Fady Dagher and the “thin blue line” patch
Patrick Lagacé writes about the police “thin blue line” patch and how Fady Dagher has to decide whether to allow his men to wear the American right‑wing symbol, or forbid it with SPVM uniform.
Lagacé explains the history of the symbol and its racist connotations. But he doesn’t get into how the history goes back to the metaphor of the British army as the Thin Red Line.
jeather 12:02 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
So you need to be more neutral than neutral as when it comes to (non-Christian) religious symbols, but neutrality is entirely unnecessary on any other front. Another example of Joey’s comment that the CAQ considers freedom to be “say the n-word whenever and wherever you want”, and anything else is unnecessary.
jeather 12:03 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
I know this isn’t specifically the CAQ, but they didn’t make up their beliefs from whole cloth.
steph 12:21 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
When I heard about cops wearing the patch ‘under their vests’ to make sure the public didn’t know – it rings all the bells about racists only be racist in the company of other racists.
jeather 12:29 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
Making my way through the article. Lots of symbols have gotten coopted and are no longer neutral (I will take it for granted that the term thin blue line was not political in this way 20 years ago). The swastika is, of course, the common example.
“Accusés de racisme et de brutalité policière à tout vent, ils se sentent rejetés.”
I guess the solution isn’t “stop being racist and violent”, but rather to not allow people to call them racist or violent.
steph 14:24 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
The entire Blue Lives Matter campaign was tone deaf. Like being black was a choice.
Ian 15:28 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
I would have thought a “uniform” precluded personal items
Kate 22:04 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
Exactly. Like, why is it even a story that the police chief can’t decide whether to order his people to remove unofficial insignia?
Ian 09:39 on 2023-11-02 Permalink
Maybe it’s like in Office Space, you’re required to have a minimum of 15 flair items on your work uniform.
I imagine that if an officer wanted to sew on an anarchy badge instead of copaganda dogwhistles this hesitancy would evaporate quickly.