TPPM Watts: (20) Effigy

[Paul Nightingale]

"... besides protecting and serving the little man, the cop also
functions as his effigy."

Cf: "If you do get to where you were going without encountering a cop,
you may spend your day looking at the white faces of personnel men",
whose job it is to police employment. Here the cop, as a threat or
obstacle to be negotiated, metamorphoses into the employer (or
employer's representative, authority delegated).

Subsequently, the cop ("his effigy") stands in for "the little man"; the
latter, absent, delegates authority. Hence a confrontation with one is a
confrontation with the other. The only difference is the cop's 'prop'
("all the cop really has going for him is his gun") and no longer does
the office ("hell with the badge") matter.

This section confirms the demystification of power I described earlier,
"The Man" superseded by "the little man".

>From the OED, with a selection of references, in particular c.1960s:

The man (also the Man): a person in authority; such persons
collectively; spec. (a) a prison governor; (b) a policeman or detective;
the police; (c) one's employer, 'boss'; (d) (Black slang) a white man;
white people collectively; (e) a drug-pusher (U.S. slang).

1918 G. M. Battey 70,000 Miles in Submarine Destroyer (1919) 302 Any
body in authority is 'the man'. 1953 W. Burroughs Junkie (1972) ix. 87
When I first hit New Orleans, the main pusher--or 'the Man', as they say
there--was a character called Yellow. Ibid. 159 'The Man', junk seller.
'The Man' is a New Orleans expression, and can also refer to a Narcotics
Agent. 1962 J. Baldwin Another Country (1963) ii. ii. 243 One of the
musicians came to the doorway, and said, 'Ida, honey, the man says come
on with it if you coming.'  1963 N.Y. Times 18 May 12/2 A well-educated
Negro said today: 'The demonstrations, I think, suggested to "The Man"
that tokenism won't make it and that he has to come to grips with the
problem right now.' 'The Man', in Negro parlance, is the white man. 1965
Times Lit. Suppl. 25 Nov. 1035 Man is the title by which one Negro
addresses another... The Man is the way in which he speaks of the enemy,
of the white. 1970 Guardian 3 Nov. 10/1 'The Man is repressive. The Man
is fascist...' To the bombers and kidnappers the Man is authority. He is
every policeman. He is President Nixon. He is Prime Minister Trudeau.