"They just don't have no respect for us, and they wonder why we don't have respect for them"

Upworthy is my new favorite website. Inspiring people and videos that talk about things that matter is served to you on a silver platter. One of the videos that I came across was about a guy who recorded some audio when he was stopped and frisked by the police for no apparent reason, only (as one of the police officers honestly confess) because he is a "mutt" (a derogative racial slur for people who are of a mixed ethnicity). We have all heard of this stop-and-frisk activity that the police can carry out if they, very subjectively, think that someone looks suspicious. The problem is the bias of these police officers since their judgment is clouded by stereotypes and peer pressure. The most worrying fact is that the head of the police department encourage these behaviors. If these policemen really blame their actions on their chief of police and their fear of being punished I don’t see the difference from what occurred in Germany during WW2. The so called “obedience to authority” phenomenon was first recognized after the famous Milgram experiment and the Stanford prison experiment by Zimbardo. I am convinced this is an ongoing and global problem (in Sweden there is a famous case called “Baseballigan” or “Norrmalmsligan”) that is hiding under the safety net of people in power.

What does this police activity do to the people who have to endure this stop-and-frisk experience more than once a day? Well, decreased respect for authority for one, which is the exact opposite of what the police are trying to achieve. Along with that come anger and hate as well as the feeling of always being the bad guy. This is another psychological phenomenon that I think is very important in this situation - “Internalized oppression”. In short it means that eventually we start to think and behave in a way according to how other people see us (which is also worth thinking about if you work with children). This can also be seen in the Stanford prison experiment where the prisoners started to feel and act like, you got it, helpless prisoners.

I think it’s time this problem is brought forward so that we can all understand the consequences of this type of experience on a human being.