> I'm a white, upper-middle-class, works-with-USG/DOD, contracted in war zones, lots of friends in government/police, etc. person, so I have it exceptionally ea

> I'm a white, upper-middle-class, works-with-USG/DOD, contracted in war zones, lots of friends in government/police, etc. person, so I have it exceptionally easy, sure. It sounds like you get it at some level, but to make the point extra fine: this is privilege. When white middle-class guys (which includes me) say, "eh, they've always been nice to me, so I'm not sure what the big deal is", we're failing to care because it the problems don't affect us. A cop's not to stop and frisk me for no reason or kick down my door looking for pot or harass me for some trivial moving violation or throw me in jail on unreasonable charges to get beaten and raped every day. They're always nice to me. So it's easy to say, "cops are kinda great, and that one time my house got robbed they were ON it", and just never internalize the fact that for so many people, they're an armed oppressor working with official government sanction and little accountability. That it takes something as mind-blowingly outrageous as court-sanctioned rape to get our attention and we're still not quite willing to look the system in the eye and say, "man, this is just fundamentally broken"...well, that shows just how deep that privilege goes. Is it any wonder that bad cops and prosecutors (and, gulp, judges) feel empowered to do this kind of shit?