The fact that a hugely disproportionate number of black men live in prisons in the US, and the fact that black men are regularly harassed by the US police, is an expression of the living legacy of Jim Crow. And we shouldn’t be surprised that in the Chile of Pinochet the police became a branch of the oppressive apparatus. In a chameleon-like fashion, as soon as the dictatorship ended, police behavior came to mirror the new democratic ethos. The biggest thugs suddenly became soft teddy bears seemingly working for a new kind of future. And as soon as the façade of quasi-perfect democracy crumbled and student unrest threatened to destabilize the status quo, founded on some kind of not-so-noble lie, the Chilean police rapidly changed its colours once again in accordance with the demands of the state.
Great piece.
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/79404
