So it would've been pretty rich for someone to say, "talking to these illiterate peasants to their faces is on its way out. Don't they know that writing is the new medium?"

Sure. Separate but equal, presumably.

Maybe your point is that because crypto-anarchism appears to rest on this state-friendly assumption, it isn't "real" anarchism. I don't know too much about crypto-anarchism and haven't formed an opinion either way, but if it's as cozy with anarcho-capitalism as the quotes at the end make it out to be, I'd probably agree with you.

(edited for formatting)

- Ursula K. Le Guin

I'm 100% serious. Your mistake is in thinking it's a few bad apples. Certainly there are varying degrees of prejudice operating on the police force, but that's not the same thing as racism. The more you learn about the police force as it exists in America, the more you come to find that its roots are embedded in systemic racism. Cops may not realize it, but that doesn't mean it's not on them to decide to what degree they support the system. "Common sense" isn't enough because the system doesn't reward common sense, it rewards blind loyalty to the force. This is America's banality of evil.

> If you disagree that nakedness should be illegal that's a different story and has nothing to do with the police

I do question the logic of nakedness being illegal (in many cases anyway), but I agree that's a different story. :)

> Are you suggesting every person to decide what's allowed and what's not to the best of their judgment?

I'm assuming the case you mentioned at Harvard was this one: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/cambridge-police...

So who gets to decide what "reasonable force required to arrest someone who is refusing arrest" is? You really think that repeatedly punching someone for being naked and on drugs is reasonable? Why? Why not just detain him and work on getting him to a safe place? Why does the situation warrant violence at all? Just because it's common in this country does not mean it's justified or ethical.

What if they had shot him, or knelt on his neck and killed him? Would that be "reasonable"? Where, then, is the line?

Right now, cops basically have 100% discretion to decide where that line is. Because they are not actually accountable to anyone but themselves, they just act and draw the line after the fact. The only difference between this and the murder of George Floyd is degree. That's what I meant.

> If you use common sense then indeed you should try your best to avoid violence in illegal activities that don't put anyone in danger

I agree in the abstract, but unfortunately there's a racial element to this "common sense." In the US, black people especially must use a different kind of common sense, and must always remember that any kind of transgression - up to and including "looking suspicious" - is grounds for detention, which can escalate arbitrarily to execution on the spot. So there's really no "avoiding violence" when your mere existence is grounds for murder with no consequences.

And again, just because you can have a "reasonable" expectation of violence from the cops does not mean that violence is justified.

> the police has no choice

Well, they had a choice to not become cops in the first place, to not enter a system that lacks accountability. They have a choice to not enforce unjust laws, especially in situations where no one's in danger. They have a choice to challenge their colleagues to justify their actions, whether that's kneeling on someone's neck or punching them in the stomach. They have a choice between violence and deescalation.

But they choose violence and escalation with alarming frequency in this country. And the system protects them.

When people talk about systemic racism they're talking about how the system operates as a whole. As I've commented elsewhere, people need to educate themselves about systemic racism in this country.

"So You Want to Talk about Race" by Ijeoma Oluo or "Me and White Supremacy" by Layla Saad are good places to start.

Depends on your definition of racism. If you just mean "atomized, individual prejudice," you might be correct.

But this is textbook systemic racism, even if the cops aren't acting on a conscious bias. Even if their chief gave them clear orders explaining why, and the reasons ostensibly had nothing to do with race, it is still systemic racism because it falls into a pattern of systematic, nationwide discrimination which is irrefutable and that disproportionately affects people of color.

Recommend you read "So You Want to Talk about Race" by Ijeoma Oluo or "Me and White Supremacy" by Layla Saad to learn more about racism as actual experts on the subject understand it.

(Edit: typo)