Discrimination of any kind is unacceptable. The marchers are right to call for police reform and the end of racism. But I believe their shouted slogans quixotic fulfillment minimal. Speakers should be careful with their demands.

Can you imagine the impact of defunding or disbanding the police? Nurses are volunteers and schooled to cure. Firemen are volunteers and trained to fight fire. Both praised for their service. Police are volunteers and taught to deal with criminals, to protect property and life not to act as healers of society’s ills. They are often abused, spat on, shot and rarely praised or thanked. How often do you march in support of police? Some officers are excellent, most adequate, some abusive and some should be imprisoned — a mirror of the general population. Quality? You get what you pay for. Weeding is the best one can do just as you would with nurses who kill their patients or firemen who set fires.

Disband police? Who are you going to call if your child is kidnapped, your car stolen, your shop vandalized or life threatened by someone outside your community? And how can you be sure that the un-police figure chosen from within your faction will be any more or less sensitive, moral, or competent than the officer recently discarded? Do you hope to have security-social workers who mirror each racial community? Take a census of each territory and select personnel with the same configuration? (And isn’t that itself against current law?)

And who is going to construct the district and its borders? Gated communities? Only we and those like us are allowed to enter?  Or, and here is the real danger, are you going insist that each community be uniform – ghettoized: made up solely of similar racial types?

And why limit by race? How about sorting by religion, politics, sexual orientation or other real or imagined taxonomies? Are you going to call 911 and insist they send a respondent who is a warm-hearted LGBT-Hispanic-Muslim for help?

Oh, you say its hyperbole. They don’t really mean it. Do you recall labor leaders calling for destruction and acting surprised when buildings burned and people shot. Do you recall SDS’s call for anarchy and overthrow and acting surprised by universities trashed and buildings bombed. Words have consequences. Be careful what you ask for.

I accept the theory and history of tribalism in human affairs — that we naturally adhere to like mixing with like and the exclusion of the ‘others’. It was a survival technique in our evolutionary history. Even today, we tend to gravitate to those similar to us and exclude, even shamefully demonize, those who aren’t. In school we form cliques, in college we have fraternities/sororities, as adults we have unions, clubs and other exclusivities all based on real or perceived symmetries.

The goal is, or should be, toleration: To persuade our society to embrace variety and expand its circle of inclusiveness. That is the myth of our national ideal and a policy we should encourage. Yet almost all of our early colonial settlements were founded by groupings that denied membership to others — nonconformists were asked to leave. America’s history is riddled with examples of denial of membership to the America dream: enslaved Africans, immigrant Irish, Italians, Poles, Asians, Hispanics, Arabs.  And sometimes membership was and is withheld by government leaders.

Some demonstrate for revolution; some for peace; some for reform. In 80 years I’ve observed many demonstrations involving anti-war, labor, SDS, women, gay, black, hispanic — with marginal change. Do you recall the teens’ recent impassioned pilgrimage for gun-control? Yet all we see are more and more frightening open displays of military weapons by civilians. Discouraging? You Bet!

So I do not expect marching will improve much. It would be nice if we had error-free police and inclusive neighborhoods. As a nation, we may do better than most, but until we provide better parental modeling, educational, economic, and social opportunities so that mixing takes place naturally, improvement will wax and wane. Sadly, we will still have citizens who yell “return to your country;” bullies who torment the ‘different;’ organizations demanding “purity.”

So, yes. March! Demand change! Raise your fists! Wave your flags and signs! Examine your own internal beliefs and behavior. Study. Participate. But remember, we are a faceted nation with genetic distinctions, contrary wishes, with varied urges and backgrounds all loudly demanding often conflicting change. March, but keep your expectations low.

Hubbard C. Goodrich is a Harpswell resident.

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