TPPM Watts: (22) Order of the day

[Paul Nightingale]

"Still, however much a cop may seem to be following the order of the day
read to him every morning about being courteous to everybody, his
behaviour with a crowd will really depend as it always has on how many
of his own he can muster and how fast."

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,
their uniform glance of suspicion, their automatic smiles, and listening
to polite put-downs."

Or even: "Before the cop can say, 'Let's see your I.D.,' you learn to
take it out politely and say, 'You want to see my I.D.?' Naturally it
will bug the cop more the further ahead of him you can stay."

Or even, going back to where the discursive arrangement of cop/black kid
confronting each other begins: "... and the history of this place and
these times makes it impossible for the cop to come on any different, or
for you to hate him any less. Both of you are caught in something
neither of you wants ..."

So, by the time the text reaches the "order of the day" passage, the cop
has been established as some kind of victim. Yes, in the first of the
passages above (ie the fourth cited above) the text makes it clear that
"[b]oth of you are caught in something neither of you wants"; but
post-inquest, this statement doesn't have the power it will assume later
on. That "[m]ost Watts kids are hip to what's going on in this rookie's
head" etc grants the cop some kind of identity; the opening
inquest--where, as I noted at the outset, he isn't allowed to defend
himself, establishes the cop as an outsider, as the Other (implicitly,
or even explicitly, how whites feel about blacks, of course). Later on,
the text brings cop and black kid into some kind of relationship, one
that has to be renegotiated on a daily basis, one considered "more
honest" than the black kids' dealings with "the little man".

Consequently, the text has, to this point, worked hard to separate cop
and "little man". Certainly they are linked ("the cop also functions as
his effigy"), are even in that sense inseparable (one can't look at one
without thinking of the other, perhaps); but the different kind of
relationship each will have with black people in Watts has been
highlighted. After all, as personal testimony notes, "all of a sudden
The Man gets very meek"--a long way from the opening paragraph and the
Deadwyler shooting.

All of which is one more reason why the essay cannot be seen as
pessimistic; by definition, optimism enters the frame when alternative
scenarios, not all as bad as the worst, are acknowledged.

And then, right on cue, Sam Yorty makes an appearance.