the memetic transaction) when he closes one memetic loop by handing over the card and (possibly) getting the "coppee's" name (chance for a bonus memetic resonance, too), and also opens another loop in terms of the coppee later calling the station house. Another big opportunity for marking and engagement comes when the coppee calls in and leaves a message (and bonus if their name matches the stub), when the phone receptionist and possibly the copper's commanding officer learn the details of the work the coppee has been doing. Calls coming back with the serial numbers, possibly also with names.
That's what it's all about. Opening and closing memetic loops, with the highest amount of marking and engagement as possible. That's some of the basics of macromemetic engineering.
This would be a real advancement in dealing with what is as crippling and life-destroying as substance abuse as a way of medicating the fear which we inherited from our parents, our families, our communities. This would place the answer in the context of NO BLAME, NO SHAME - Except for failure to focus on recovery from the "disease" - a life-long effort
[ like my recovery from my addictions - my addictions are a disease not because I am bad - but I must deal with my disease or I have failed to care for my self and others ]
In a way it is nobody's fault if they are racist because they learned it from the beginning of their lives - very subtle. BUT it is all our fault if we Don't DO something to change the way we think and act - don't fight our DEEP DENIAL and practice recovery - individually, within the family, within the neighborhood, within the larger community and within our nation and world.
The disease of racism is HUGE and it will lead to our extinction as a species.
Our first step must be to acknowledge it - as we have just had a chance to do THIS WEEK.
And then find leaders who will take us bravely into a recovery process together, recognizing that no one created this, but choosing to love our selves despite our self-hatred as a daily practice of moving away from the PTSD of fear of THE OTHER.... The person who looks different than me.
And THEN we must vote for better leadership in November at all levels of government.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/min
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