@mae @Hugsrgood @AusSocialMods another false dilemma - it does not have to just be the appearance. If it is just appearance rather than some action, then yes, it is #1.

We unfortunately live in a (right wing conservative dominated) media, and therefore political environment where change needs to start slowly before it eventually gathers pace and takes off.

I know that it is not the same sort of problem, but look at it like the carbon change: when we had decisive action on climate change (introduction of a carbon tax) the result was a media driven change of government followed by decade of paralysis. No government is willing to risk everything that they want to achieve by pissing off the media so they move so slowly that they don't appear to be doing anything.

Do you blame the politicians or the media?

@Hugsrgood @AusSocialMods The "ACAB white supremacist system is working *as designed and intended* responses to my reply are... (to naive me) surprising. Sure the system might be working as *historically* intended. But is it actually *currently* intended by the premier, the relevant minister in charge, the chief commissioner and the entire command structure all the way down to the newest recruit? Nope. (But maybe I'm naive, and maybe inaction is as good as intention in this case, so maybe that's "well, actually Yes"?).

I believe that there are ingrained biases in the police force at the moment that mean that in a number of ways it is broken - and if you're in some groups - in particular some minorities, it is very broken for you in a very bad way - that can has a track record of death in custody. It needs fixing.

But trying to say ACAB isn't a slogan, but a literal fact (without exception - as many replies have said) is like trying to say that Genesis isn't a fable, but a literal fact; it is extremist, divisive, and unlikely to win you a lot of supporters in the long run.

Approaching a problem without nuance makes it hard to find solutions.

The fact that there are toots quoting press coverage of the problems (e.g. serving police member DV, homophobia ) means we're not blind to them, but the fact that those same toots say "'bad cops' aren't the minority they are the entire structure, top to bottom." are a binary approach to this.

@KarenWyld @harrym @dmakovec That many socially marginalised people are killed or harmed by cops - instead of being given assistance - we agree - as you say: These are facts.

And sadly, as you say, not getting assistance is the case for many victims or their families and friends.

The system is broken - on that we I suspect are also agreed.

I think where we might disagree is that all who work within it are fundamentally bad people or at least not doing a job of any value. The reason I make this last point is that I see you are on the mod team, so I assume you at least tacitly approve of the original mod account post that says "find a real job". I don't think the system is that broken that it can't be fixed, but I also think that this sort of debate is very hard to do in 1500 character chunks.