When I was a rookie cop at my first agency, fresh out of the academy- almost 30 years ago- one of my duties, depending on what shift I was assigned, was to raise and lower the American and Georgia state flags. After a few years they were replaced, and I kept the old ones. I found them last year, buried in a box in the basement. The American flag was given to a Boy Scout troop for proper retirement. The Georgia flag, however, deserves no such respect; as at the time it flew it was the Georgia state seal on a blue field next to- yup. The Confederate battle flag, the stars and bars, the ol’ middle finger to those who died because of racism and who are still dying today. For it, it was combined with a poofer bag of smokeless powder and an electric match as part of a bit of performative theater on the 4th of July, 2020; after I’d about had my fill of “Heritage, not hate” idiots. It didn’t burn up completely; so I tossed the remains under the deck, intending to burn it in the fire pit later on.
Fast forward to almost one year later, and the wind and critters have moved it to the edge of the yard. The grass had been enjoying all the recent rain, and I was cutting by the edge of the deck when the south rose again.
Yup, the end of the flag got sucked under the mower deck and wrapped itself around both blade spindles, stalling out the mower. Sonofabitch. And it was wound tight around those spindles. But it was my fault; I should have finished the job on the flag a long time ago, and had forgotten about it. Back to the carport to laboriously remove the mower deck and flip it over, and hack, slash, burn, and yank bits of confederate flag out from around the shafts. Then re-install and re-level the deck, and good as new.
Rinsing off in the shower later- I cannot work on any piece of machinery, no matter how simple, without getting covered in grease and dirt- I thought about how apropos this situation was. Racism, once burnt and beaten, wasn’t properly disposed of… and it lurked in the background, moving closer to the light, until one day- perhaps emboldened by an orange man- it leaps out and tries to strangle the mower. The mower is only interested in law(n) and order (sorry); but now it’s hopelessly entangled with racism, so tightly wound around its core as to stall the whole mechanism. It ignored the danger, not realizing that the threat would come from it’s cutting edges.
Fixing it is an arduous, dirty, frustrating task, that calls for patience- and dismantling part of the whole machine. But only after the bits that are choking it off are removed can it be re-greased and re-assembled. Had it not been a strong riding mower; had it been the old, clapped-out push mower instead, it might have seized the engine beyond repair. But this is a strong mower. It’s well designed, and it can take- and has- a lot of abuse. It just needs maintenance, a clearing of the detritus- and a wary eye for dangers in the tall grass.
Removing the entangled shreds of racism from law enforcement will take the same patience, hard work, and dirt; and in some cases, dismantling the mechanism and rebuilding. And maybe the machine should be more narrowly focused instead of trying to solve all problems with it. Planting more areas of native wildflowers would reduce the amount that had to be mowed, and would increase the diversity and amount of life in the yard as well. You wouldn’t use the lawnmower to tend to the flowers, of course. There are far better, less destructive tools for that.
And I think I’ve stretched this metaphor to the breaking point.