Abstract
The Harlem riots, social protests, and fight over civilian review left New Yorkers divided about how best to create a new social order. One of the few points of consensus in this otherwise fractured political culture was the benefit of hiring more African American and Puerto Rican men for patrol work. Advocates on the left and right agreed that minority men could be useful arbiters between an increasingly besieged department and an anxious public. Civil rights groups believed that cops who came from the ghetto and the barrio would be more responsive to the needs of minority communities. The recruits themselves viewed police work as an avenue of upward mobility, but worried that assignments to black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods restricted occupational opportunities. Minority recruits supported civil rights, but preferred assignments based on ability rather than color. African American recruits felt especially caught between two worlds, mistrusted by ghetto residents for joining the police, and spurned by their white peers for raising issues of police brutality. Both sides wanted to know, were they black, or were they blue?
That’s the feminine side to the job—not being afraid to say I can’t do it. Smiling the right way can get you in places men can’t. Use feminine traits to make the job work. Don’t say “you can’t ask me to do that because I’m equal.” That’s bullshit! We all come with different tools. And I think we should be willing to use them. Create an illusion. Use the femininity.
—Kathy Burke, Retired NYPD Detective, Interview with the Author, August 12, 1997
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Notes
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© 2013 Andrew T. Darien
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Darien, A.T. (2013). Ladies on Patrol. In: Becoming New York’s Finest. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137321947_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137321947_5
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