As a professional I’ve been diligently working to transform
the “Dark Side” for close to forty years, dating back to my first visit to the
James River Penitentiary just outside of Richmond, Virginia in 1976. This
effort has been at the base of my livelihood as well as my life choices and my
life style.
So I am no fool and certainly not even a novice when it
comes to tackling this most difficult of human attributes; the Dark Side. I know
my business so to speak. With many years of clinical training and
supervision, skill development and accrued expertise in the field of psychology, I trust my ability to be astute, properly wary and inordinately
skillful in tiptoeing through the tulips of evil, especially insofar as the Dark
Side goes, operating as a force in human psychology and social/cultural
dynamics.
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| "My Friend," Frederick City Police Officer, Rebecca Carrado |
Thus when a woman questioned and challenged me, in a hostile
way, and the efforts of New Horizons in presenting our “Kids and Kops In Conversations” programs, it didn’t take me long to determine that an initial
“lean in” endeavor might be, at least, worthy of an attempt, yet not
necessarily one that would anticipate a positive outcome.
There was a hint of darkness here and conditions were not
such that my abilities could make much difference. She was coming from her place of pain and
fear, covered over with outrage. The best I might be able to do was stay out of
my own shadowy sides.
I was not surprised, therefore, when my two attempts at some
kind of meaningful dialogue with the woman netted me a serious absence of
camaraderie. Still, as I had learned
long ago from one of my mentors, Ken Windes, the game of life is best played
from a win/learn position, Plan B, if Plan A, win-win, does not immediately
arise out of our undertakings.
Ken was himself an ex-convict who, once rehabilitated went
on to become a highly credentialed professional in my psychotherapy
association, the International Transactional Analysis Association, So it was
that after a bit of an internal realignment, following my encounters with the
woman, I sat back and considered what the experience had brought me in terms of
lessons to be learned.
The main lesson to date is that what New Horizons is doing through
its Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations of which the Kids and Kops In Conversations initiative is a subset is fraught with challenges.
The item that originally drew the woman’s attention to me
was a comment I made during the discussion period following a “Trip To The (Mexican)
Border” Power Point presentation and commentary, graciously designed by Gwen… ,
a Quaker woman from Ohio. Gwen had gently and generously reported on her
experience of visiting the Arizona border with the intention of discovering for
herself, first hand, what the immigration situation down there would show her.
With “Kids and Kops In Conversation” being of immediate
concern and involvement for me I chanced to share that we were, thankfully
making “inroads” in building bridges between some of our local youth and police
officers through our project. Through this effort I am developing hope for improvement in this area of concern.
“Inroads”!!!
How dare I suggest such a reprehensible state of affairs for
our youth!
Police can “only” be the enemy was the gist of her
belligerent admonishment to me!
Of course, there is significant merit in the attitude of
this woman, at least to some degree.
And, the presentation we had just viewed in the “Trip To The Border” report
had made that painfully clear, depicting one more aspect of the Dark Side of
our current national shame regarding police and community relations; dramatically,
painfully and horrifically. But the fact that 34,000 prison beds are designated
to be filled by illegal immigrants per year is only one side of the current
American policing situation!
Another side is that there are increasing numbers of police
officers throughout our country who are putting the development of renewed
trust and safety, where police are concerned, as a priority for communities. At least, my
deductive reasoning tells me this must be so. Meeting and getting to know three
such officers in the local Frederick County, Maryland community has shown me
this through New Horizons Coffee House Conversations on Race Relations, built
upon almost endless storytelling programs and group discussions.
As a result of these I am reminded that “An enemy is someone whose story you
do not know.”
As for myself, personally, I know myself to be an exemplary judge of character,
especially about where and how the Dark Side is in motion and where and how it
is not. I see that there is challenge here, without doubt.
For every encouraging exchange I have had with these local
police officers, modeling the kinds of attitudes and behaviors that have the
potential to build trust, I have, personally, encountered and heard of hundreds
more that generate fear and alarm in me as well as in other citizens.
There are no easy answers to the troubling community-police relations we are presently experiencing. But there is, also, a movement gaining force in
this country that wants us to move beyond this. As a citizen I must do my
part to support its success.
Listen to my story (on The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show) on "Building Exceptional Community-Police Relationships" and let me
know how you view the situation.
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