Brian is a retired police lieutenant with 33 years experience, a long-time police trainer, and an author with a passion for "defending police officers against dangerous false narratives being perpetrated against them." These are the conversations that I get most excited and nervous about. This topic is so important and so emotionally charged, that I feel a burden to do it justice. My whole intent of this show is to try to learn from each other and maybe find ways to solve problems like racism, police brutality, and violence against police. As I listened back to this conversation with Brian there were times I was proud that we lived up to that aim, then there were a few times where I thought I pushed back against his views too much, and then there were other times where I thought I didn't push nearly enough. That is what makes these conversations so hard. 

Overall though, I was really grateful that Brian came on the show to talk about his value of "correcting misinformation about police." I started the show by trying to get a baseline on Brian's views, how he thought, and his beliefs on racism in policing today. I thought Brian was reasonable and genuine in explaining his points. And listen, to state the obvious: Brian is clearly pro-police given his background and therefore is very sensitive to the potential risks they face. At the same time though, it was apparent that he was trying to be open to acknowledging some of the issues with police today and that he may have his own biases and blind spots. 

One of the big themes of the show was the realization that some seemingly contradictory things were likely both true and our failure to acknowledge that leads to many issues. For example, it is possible that some police are heroic and deserve our praise for putting their lives on the line to protect us, but it is also true that some police are racist and deserve to be held accountable (and sometimes the same person falls into both). Or, it is true that some police officers would never deliberately go out to hunt down black men and terrorize them, but it is also true that those same police officers could be acting on some subconscious bias that leads them to judge black men differently than white men and ultimately results in their harm/death. Brian and I discussed all of these things in a good faith effort to try to be better. 

I understand that at the same time we have the luxury of having this conversation to try to get better, there are still people being killed, so the urgency is super high. That is why there is so much pressure to get these conversations right. But we can't let perfection be the enemy of progress. Hopefully we all continue to learn, grow, and love each other.