Hey Chuck Canterbury,
Mind if I call you Chuck? I'm going to go ahead and do that, because your last name sounds like a chocolate company and it's making me hungry.
My name's Halle. Like yours, my family has produced its fair share of police officers—I like to joke it’s an occupational hazard of being Irish-American. My grandfather, in particular, was a cop for over 30 years and Chief of Police for 10. I remember when he took my sister and me to get pizza in his squad car. I remember my uncle working security at the Fourth of July parade every year. I remember my cousin Bethany regaling us with stories of going undercover to stop underage drinking. Growing up, my parents would caution, “If you’re alone and don’t feel safe, find a police officer.” I never thought the police were anything but good people.
But I understand I speak from a privileged experience. I’m a white girl who's not even five and a half feet tall. I never felt threatened by the police because they never saw me as a stereotypical threat. This article is not to say police brutality and racial violence don’t exist in America’s law enforcement; we as a country have seen too much video of unarmed children and young men and women—almost always black—being shot or beaten to death to deny that.
And when I woke up, met with the news that the Fraternal Order of Police, largest police union in the country, has endorsed Donald Trump for president, I feared the worst of police behavior may be on the rise, and not just among the force.
“He will make America safe again.” That’s what you, Chuck Canterbury, the national president of FOP, said in your endorsement of Donald Trump.
Jesus Christ, Chuck.
Tell me, please, in what way would Trump make America safe?
By closing our borders, causing thousands of immigrants to hurt and kill themselves attempting to find dangerous, illegal ways to get into the country? Does that make people safe?
By barring abortions, closing Planned Parenthoods and letting companies refuse workers birth control, which will make the rates of STDs, unplanned pregnancies and life-threatening back room abortions skyrocket? Does that make people safe?
By refusing transgender people the freedom to use the bathroom they are entitled to, in a country where 1 in 4 trans people already experience assault and a transgender woman is killed once every twenty-nine hours? Frequency that is sure to increase when you force transgender women into male bathrooms? Does that make people safe?
By attempting to kick 3.3 million Muslims out of the country, despite the fact that over half of them are American citizens? Despite the fact that countless innocent Muslim men, women and children are discriminated against and tormented every day that people like you support Trump’s xenophobic paranoia? Does that make people safe?
What really sticks in my craw, Chuck, is that you said Trump would make America safe again.
Do you know why Irish-Americans making up so much of the police force has become a stereotype? Because when the police force was first formed, nobody else wanted to do it. And as the 19th century’s hated minority, the Irish stepped in to do the most dangerous job, the only kind they could get. America has never been safe for the oppressed.
As a kid, I always thought it was extra appropriate that the Irish were protecting people. That we knew what it was like to be unfairly attacked and as police, we would stop that from happening to anyone else. That was naive, I suppose. But still, I hope.
Good police officers are supposed to protect people, Chuck. In endorsing Trump, you’re not protecting anyone. On the contrary, you’re putting us all in danger.
