Where are your fathers?

Anecdote alert:

Con permiso, if you can stand it, in-between K and 1st grade I was sitting there minding my own biz wax when my Father said, "I want to talk to you two boys alone." And I was all "Goodie!" Because I love special attention like that. He became very serious and said he took a phone call from some person in town. We lived in a small town in Pennslyvania at the time, amusing to me now, named Duchshore. Exactly like Mayberry except not Southern. Laugh at the name if you like, I won an art contest there first prize in the whole town for painting a Halloween scene on a window. 

The caller said he observed my older brother, Barry, pick up an apple from an outside display. I pictured the display in my mind. I knew what he was talking about. The town seemed far from where we lived, but it was probably around the corner, within walking distance. The caller said he observed Barry think about stealing it, and then set the apple back down. He did not steal the apple. But it looked like he was going to.

For that moral instinct my father ceremoniously awarded my glorious older brother, Barry, a dollar. And not just a regular dollar, a big heavy metal silver dollar. And I got nuth'n. 

Except Barry's lesson and reward by observation. Moral tautology by osmosis. Second-hand. Like the shirt. So thanks for that, you two. I guess. 

But at the time I was sitting there thinking with my paucity of vocabulary and pathetic means of streaming thought, 

"Shit. This hardly bends the arc of the moral universe toward justice in my direction, now does it?" 

But in child-like more innocent words. Actually, I recall thinking, wow, you got a dollar!

Scene two. 

Bait Car on t.v. They go to minority neighborhoods and create a tempting situation with a tricked out vehicle that can be lock down remotely. Put on your most cartoonish Mexican accent to read this: "Oh man, you guys don't even play cops and robbers no fair no more." That was amusing to the arresting officer because the crook was being honest and direct in his self-awareness. 

The episode I saw depicted one young black man after another, three in a row. Inside the car they are recorded talking to themselves about the situation they are entering and doing. When arrested they all feign innocence and offer an explanation in contrast to the recording. When presented with the recording and their story collapses in each case there is a moment where the dynamic changes, the arresting officer becomes parental. All three exchanges track with transactional analysis, the dialogue becomes Parent-child. 

"You took something that does not belong to you." 

A sentence so simple it cannot be misunderstood. That is the thing a parent says to a child when they are very young. Their heads drop as if hearing it for the first time, or remembering something distant. 

The cop's attitude then seemed to be, well, let's use this bait car and go do us some parenting. 

The young man says, "This is entrapment." 

And it is!

The cop says, "No. Entrapment is where I say, "Hey, there's a car over there, it's probably a great idea to steal that car." Did anybody say, "Hey, go steal that car?""

Glumly, "No." 

There is acting when presenting the false story. We observe their behavior when they are acting. They are not good actors. They had no sense of being observed in the car, they do, of course, when arrested, at that point the camera is overt. I honestly got the sense these men, all three, were actually hearing this type parenting for the first time because that look of a young child hearing the words come from his father is Oscar material compared to the story they give to the officer when first arrested. Maybe not. But it made me sad to think it.