The Dangers of the Liberal Lens: Police Reform

Jason Myles
7 min readMay 5, 2021

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” — Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader

Image by Mr. Fish

Recently, a post on my social media feed had gotten my attention. I follow one of the local news channels on Facebook, and every now and then some editorial type of post like this shows up. Tens of thousands likes and hearts on this particular post. The picture that was shown was that of a man who looked somewhat downtrodden. Sitting, slumped with his back to the camera. He looked to be an older white man. Sitting across from him, a masked Black police officer.

Once I saw this image, I knew I had to read what the hell this was about. I had a vague idea about what was transpiring. See, here in the U.S. we love the politics of racial grievance, BUT we also love liberal anecdotes of racial unity. Mainstream media functions as a tool to keep us ignorant to any sort of class analysis, so we fall emotional victim to these “Kum Ba Yah” moments. Black cop helps homeless white man. This is the HR fantasy of the post racial America that the Democrats and Republicans alike love to showcase. A multi gendered CIA, imperialism isn’t just for old white men anymore! YAY DIVERSITY!

Anyway, here’s what post said:

“Today, my family and I were driving through Starbucks and there was an enraged man sitting at a…

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Jason Myles

I scream/sing play guitar in Bitter Lake and host the This is Revolution Podcast. Oakland, CA born, Richmond raised. Words and thoughts from the Lower Bottoms.