That's a very white comment. Security of various stripes exist on a spectrum of course, but denying their propensity to play pseudo cop and to engage in enforcement of racist and class based oppression is ignorant.
Yeah man, the people who follow poc around in shops or keep them out of places of business aren't part of a racist culture and pointing that out is the same as calling a barista a landlord. You sure are making a point.
A starbucks barista is expected to gatekeep who's allowed in their place of business too. Basically everyone in retail is working security as part of their job. They're all cops, right?
I'm not being a fucking debate bro, I'm making a serious point that you should be more mindful of who you're calling cops. The definition of cop you're using is completely pointless and paints TONS of our comrades as cops. It's fucking shitty behavior to just go around calling people cops for having a normal goddamn job in this capitalist hellscape. When I worked the front desk at a gym, my primary job was keeping out people who weren't supposed to be there. Does that make me a cop? Does it make you feel good to call your comrades cops for trying to make fucking money so we can fucking eat food?
When I worked the front desk at a gym, my primary job was keeping out people who weren't supposed to be there. Does that make me a cop?
Unless your company didn’t care about liability and had you physically barring people, your job was to call the cops lol.
Security guards are the ones responding to your call if they’re on site, and many are required to be physical if anything happens, although a lot of places will also have them just call cops if they’re unarmed. So being a security guard proper is closer to being a cop than you threatening to call the cops if some disruptive guy trespasses.
But to call anyone remotely involved with security or reporting a cop is pretty funny. The teenage cashier at Walmart is a cop because his manager tells him to check people’s receipts and report any theft lol.
I'm not going to debate the role "security" play in upholding racist and classist systems of oppression, no matter how much you want to excuse it. Find somewhere else
His point of security guards not being closely aligned with cops is pretty funny, but so is your point of anything involving security is oppression. But I’ll just assume your comment about it existing in a spectrum to mean some kid checking receipts is on the lower end of oppressing people
Of course it means that there is less and more egregious forms of policing people than others,what else could it possibly mean.
The guy who follows me around the store because of my skin color is not as bad as what armed private security can get up to, and the guy denying black and brown men entry into venues based on racism is closer to the first than the second, but in all cases security is doing policing of poc with either the explicit threat of violence or the implicit threat of summoning the police to do violence.
Edit: And equating this with calling cashiers cops is incredibly lame of you. Nowhere did I say any such yhing, and I explicitly rejected the idea when the other guy brought it up with baristas for being a stupid comparison.
And equating this with calling cashiers cops is incredibly lame of you. Nowhere did I say any such yhing, and I explicitly rejected the idea when the other guy brought it up with baristas for being a stupid comparison.
never said you equated them. I’m equating cashiers to cops. I work in cyber security and i consider myself a cyber cop lol. Cashiers and I essentially do the same job - check logs and report to the boss when someone prohibited gains access to something.
And I’m saying “cashier” broadly because in grocery stores they tend to rotate between several front end jobs that may or may not be cashier, but it’s easier to just say that than whatever custom position they have.
A security guard gets a special uniform, sometimes a badge, the authority to use force, and is the first point of contact in any emergency.
A barista is expected to tell a homeless guy he can’t use the bathroom without buying something then calling the cops when he pisses on the floor. Most jobs involving “reporting” and “gatekeeping” is this.
This is the important part, and no they fucking don't. Cops have the monopoly on violence. Security guards are not cops and do not have any special authority to use force that anyone else doesn't. The idea of a security guard arresting someone is made up movie bullshit
The guards at my supermarket have a Glock and 2 magazines lol. They stand in the front of the store so I don’t think they’re following people around or care about lost prevention. They appeared after some gang shootings and robberies happened nearby. Most private guards in my downtown are also armed with pistols unless they’re new in which case they have tasers or pepper spray.
But I’m not saying they’re arresting you or detaining you - you can only volunteer to be detained. But they do have the authority to use force because they always do. I haven’t seen a single guard who wasn’t hostile and checking people or trying some Paul Blart shit unless they’re completely unarmed or very old, in which case they’re just following people and whispering to some clerk about a guy potentially stealing a sausage.
They've got guns, but it would be mega illegal to use those guns in any situation that it wouldn't legal for you, the random shopper, to also whip out a gun and use it. Unlike a cop, who has the legal authority to use his guns in far more situations than you do.
Ok so what? Your argument is that they just have a cop-like uniform, cop-like mentality, and cop-like demand from reactionaries, but just because they’re only allowed to shoot a gun when “their life is threatened,” it makes them exactly the same as you?
They don’t get qualified immunity, but buddy you’re not wearing a badge and walking around with a utility belt with your gun hanging out. No one perceives you with authority and fear. You gate keeping the gym is not the same as you being paid to train to fight and kill someone for a client lol.
Enlighten me then. What do security guards armed with pistols or batons or tasers train on then? If I hired them to protect my store then why would I want someone who is incapable of killing a threat? I mean of course the description will say “disable” or “neutralize” the threat.
I have no idea, but the wannabe cops you're talking about are absolutely nothing like the average security guard. The average security guard is a pudgy, retired old person with bad knees who wanted a job where they basically don't have to work and would literally flee the scene if anything violent took place anywhere near them.
Yes and I’m assuming most people do not care about some old guy chasing you down for a candy bar.
The OP said security exists on a spectrum. The job is part power projection and part power execution. No different than a sailor whose job is to sail a destroyer around the world without firing an missile and a marine deployed in Afghanistan. We all serve and protect capital at the end of the day. Some of us more than others.
That's a very white comment. Security of various stripes exist on a spectrum of course, but denying their propensity to play pseudo cop and to engage in enforcement of racist and class based oppression is ignorant.
Anyone can play pseudo cop, nothing about the job of security requires that. Unlike, you know, being a cop.
But yeah fuck it whatever, starbucks baristas are landlords too. Just say whatever. Words don't mean anything.
Yeah man, the people who follow poc around in shops or keep them out of places of business aren't part of a racist culture and pointing that out is the same as calling a barista a landlord. You sure are making a point.
A starbucks barista is expected to gatekeep who's allowed in their place of business too. Basically everyone in retail is working security as part of their job. They're all cops, right?
I'm not being a fucking debate bro, I'm making a serious point that you should be more mindful of who you're calling cops. The definition of cop you're using is completely pointless and paints TONS of our comrades as cops. It's fucking shitty behavior to just go around calling people cops for having a normal goddamn job in this capitalist hellscape. When I worked the front desk at a gym, my primary job was keeping out people who weren't supposed to be there. Does that make me a cop? Does it make you feel good to call your comrades cops for trying to make fucking money so we can fucking eat food?
Unless your company didn’t care about liability and had you physically barring people, your job was to call the cops lol.
Security guards are the ones responding to your call if they’re on site, and many are required to be physical if anything happens, although a lot of places will also have them just call cops if they’re unarmed. So being a security guard proper is closer to being a cop than you threatening to call the cops if some disruptive guy trespasses.
But to call anyone remotely involved with security or reporting a cop is pretty funny. The teenage cashier at Walmart is a cop because his manager tells him to check people’s receipts and report any theft lol.
That is also the job of the vast majority of security guards who encounter something dangerous or illegal.
Yes I know
I'm not going to debate the role "security" play in upholding racist and classist systems of oppression, no matter how much you want to excuse it. Find somewhere else
His point of security guards not being closely aligned with cops is pretty funny, but so is your point of anything involving security is oppression. But I’ll just assume your comment about it existing in a spectrum to mean some kid checking receipts is on the lower end of oppressing people
Of course it means that there is less and more egregious forms of policing people than others,what else could it possibly mean. The guy who follows me around the store because of my skin color is not as bad as what armed private security can get up to, and the guy denying black and brown men entry into venues based on racism is closer to the first than the second, but in all cases security is doing policing of poc with either the explicit threat of violence or the implicit threat of summoning the police to do violence.
Edit: And equating this with calling cashiers cops is incredibly lame of you. Nowhere did I say any such yhing, and I explicitly rejected the idea when the other guy brought it up with baristas for being a stupid comparison.
never said you equated them. I’m equating cashiers to cops. I work in cyber security and i consider myself a cyber cop lol. Cashiers and I essentially do the same job - check logs and report to the boss when someone prohibited gains access to something.
And I’m saying “cashier” broadly because in grocery stores they tend to rotate between several front end jobs that may or may not be cashier, but it’s easier to just say that than whatever custom position they have.
A security guard gets a special uniform, sometimes a badge, the authority to use force, and is the first point of contact in any emergency.
A barista is expected to tell a homeless guy he can’t use the bathroom without buying something then calling the cops when he pisses on the floor. Most jobs involving “reporting” and “gatekeeping” is this.
This is the important part, and no they fucking don't. Cops have the monopoly on violence. Security guards are not cops and do not have any special authority to use force that anyone else doesn't. The idea of a security guard arresting someone is made up movie bullshit
The guards at my supermarket have a Glock and 2 magazines lol. They stand in the front of the store so I don’t think they’re following people around or care about lost prevention. They appeared after some gang shootings and robberies happened nearby. Most private guards in my downtown are also armed with pistols unless they’re new in which case they have tasers or pepper spray.
But I’m not saying they’re arresting you or detaining you - you can only volunteer to be detained. But they do have the authority to use force because they always do. I haven’t seen a single guard who wasn’t hostile and checking people or trying some Paul Blart shit unless they’re completely unarmed or very old, in which case they’re just following people and whispering to some clerk about a guy potentially stealing a sausage.
They've got guns, but it would be mega illegal to use those guns in any situation that it wouldn't legal for you, the random shopper, to also whip out a gun and use it. Unlike a cop, who has the legal authority to use his guns in far more situations than you do.
Ok so what? Your argument is that they just have a cop-like uniform, cop-like mentality, and cop-like demand from reactionaries, but just because they’re only allowed to shoot a gun when “their life is threatened,” it makes them exactly the same as you?
They don’t get qualified immunity, but buddy you’re not wearing a badge and walking around with a utility belt with your gun hanging out. No one perceives you with authority and fear. You gate keeping the gym is not the same as you being paid to train to fight and kill someone for a client lol.
You have some very strange ideas about what security guards do
Enlighten me then. What do security guards armed with pistols or batons or tasers train on then? If I hired them to protect my store then why would I want someone who is incapable of killing a threat? I mean of course the description will say “disable” or “neutralize” the threat.
I have no idea, but the wannabe cops you're talking about are absolutely nothing like the average security guard. The average security guard is a pudgy, retired old person with bad knees who wanted a job where they basically don't have to work and would literally flee the scene if anything violent took place anywhere near them.
Yes and I’m assuming most people do not care about some old guy chasing you down for a candy bar.
The OP said security exists on a spectrum. The job is part power projection and part power execution. No different than a sailor whose job is to sail a destroyer around the world without firing an missile and a marine deployed in Afghanistan. We all serve and protect capital at the end of the day. Some of us more than others.