Particular occupations and aristocratic individuals such as the police, security guards, military personnel’s, etc are almost always described with romanticized words such as loyal, trustworthy, heroic, and can even take on a godly perspective due to media and other advertising sources. But if you spend much of your time walking in downtown London like I do, you may not perceive such warm and loving actions from these individuals who assume authority because of their occupation.
A few months ago I was walking down Dundas street where two officers were patrolling the street on foot. As a line up of cars were stopped at a red light the two officers walked up to a car (which was stopped at the red light) opened the door and roughly removed a aboriginal man from his car and continued to search his body in the middle of the street while his wife and child sat in the car watching. Now to me, this could not have been a domestic or emergency situation considering the police were on foot. Not only was the aboriginal man publically humiliated, but he was forcefully removed from his car and disrespected. The car was not pulled over so this created a dangerous traffic jam which could have easily lead to a fatal situation for the high school students who were just released from their school day.
Just this week when I entered the Galleria mall a security guard approached a African American man who was crouching down while making a call on a payphone. The security guard told the man to stand up and when the man refused he was then threatened by the security guard to be removed from the mall. The man continued to defend himself arguing that his legs were tired from walking all morning. While this man was harassed by security guard for several minutes 3 people stood by to watch without defending the man so I got involved. As I attempted to defend the man who looked as though he was trying to complete a business call I was told that my opinion did not matter and to leave.
In both of these situations neither of the two men who were being disrespected by authority figures were being loud, violent, or creating chaos in their circumstance. So I ask you this Londoners: Do you ever witness minorities, people of colour, or immigrants being disrespected, or deprived of their rights in this city? How are woman and their opinions viewed and dealt with? Should authority figures be able to forcefully remove you from an environment? What is the real motivation for the individuals which fill these authoritative occupations? If you see someone being treated unfairly do you get involved? Why or why not? Once a uniform is off, do these individuals still own their power? Is it possible that these authority figures are so bored with their job that they create unnecessary situations?
By: A Concerned Individual
