There’s a 40th anniversary today that you might not know about. Have you ever been part of one of the “first Tuesday in August” neighborhood festivals? Maybe your neighborhood or town had a cookout, or a little parade? Chances are, police officers were everywhere at the festival.
Not only were they there, they were the guests of honor. The first Tuesday in August has been the National Night Out since 1984. What began as a way for neighborhood watch volunteers to share information and best practices with each other quickly turned into a celebration of community policing and became a way for people to see the human side of our often-misunderstood law enforcement officers.
Let’s face it, we have trust issues where police officers are concerned. The police. The FBI. The Secret Service. The Gestapo. The KGB. When you read those words, you don’t think of individuals, do you? It’s more likely that you think of an amorphous, powerful entity. You might hold strong opinions one way or the other, yet you’re holding those opinions about the entity and not the individuals that make up the entity.
There is a very human tendency to distrust authority figures. Though most people in authority throughout history have been benign rulers, it’s the ones who abused their power that created the ingrained distrust of the powerful. One of the drawbacks of the police uniform is that it makes a group of individuals appear to be all one being: a monolithic symbol of power, triggering the feeling of generational mistrust and even fear of their authority.
When we see a profession and form an opinion, it’s important to remember that the profession is made up of individuals who don’t necessarily conform to our opinion of them. Nor should they. It’s our job to understand who they are, not their job to be who we believe them to be.
That’s true of everyone, by the way. It’s easy to form an opinion and treat others as if your opinion is the absolute truth, and you are being unfair to the others when you do that. Chances are you’ve felt misunderstood before, right? Think of how it felt when it happened to you when you’re tempted to jump to conclusions about others. For more help with trust issues, here are three episodes of the Wellbeing Wisdom Tiny Bites podcast – 90 seconds long each, and each with actionable content you can use right now.
Want to learn to appropriately place trust in people? Here’s a Tiny Bite for that!
Do you work with someone you can’t trust? Here’s a Tiny Bite for that!
Need help remembering that trust is a two-way street? Here’s a Tiny Bite for that!
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People gravitate to a profession for a lot of reasons, and some people know from childhood that they want to be police officers. The desire to protect and defend is hard-wired into humans, and it’s only natural that some would choose to make that their life’s work. The idea of promoting justice and a calm, safe environment lures many into police service. Those who go through police training and on to serve their communities on the police force have followed not just their dream, but also their ideals. That’s worthy of our admiration, not our mistrust or fear.
If your neighborhood or town is having a National Night Out celebration, go. Take your family, take your friends, take a picnic, take your favorite side dish to share. Meet your neighbors, and meet the men and women – the individuals, not the monolithic symbol – who serve to keep your community safe. Tell them thank you. Maybe give them a cupcake.
They put their lives on the line every day for you and your neighbors. Let them know you appreciate them. It’ll mean the world to each one of them.
Wags,
Sandy Weaver
The Voice of Wagaliciousness
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