Believe it or not, the reality of the situation in Cambridge is not race-based. It is about a personal sense of being disrespect and the response to them. This is the teachable moment. Race obscures the reality of the dynamics of the situation that happens in the US every day e.g. forced acceptance of authoritarian demands made by some individuals in public safety. Hypervigilance is defined as abnormally increased arousal, responsiveness to stimuli, and scanning of the environment for threats. Too many public safety employees come into situations primed to respond and reacting to individual responses in a negative way.
Perhaps the training we should be giving our public safety officials is sensitivity to and management of their own physiological state while being in the midst of an emotionally charged situation.
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