Speaker 1: On theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Speaker 1: Friends Media. You Are.
Speaker 2: Lights Camera. For decades, Hollywood has been setting the stage
Speaker 2: for a real life horror show playing out in our cities.
Speaker 2: With each heroic cop character, each criminal taken down in
Speaker 2: a blaze of glory, the silver screen has reinforced a
Speaker 2: dangerous myth that police can do no wrong, that they
Speaker 2: are the infallible protectors we need more of on our streets.
Speaker 2: From Beverly Hills Cop to Bad Boys Rush Hour to
Speaker 2: Ride Along, a fictionalized narrative of noble warriors waging an
Speaker 2: endless war on crime has been burned into our collective psyche.
Speaker 2: But now the curtain is being pulled back on this
Speaker 2: decade's long propaganda campaign we call copaganda. As communities rally
Speaker 2: against the construction of urban police facilities like Atlanta's Cop City,
Speaker 2: we can trace the roots of public acceptance for the
Speaker 2: very concept back to our favorite TV shows in Blockbuster films.
Speaker 2: On this episode Copaganda City, we'll examine how copaganda has
Speaker 2: manufactured consent for the rapid expansion and militarization of law
Speaker 2: enforcement across America. How the blurring of entertainment and reality
Speaker 2: has led us to this dangerous crossroads.
Speaker 3: I'm Katie and I'm Eves.
Speaker 1: You'll never look at your favorite cop drama the same
Speaker 1: way again.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I love to define terms so that we're all on
Speaker 1: the same page. How would you define copaganda?
Speaker 2: Uh? I found a definition from Francesca Willow that I
Speaker 2: think really nailed it. Francesca is a blogger who writes
Speaker 2: about sustainability and racial justice. So Francesco says, copaganda is
Speaker 2: any form of media, news coverage, or social media content
Speaker 2: that portrays police in law enforcement in favorable ways to
Speaker 2: the public. The image of policing it creates often serves
Speaker 2: to shield police from accountability and skeptical coverage. It boots
Speaker 2: public relations of police departments and portrays a version of
Speaker 2: policing that is dramatically different from reality, especially when it's
Speaker 2: regarding the working class and other marginalized communities.
Speaker 1: Okay, so copaganda can be in the news, movies, TV,
Speaker 1: or even on Twitter and other social media.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's abundant, But that wasn't always the case. Before
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties, cops were often portrayed as bumbling fools
Speaker 2: who couldn't do anything right, and that was aligned with
Speaker 2: the public's perception of cops at the time. Take Charlie
Speaker 2: Chaplin's nineteen seventeen Easy Street, for example, it was all
Speaker 2: about the police failing to maintain law and order. But
Speaker 2: TV shows like the nineteen fifties Dragnet established a formula
Speaker 2: of depicting heroic white police officers defeating criminals who are
Speaker 2: more often than not black or Latino. The LAPD. We
Speaker 2: even reviewed Dragnet scripts before airy and required changes if
Speaker 2: they disapproved of any elements ensuring it portrayed police favorably.
Speaker 3: Okay, So they didn't even try to be subtle.
Speaker 2: And now we have black copaganda. So I thought I'd
Speaker 2: break down some common copaganda tropes we use seeing black
Speaker 2: people and connect the trope back to its real world implications.
Speaker 3: Sound good, Yeah, I'm cool with that.
Speaker 2: Okay. So the first trope the woke cop. That sounds
Speaker 2: oxymeronic to me. So the woke cop aims to portray
Speaker 2: the pigs as enlightened allies who understand and empathize with
Speaker 2: the struggles of the black community against systemic racism and
Speaker 2: police brutality. Maybe they themselves have been the victim of
Speaker 2: racism by other cops. Take, for example, Terry Cruise's character
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn ninety nine. In season four, episode sixteen, Terry
Speaker 2: Cruz's character, who is also named Terry, is racially profiled
Speaker 2: while walking around his neighborhood after dark.
Speaker 3: I was just walking down the street.
Speaker 2: There's nothing suspicious or illegal about that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you and I both you don't exactly look like
Speaker 1: you belonged in that neighborhood.
Speaker 2: I lived there. Terry goes to his boss, another black
Speaker 2: and openly gay man, and Terry wants to file a complaint,
Speaker 2: but his boss, Captain Holk, gives him this advice, the
Speaker 2: most powerful action you can take is the rise through
Speaker 2: the ranks so that you can make large scale changes.
Speaker 2: Captain Holt convinces Terry to not file a report. So,
Speaker 2: despite having firsthand knowledge of how cops unfairly target black folks,
Speaker 2: their solution is to keep on keeping on. And that's
Speaker 2: the problem with the woke cop. The woke cop never
Speaker 2: actually takes meaningful action to dismantle the systemic racism. They acknowledge.
Speaker 2: Their words are just empty rhetoric meant to placate viewers
Speaker 2: and perpetuate the illusion of reform from within the system.
Speaker 2: In the real world, this trope is insidious because it
Speaker 2: creates the false impression that having more black officers who
Speaker 2: get it is a solution. Rather than implementing comprehensive policy
Speaker 2: changes and accountability measures. It reduces a systemic issue to
Speaker 2: merely one of representation. Cop trope allows copaganda to pay
Speaker 2: superficial tribute to the need for police reform without truly
Speaker 2: challenging the rampant abuse of power, militarization, the lack of
Speaker 2: transparency that plays law enforcement. It's a smoke screen that
Speaker 2: preserves the racist status quo under the guise of understanding
Speaker 2: the problems with policing. So, while seeming progressive on the surface,
Speaker 2: this trope actually undermines radical change by perpetuating the myth
Speaker 2: that enlightened individuals can fix these issues, issues that require
Speaker 2: dismantling oppressive structures and holding police accountable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how wo can you get as a cop on
Speaker 1: a TV show?
Speaker 3: Like what is the peak of wokeness? What can a
Speaker 3: cop do?
Speaker 2: I think that's the thing. All it is is talk
Speaker 2: like they can acknowledge, like oh this really messed up,
Speaker 2: Like even they did this to me and I'm a cop,
Speaker 2: Like you know what happened to the blue brotherhood.
Speaker 3: They can't go any farther than that.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. And I think we see this
Speaker 2: in reality too. You know, you'll have people running as
Speaker 2: the per agressive prosecutor, Like, you know, how how progressive
Speaker 2: can you be if your job is locking eggs up?
Speaker 3: Girl?
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to me when you see people this
Speaker 1: isn't in media, but in real life, speaking of real life,
Speaker 1: who were like in the civil rights movement and like
Speaker 1: literally fought fist fought cops and like turned into cops
Speaker 1: later on, especially for like huge departments like the NYPD.
Speaker 3: I just wonder, like what happened between then and now.
Speaker 1: I know it's different for everybody, but I think if
Speaker 1: there is a fictional account like that, could that person
Speaker 1: be more of a woke cop because they were kind
Speaker 1: of like woke before they were a cop.
Speaker 3: What do you think about that?
Speaker 2: No, Okay, I think it kind of goes to the
Speaker 2: like bad apples, Like, oh, it's just like the bad
Speaker 2: apples that we need to get rid of and then
Speaker 2: everything will be good. But I think the system itself
Speaker 2: is corrupting. So I do think there are people that
Speaker 2: go into law enforcement thinking that they're going to make
Speaker 2: a difference, they're going to be like officer friendly and
Speaker 2: like everyone's going to love them. But we just see
Speaker 2: like it's a systemic issue. So you could be a
Speaker 2: good person in your heart, but one good person is
Speaker 2: not going to change this, you know, decades long institution.
Speaker 2: So like when you see like Terry Creuse's character, for example,
Speaker 2: like wanting to say something, but his boss kind of
Speaker 2: encouraging him to, you know, not make a fuss, And
Speaker 2: it's really indicative of what you see in the real world,
Speaker 2: the blue code of silence. I know in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: when a lot of people were talking about police brutality
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, they called out with the blue flu like,
Speaker 2: oh you don't want cops, Well, we're not going to
Speaker 2: answer any emergency services. So like people are saying, hey,
Speaker 2: stop killing black people, and your responses, well, that's my
Speaker 2: whole job, so I'm gonna call out. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to do anything. So I think it's a really interesting
Speaker 2: interplay between the TV and the real world.
Speaker 1: Do you mean that these cops are being affected by
Speaker 1: propaganda that's spreading on social media?
Speaker 3: What you mean in the instance you used.
Speaker 1: Where there's a cop like saying, oh, y'all, y'all are
Speaker 1: saying this, and I just won't. We'll just not show
Speaker 1: up for the day. Like, do you think think part
Speaker 1: of that is them being affected by like rhetoric that
Speaker 1: they may misunderstand by being too deep into social media.
Speaker 2: I don't think they misunderstand it. I think they understand
Speaker 2: that first and foremost there are allegiance is with being
Speaker 2: a cop, like when they say blue lives matter, like
Speaker 2: there's no such thing as a blue life. Like you
Speaker 2: are a human being, but you identify so much with
Speaker 2: your job that you are willing to not do your
Speaker 2: job if someone's saying, y'all aren't doing it correctly, you're
Speaker 2: killing us, and we would like you to stop. And
Speaker 2: that is so offensive to them because they identify so
Speaker 2: much with this corrupt system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they will often go into it under this
Speaker 1: guise of like I'm helping people, I'm doing this for
Speaker 1: a greater cause, and then tell on themselves when they
Speaker 1: can't even handle being criticized, which is like, if there
Speaker 1: is any position that you should be criticized, and it's
Speaker 1: in it's one in which your motto or your supposed
Speaker 1: guiding principle is to protect and serve.
Speaker 2: I think they do. You protect and serve certain communities,
Speaker 2: certain property owning communities. I think that's the true nature
Speaker 2: of the police, is protecting property first and people third
Speaker 2: or fourth, if at all, But black folks not on
Speaker 2: their protect and serve list. Unfortunately, after the break, we're
Speaker 2: debunking more copaganda, so stay with us. Before the break,
Speaker 2: we broke down the woke cop found in copaganda. So, Katie,
Speaker 2: what trope is next? Troupe number two, the delinquent turned
Speaker 2: law enforcer. Have you noticed this in TV and movies?
Speaker 1: Yes, I have noticed that in TV and movies, and
Speaker 1: I've also noticed that in the like person who turns
Speaker 1: into a life coach route. In the real world, it's
Speaker 1: the cop that used to be in the streets but
Speaker 1: eventually saw the light and now protects and serves exactly.
Speaker 2: The delinquent turned law enforcer is a former troubled youth
Speaker 2: or even ex criminal who was able to turn their
Speaker 2: life around and find redemption by joining the police force.
Speaker 2: We see characters like Officer Marcus Burnett in Bad Boys films,
Speaker 2: who is portrayed as a former troublemaker from the streets
Speaker 2: before joining the Miami PD or.
Speaker 1: Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop played by Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 2: The former Delinquence Abound. On the Beverly Hills Cop movie
Speaker 2: fan page, Axel Foley's biography reads. Axel was born on
Speaker 2: August twenty fifth, nineteen fifty seven, in Detroit, Michigan. He
Speaker 2: attended Mumford High School and became a small time juvenile hoodlum,
Speaker 2: but after a few years in which he was unemployed,
Speaker 2: fully joined the Detroit Police Department in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: A talented policeman, Axel is also known to bend the rules,
Speaker 2: which annoys his boss, Inspector Todd Hm.
Speaker 3: Bending the rules interesting quality of a cop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, the delinquent turned enforcer portrays black cops to
Speaker 2: someone who understands the criminal element because they were once
Speaker 2: a part of it. In reality, this trope reinforces racist
Speaker 2: stereotypes that associates blackness with criminality from an early age.
Speaker 2: It implies that black youth are inherently delinquent and need
Speaker 2: harsh disciplining from law enforcement to get on the right path.
Speaker 3: You might hear one of these characters say I used
Speaker 3: to run the streets. Now I'm taking down punks just
Speaker 3: like my whole self.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or they'll say, growing up, I was headed down
Speaker 1: a bad path.
Speaker 3: Until the police gave me a wake up call. Now
Speaker 3: I'm paying it forward.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. This coppaganda can then attempt to justify
Speaker 2: their use of excessive force or unethical tactics. It's okay
Speaker 2: because it's root of an experience and understanding of the
Speaker 2: delinquent environment, Like we have to beat up these kids
Speaker 2: standing on the corner. It's the only way to inspire
Speaker 2: the use to change.
Speaker 3: Like me.
Speaker 2: This trope validates oppressive policing methods under the guise of
Speaker 2: officers having street smarts and personal redemption narratives. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: hate this one, and particularly why because it's giving trader
Speaker 2: like you came from the streets. Yeah, now you've beaten
Speaker 2: up talking about you know, like be sofferal right now.
Speaker 2: We saw this over the summer in Atlanta at Emory
Speaker 2: and across the United States with college kids, you know,
Speaker 2: protesting Israel's genocide in Palestine. They were whooping their asses
Speaker 2: and I can just see I can just see them like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I'm from the streets, like I didn't get
Speaker 2: to go to college, and they're wasting their opportunities. So
Speaker 2: it's like you're seeing the same tactics the idf uses
Speaker 2: being used on college campuses in the United States, in
Speaker 2: cities where they're trying to build cop cities where they
Speaker 2: would train more Israelis to kill Palestinians and train mo
Speaker 2: niggas to kill niggas. It's just like it's just such
Speaker 2: a mind fuck to see the layers and how like
Speaker 2: the copaganda just like keeps perpetuating itself, because like we said,
Speaker 2: it's not just it's not just fictional narratives, it's the news,
Speaker 2: it's social media. I've seen a lot of like TikTok
Speaker 2: pages of the friendly cops and the friendly soldier like
Speaker 2: get ready with me as I get ready for work
Speaker 2: and I don't think like a hot cop. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it's like, oh I'm on the beat, come right with me,
Speaker 2: and people in the ciments like oh I got arrest
Speaker 2: me missed the officer, like stand up. So yeah, just
Speaker 2: seeing like the impact that like not only these fictional narratives,
Speaker 2: but these nonfictional real world narratives like play into each other,
Speaker 2: like they're feeding each other. The movies and the TV shows,
Speaker 2: you know, influence the watchers and then they grow up
Speaker 2: like idolizing the cops and then become cops and then
Speaker 2: you know, have this whole good guy narrative in their head,
Speaker 2: even if they're beating up a college kid about the
Speaker 2: head for protesting a genocide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this one is particularly good for visual storytelling though,
Speaker 1: because you get that perfect arc of a person going
Speaker 1: for some you go from quote unquote bad to quote
Speaker 1: unquote good. It's like you there is a really easy end,
Speaker 1: a really easy character to try to show someone who's
Speaker 1: really completely did a one eighty and turned their life around,
Speaker 1: because you've gone from supposedly being the bad guy and
Speaker 1: harming others, like maybe without you know, thought about it,
Speaker 1: and then you've gone to this person who's supposedly selfless
Speaker 1: in their service to others.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like that's another element of it,
Speaker 1: because an easy way that cops can use to justify
Speaker 1: it because they don't get paid a lot that they
Speaker 1: can be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, you know I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: I'm not even making a lot of money, so they
Speaker 1: can really make it look like they're doing it for
Speaker 1: a higher purpose.
Speaker 2: But you know what, on the money tip they get,
Speaker 2: so many perks do you know, if a cop like
Speaker 2: lives in an apartment, they don't pay for that apartment
Speaker 2: because they're like police cards out there and they're like security.
Speaker 1: I've heard that. And also there's the other thing of
Speaker 1: like they get so much paid leave.
Speaker 2: And when they fuck up, like when I'm in New York,
Speaker 2: like it'll be like eight cops coming out too, like
Speaker 2: a small smoothie chop and they're supposed to be like
Speaker 2: getting the stuff for free, or they like won't protect
Speaker 2: the smoothe chop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like just also private businesses offer law enforcement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like y'all are fine. But also like going back
Speaker 2: to your like narrative arc, it's interesting too because like
Speaker 2: if you have a brain, the narrative arc just does
Speaker 2: not work.
Speaker 3: Talk about that more.
Speaker 2: Because you're you're the bad guy, right, You're you know,
Speaker 2: selling drugs, you know, presumably to people who want them,
Speaker 2: and then you become a cop and you're like harming
Speaker 2: these communities, so you're still like inflicting harm, but it's
Speaker 2: like what's behind the harm is seen as good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that those people aren't thinking about
Speaker 1: the works that the cops are doing as harm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they show it. They'll be like, I solve this
Speaker 2: case by beating up a homeless man who had the
Speaker 2: knowledge but would not say anything. It's like, Okay, it's
Speaker 2: like they show, but it's like it's still not clicking
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 1: There's another part to this where you have this arc
Speaker 1: of going from a quote unquote bad guy to a
Speaker 1: quote unquote good guy, is that the actual work or
Speaker 1: field work that the cops are doing is like good work.
Speaker 1: You know, like in reality, there are so many cops
Speaker 1: who don't know what the hell they're doing. In general,
Speaker 1: in film and television, there's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: you have to play up for the craft itself, and
Speaker 1: that stuff, I think can also plan to this propagandistic
Speaker 1: narratives to where I remember back in I don't know
Speaker 1: this was when we were going through some or other
Speaker 1: reckoning in the United States when it comes to race
Speaker 1: and police lynchings. People would say things like why didn't
Speaker 1: they just like shoot them in the leg or something
Speaker 1: like that. Joe Biden said that whoever said it, A
Speaker 1: bunch of people said stuff like that, And I think
Speaker 1: there's so much misrepresentation of violence that we've just gotten
Speaker 1: so used to, you know, people walking into rooms and
Speaker 1: not having their guns already racked is something that they
Speaker 1: do in film and television that like somebody who's ready
Speaker 1: to shoot somebody wouldn't do, or like having incredible aim
Speaker 1: at moving targets the cops might in a show, or
Speaker 1: having presence of mind like so many cops don't have
Speaker 1: when they're in stressful situations. As we've seen time and
Speaker 1: time again, there are so many things that they portray
Speaker 1: with good cops that are not actually the truth because
Speaker 1: cops are obviously fallible, you know, they are flawed.
Speaker 3: They do a lot of fucked up stuff.
Speaker 1: So as part of that trope and the propaganda, it's
Speaker 1: also the elements of craft that are inserted, I think
Speaker 1: in some ways sincere way for the craft itself, but
Speaker 1: also still kind of a thoughtless way of doing things,
Speaker 1: because it does perpetuate certain misinformation about the way that
Speaker 1: law enforcement works, in the way that shooting works, in
Speaker 1: the way that violence works, in the way that human
Speaker 1: responses when you know your sympathetic nervous system is a
Speaker 1: light works. There are so many things like that that
Speaker 1: are misrepresented in fiction that leads into that propagandistic thinking too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we saw in Uvaldi when there was an
Speaker 2: active shooter in the elementary school. Cops were there for
Speaker 2: so long, just standing outside, knew the person was in there,
Speaker 2: knew they were shooting kids, and did not do anything.
Speaker 2: A mom came to get her kids out. She came,
Speaker 2: They handcuffed her, She got out the handcuffs, jumped a fence,
Speaker 2: and then broke into the school to get her kids
Speaker 2: while the shooter were still in there. You'd expect the
Speaker 2: cops to do something like that. Yeah, it's a bunch
Speaker 2: of y'all. Y'all got all this gear, but let a
Speaker 2: nigga use a counterfeit twenty dollars bill, then it's on
Speaker 2: and popping. They'd be on this stuff They like don't matter,
Speaker 2: Like something that's not a threat, something that's not killing kids.
Speaker 2: They're all about it. You know, there was this man
Speaker 2: on the subway who was getting stabbed and there were
Speaker 2: cops in the other car. But you know, you can
Speaker 2: move across the cars in the subway. The cops was
Speaker 2: just looking. They did not try to help this man,
Speaker 2: and so he sued them saying like, oh, you should
Speaker 2: have helped me. In the Supreme Court is like, oh,
Speaker 2: they don't have the obligation to help you. So what
Speaker 2: are you here for?
Speaker 3: Yeah, to shoot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like they don't have the obligation to help you,
Speaker 1: but there's good Samaritan laws around being protected.
Speaker 3: If a normal citizen.
Speaker 2: Yeah something with who probably doesn't have a gun, who
Speaker 2: probably doesn't have training on what to do in this situation.
Speaker 2: But the cops, who presumably do, they chilling.
Speaker 1: Another thing that I was thinking about this is in
Speaker 1: terms of storytelling, is that often you're talking about exceptional situations,
Speaker 1: exceptional people, and exceptional experiences. So of course the story
Speaker 1: that they're going to tell about this good cop at
Speaker 1: the end of this narrative arc is going to be
Speaker 1: someone who is larger than life and who has like
Speaker 1: these perfect qualities. Because of that, and because that's kind
Speaker 1: of how storytelling has to work, Like most of the time,
Speaker 1: most people don't want regular stories.
Speaker 3: They want stories about exceptionalism.
Speaker 2: The cop who don't care and gets off, Yeah, hides
Speaker 2: in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: Hides in the parking lot, plants the drugs. That's that's
Speaker 1: one of the accurate examples.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So by nature of a cop appearing in a.
Speaker 2: Show, I mean, it feels to be doing the most.
Speaker 1: They have to be doing the most and that also
Speaker 1: means that, like the propaganda's got to be there from
Speaker 1: the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but other jobs like don't have that, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: like teachers.
Speaker 3: I was thinking teachers.
Speaker 2: Some of them are portrayed as like, oh, they're so great,
Speaker 2: like what was that one? Freedom writers. Some of them
Speaker 2: are portrayed that way. But some of them, I think
Speaker 2: most of them are portrayed as just like regular ancillary
Speaker 2: characters like you know, we have Abbot elementary, but they
Speaker 2: are not, you know, saving the hood, not all of them.
Speaker 1: The cop is more often the lead, yeah, not the
Speaker 1: sub supporting character. I mean, they do have supporting characters,
Speaker 1: but there are frequently cop leads shows.
Speaker 3: Okay, Katie, bring it home.
Speaker 1: What's the last copaganda trope that we have to develop?
Speaker 2: An oldie but goody trope number three, the internal affairs cop.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm intrigued.
Speaker 2: The internal affairs cop trope portrays them as the good
Speaker 2: cops working to expose corruption and misconduct within the police
Speaker 2: force from the inside. This trope avoids a meaningful criticism
Speaker 2: of systemic issues and attempts to show that exceptional individuals
Speaker 2: can reform the system. The internal affairs officer is a
Speaker 2: principled outlier working to root out the stereotypical bad apples
Speaker 2: within the department. They are portrayed as embodying the ideals
Speaker 2: of law and order that their corrupt colleagues have abandoned.
Speaker 2: This trope focuses on individual acts of heroism that expose misconduct,
Speaker 2: but it diverts attention from the deeper issues that perpetuate
Speaker 2: racist policing practices in the real world. It suggests meaningful
Speaker 2: reform can come from simply having more good apples rather
Speaker 2: than comprehensive policy changes.
Speaker 1: Even if a show or a movie is critiquing the police,
Speaker 1: it's almost like the only counter force is other noble police.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That reminds me of a twenty twenty three Medium
Speaker 2: post by Julian A. Kil Rose. In it, Rose states
Speaker 2: cop shows that critique cops are still copaganda. The purpose
Speaker 2: they serve is to justify the existence of police and
Speaker 2: policing by framing virtuous cops as the antidote to a
Speaker 2: disease institution. You'll see this in the moving Training Day,
Speaker 2: where a cop takes down Denzel who plays a crooked
Speaker 2: LAPD officer, or in twenty one Bridges where Chadwick Boseman
Speaker 2: Rip plays a detective who exposes a dirty cop for
Speaker 2: trafficking drugs. The internal affairs trope often still upholds an
Speaker 2: uncritical view of policing itself. The cops may be taking
Speaker 2: down bad cops, but they are working to preserve the
Speaker 2: integrity of the institution, rather than questioning its fundamental role
Speaker 2: in perpetuating racial injustice. This trope may intend to show
Speaker 2: how accountability exists within law enforcement, but it ultimately protects
Speaker 2: the status quo. It reduces systemic racism to a problem
Speaker 2: of a few bad apples that can be rooted out
Speaker 2: by heroic individuals, and it avoids the need for real
Speaker 2: structural or forms and policing.
Speaker 3: Who want to do all that work for real? For real?
Speaker 1: Why are you trying to do all that work of
Speaker 1: trying to change something from the inside.
Speaker 2: I think it's a folly of youth. And then you
Speaker 2: get into these institutions when you're young, and then you
Speaker 2: kind of realize you can't change it.
Speaker 3: But you got to pinch it now, or you don't
Speaker 3: want to change it.
Speaker 2: Or you really have bought in, or you think you
Speaker 2: are doing good, and you are kind of confused and
Speaker 2: the cops are the good guys, and I think it
Speaker 2: changes you ultimately, how.
Speaker 3: Do you think it changes the person?
Speaker 2: Just make them a part of the system, a cog.
Speaker 2: You know, you got to keep it moving. And I've
Speaker 2: been in jobs where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna make
Speaker 2: these changes and make those changes. I never been a cop.
Speaker 3: Check that to be clear.
Speaker 2: But you think like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna do this,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do that, and it's like, no, you're not
Speaker 2: this company, this police force, this whatever has been around
Speaker 2: before you, and it's gonna be around after you. And
Speaker 2: ain't too much gonna change from what you're doing on
Speaker 2: the inside, filing your little report, stop writing on them papers.
Speaker 2: I feel like Atlanta is the most known cop city,
Speaker 2: but there are cop cities that are popping up all over.
Speaker 2: Mayor Eric Adams in New York announced that he wanted
Speaker 2: to build a cop city in New York. There's one
Speaker 2: proposed in Baltimore. They're all over the country, And you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of copaganda shows were put on pause during
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty uprising, like Girl. They even tried to
Speaker 2: cancel pop patrol. They did, they paused cops. You know
Speaker 2: that I remember those they pause cops, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think that shows that they know that the propaganda
Speaker 2: is linked to all the brutality, because if there wasn't
Speaker 2: any association or correlation, would be the point of pausing
Speaker 2: these shows. But now the shows are back and better
Speaker 2: than ever, and we see kind of like the backlash
Speaker 2: of people like standing up to this, you know, militarized
Speaker 2: police force.
Speaker 1: It's like a school to prison pipeline. Really there could
Speaker 1: be an observer or a watcher or a media consumer
Speaker 1: to militia man pipeline. Oh absolutely, you know for some
Speaker 1: people it's you know, that's not how all people get
Speaker 1: into it. Obviously, we have all these other things conditioning
Speaker 1: the indoctrination that we get from our parents and our
Speaker 1: upbringing and our environment and all that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: like who's in our life, But there is a direct
Speaker 1: line from like seeing these people on television and seeing
Speaker 1: how they're uplifted in the roles on television and then
Speaker 1: being like, well, that's kind of cool. I want to
Speaker 1: be that. I remember, I don't know where I was at,
Speaker 1: but man, this kid who had to be like three
Speaker 1: two three was decked out in cop stuff, like had
Speaker 1: a cop car, on the shirt cop on that cop car,
Speaker 1: on that hat cop car.
Speaker 3: He was rolling his hand.
Speaker 1: I was like, dangn And he was talking about being
Speaker 1: a cop, and she was like his mom, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: who that was, but family member was just like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like the yeah, you're a cop, Johnny or whatever his
Speaker 1: name was, Like she was like kind of hyping up
Speaker 1: the cop thing because he was clearly into it. So
Speaker 1: you go from consuming the media and then you go
Speaker 1: to being like, yeah, maybe I want to do that,
Speaker 1: to being like, yeah, I actually can do that, because
Speaker 1: in the United States it's pretty easy to so easy
Speaker 1: organized as a militia if you want to.
Speaker 2: Or even easy to become a cop, or easy to
Speaker 2: become a cop that too. What I know for sure
Speaker 2: is for too long we've been indoctrinated by fictionalized narratives
Speaker 2: pedaled through our screens, a steady diet of copaganda that
Speaker 2: has manufactured consent for the unchecked militarization of American law enforcement.
Speaker 2: As far as our bulldoze in this expanding police state
Speaker 2: encircles of black communities, we must reckon with the true
Speaker 2: costs of the stories we've allowed to shape our reality.
Speaker 2: Every fictionalized hero cop blasting their way through city streets
Speaker 2: brought us one step closer, one step closer to wit
Speaker 2: and seeing those same streets transformed into battlegrounds, battlegrounds patrolled
Speaker 2: by real life militarized forces. The copaganda era is over.
Speaker 2: It's time we start writing our own narrative, one of liberation,
Speaker 2: one of courage in the face of an increasingly dystopian landscape.
Speaker 2: A story where the people, not the police, are the heroes.
Speaker 2: And now it's time for roll credits, the segment where
Speaker 2: we give credit to a person, place, or thing that
Speaker 2: we encountered during the week eves. Who are what would
Speaker 2: you like to give credit to?
Speaker 1: I would like to give credit to long drives and silence.
Speaker 1: Usually I'm very inundated with noises and all kinds of media,
Speaker 1: and I know that I shouldn't be doing more than
Speaker 1: one thing at the same time. A lot of the
Speaker 1: time when I am doing it, doing too much, like
Speaker 1: I'm on my phone on driving, No, not when I'm driving,
Speaker 1: just in general, like on my phone, on the on
Speaker 1: the computer, you know, on all these watching TV, doing
Speaker 1: multiple things that want washing dishes, you know, lighting candles,
Speaker 1: whatever I'm doing all at the same time, and I
Speaker 1: think the car is a nice place to have an
Speaker 1: excuse to remove distraction. Not like I need one, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's easy to get wrapped up in that
Speaker 1: when you're not in the car. When you're in the car,
Speaker 1: you're trapped in this moving sauna. Right now, it's hot,
Speaker 1: so it's a sauna.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's what I want to give credit to today.
Speaker 2: I appreciate a silent drive. I would like to give
Speaker 2: credit to phone calls. I feel like they're a lost art.
Speaker 2: There's not that many people that I can just call
Speaker 2: up and it's normal. I caught up this one friend.
Speaker 2: We were like to him and it's in the conversation,
Speaker 2: He's like, is everything okay? Like what's going on? I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm never calling you again. I'm not. But
Speaker 2: so I appreciate those people where you can just call
Speaker 2: them up. They call you. You don't guy to schedule it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and shout out to DD because that's who I be
Speaker 2: calling my friend Indidi and with that we will see
Speaker 2: you next week.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 2: Hie.
Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Eves, Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 1: It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison.
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Speaker 1: email at hello at on Theme dot Show. Head to
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