Someone else’s problem
Some young women stop to offer help
The New Zealand police force recently did a disturbing social experiment. They hired a very convincing child actor – maybe 10-12 years old – to dirty his face, dress in shabby clothes, look generally dejected and apparently search for discarded food in rubbish bins on a busy intersection in downtown Auckland.
About 500 people walked right past him as if he wasn’t there. A few even threw garbage into the rubbish bins without acknowledging his presence. One photographed him with a phone. Over the duration of the experiment only seven people stopped to ask if he was OK or offer help. Just seven.
The cops videoed it for a recruitment advertisement. The tagline comes when a group of young women stop to see if the kid’s alright. “They cared enough. Would you?”
Karen Jones of NZ police public affairs explains “If you said you would have stopped, then you may be just the kind of person NZ police is looking for”.
I’d rather not be the kind of person police look for. It’s not healthy.
I’m not sure how the NZ police force sees itself but here in NSW if you would have stopped, ordered the kid to empty his pockets, demanded to know his name, his address, what he was doing, why he wasn’t in school and whether he’d recently used any drugs or alcohol, thumped him a few times if he didn’t answer promptly or gave some lip then threw him to the ground, pinned him with a knee to the back, handcuffed him and ran him in for Offensive Language, Resisting Arrest and Assaulting Police then you already are a cop.
But what about you? Would you have stopped to offer help? Are you one of the seven in five hundred? What if you saw police treating him badly? Would you still have tried to help? Would you have stood up to the cops who were abusing him?
Neurodrooling 
At least in metaphor truth is that 493 city folk are already in an unwitting social experiment and truthfully where i live most people would have stopped to help ’cause he was a little boy and the white and the blonde hair gets him Southern Red State fundy extra credit but never the less that is a part of the good old boy culture here.. women and children are treated with respect on the street.. Smaller cities with many churches have common sense value.. Still.. Big cities are truly sick human experiments in this measure.. But humans.. Only evolved to connect to around 150 to 200 sets of eyes tend to lose parts of their humanity this way when eyes miss human suffering… In the city…. But compassion does not meet the Jesus model as homeless adults are largely ignored here with much discrimination among those who do not meet the Old Testament requirements of the Bible.. As far as being different.. Husky white men get the best ride still.. Privilege in the Patriarchy with rules of Caucasian women and children first..:)
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I think he’s a redhead, but yeah he’s white as. Note that the women who stopped to help aren’t though. Maori by the look of it.
I dunno whether less than 1,5% of people would have stopped here in Newcastle or in Sydney where I lived most of my adult life. I suspect far more people would have helped but I don’t really know. The figures claimed in the Auckland example sure shocked me.
But the reason I made the post is because of the implication that police generally help homeless people. Here in NSW at least that couldn’t be further from the truth. Being white, this guy would have been less likely to face the ‘trifecta’ of charges I cited but if he was Aboriginal … In any case, if the police stop to talk to him it’s almost certainly bad news. Probably a retailer would have made some sort of complaint against his presence and even if no allegation of shoplifting or aggressive begging had been made the cops would definitely search him and move him on and would be unlikely to be gentle and polite about it. If he had a knife, some pot, something valuable he couldn’t account for or showed signs of mental illness he’d be forcibly detained. If he resisted or tried to run off he’d probably be violently subdued. If he fought back he’d get cap-sprayed, tased and/or bashed (the severity would depend primarily on witnesses, but if there’s one thing more invisible than a homeless person it’s one being accosted by police). Once they’d whacked him around a bit they’d cover their arses by charging him with the trifecta.
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That’s sad.. I’ve watched my city over 5 decades growing in leaps and bounds along with home/screen entertainment.. Humans get whacky when they lose REAL flesh and blood face time.. And i for one force them to face flesh when i dance in public as the American Indian archetype of a sacred clown and law enforcement has never bothered me as i am mistaken FOR law enforcement by my general look inherited from my father who did 46 years as a cop.. Not my style of free.. TG.. As he left early and i did not get bred that way..:)
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I should probably mention that NZ police seem quite different to their Australian counterparts. They’re not routinely armed for a start and I think that changes the whole culture. Not so many cowboys looking for an excuse to act out their Clint Eastwood fantasies.
For example, a few weeks ago four NZ police were shot during a raid on a cannabis growing operation. None died but one was seriously injured. After an extended siege the shooter, a Maori guy, was brought in unharmed. An outcome like that would have been unthinkable here. Even if the shooter had managed to surrender without being executed he would have arrived in the cells looking like he’d just done ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Most police car chases here end with a bashing for the driver too.
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Oh Lord.. yes.. humans
without weapons
are most alWays
less likely
to inflict
hurt on other humans
as it is heir apparent.. still..
more of a human struggle
to strangle someone
than to pull
a trigger..
But in general..
birds of a feather do
fLock together in human
terms.. and generAlly speaking..
weepy cops don’t last.. or
doctors.. surgeons and
CEO’s.. etc… i heard
some stories about
my father.. that were
unpalatable too.. from
some of the black folks who
were more fully aware of some
of the stuff he and his buddies did
as cops.. again..
so glad i did not
get into that line
of work.. then..
but i’m pretty
sure it’s always
been that way..
someone has to do it..
and more of the bad stuff
now gets caught on newly
devised public
cameras..
In other words..
not unlike prisons..
cops are a necessary
evil that they are too..
the human system..
is insane.. but
it works well
enough
for some
folks
to still be free..
So order does remain
in chaos for the free of
some of us.. who
are fearless
enough to do
it.. No doubt
i got that from
my father.. friend..
but the Love came from
the super feminine Mom
to balance out the super masculine
Dad.. and before the days of birth
control.. that’s how many real heroes
per the archetype were born and
raised.. the Fearless bad boy
dad leaves early and the
super feminine
good girl
(Mary Virgin)
mama.. raises
the ‘Jesus’
hero with
Love.. now
eventually
the boy
gets
his/her
fearless
genetics
bredback
epigene-
ticAlly..
oh sure..
‘God’ iS now..
the baddest
‘boy’ of all.. iN
Big Bang terms..
But as science says..
now girls who are doing
the Pill go for the Beta Boys..
and that’s why there are so many
movies these days about heroes..
as they are not getting bred as much
anymore..
the price
of a Pill
is now
basically
more fear
full men..
and with
fear even Love
doesn’t do much.. in action..
all my my opinion of course..
from watching iT all around me..
before
i started
‘talking’..;)
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