All officers last year were required to complete online training called “2022 Vocabulary in the LGBTQIA2S+ /Queer Community” as the bureau adopted a new directive titled “Interacting with Members of the LGBTQIA2S+/Queer Community.”
What an incredible waste of time and money.
The directive identifies LGBTQIA2S+ as an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit “and the countless affirmative ways in which people choose to self-identify.”
This is insanity. Over half of these terms have no basis in reality. And officers should care about the other parts (LGB) only if they are germane to an investigation.
It prohibits officers from engaging in harassment or discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression or sexual expression.
I’m not sure why officers should be harassing or discriminating on any basis.
It says officers shall not ask anyone about their anatomy, medical history or sexual practices unless it relates directly to a criminal investigation.
Why would they?
They should also not make assumptions about someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity and may need to ask someone about their gender identity to complete a police report, evaluate a bias crime or for another official purpose.
I’m already on record as opposing so-called “bias” or “hate” crimes statutes. We can criminalize actions; we cannot criminalize belief.
To determine someone’s identity, the directive says officers shall respectfully ask how the person identifies and by what pronouns, the directive says.
Officers, as a part of employment, should not be required to subscribe to an orthodoxy in which they do not believe. The “gender identity” religion, for that’s what it is when one believes fanciful things that do not comport with reality, uses pronouns as part of its creed. Use of such pronouns is in fact how one can tell who subscribes to this religion. I don’t think we’d be okay with officers being forced to, say, recite the Nicene Creed. We shouldn’t be okay with this. (That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a Supreme Court decision to fully adjudicate the matter.)
If officers can’t find out for some reason, they should use gender-neutral pronouns such as “they” or “them,” the directive says. If an officer mistakenly misgenders a person, they should apologize, move on and use correct pronouns going forward, it says.
Again, this compels law enforcement to use the language of the gender identity religion. At most, officers should use the name of the person and avoid pronouns altogether.
A big question: Why would Portland officers respond to an “LGBTQ+ training” with racist feedback? That doesn’t make sense on the face of it.
…Rosenbaum said the Equity and Inclusion Office shared concerns with the chief about derogatory remarks and “signs of bias” that came in anonymously in the written feedback to the training.
While Rosenbaum’s report didn’t cite specific examples, it said that the feedback “from some officers was indicative of racism, ableism and white supremacy.”
“Didn’t cite specific examples”? It’s anonymous feedback. There’s no reason whatsoever to not cite specific examples.
“Some of these comments were pretty extreme,” Rosenbaum told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Prove it.
He noted that he didn’t know how widespread the problems might be, “but we do know there are people in the organization who hold these feelings.”
The bureau should make equity training a higher priority as one way to address these biases and provide the instruction in person instead of online, Rosenbaum told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
It sounds like the solution to the problem Rosenbaum identified is essentially to spend more money with his firm—which fits right in with the grift that is rampant in the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE) movement.
“I’m not a big fan of ‘let’s investigate who said what,’ ‘’ he said Monday. “I’m more into asking, ‘What are you doing to make sure you change the culture?’ It has to be a higher priority.”
Translation: Nobody said anything but please don’t hold me accountable for saying that they did.
[Police spokesman Lt. Nathan Sheppard said] Rosenbaum’s report didn’t say officers actually used racist language but that the anonymous comments were “indicative of” such language.
He argued that “indicative of” could “literally mean anything in today’s world where almost anything someone says can be offensive to someone else.”
That’s correct. Because Rosenbaum didn’t provide any specifics it’s hard to evaluate or correct anything. And I certainly wouldn’t worry about it based on his word alone.