Please don't make me

The Workers Party have organised a talk about the police at Victoria. They've called their talk Fuck the Police! and it's on the role of the police as capitalist law enforcers.

I don't know if the title was intended as a pun, or if they didn't think of the literal meaning of the word 'fuck' when they named the talk. But either way I find the title distressing. Every time I see it, I read it as an order. In most circumstances these sorts of double meanings don't matter. In my last post I didn't mean that Shakespeare was fucked by someone in the head, but if someone had got that image from my post that would have been fine. I don't think it's fine to advertise a talk that includes police rape cases with a title that can be read as an order to have sex with a police officer. Given how many women have been fucked by the police, the title is deeply insensitive.

I know the people organising the talk, and don't doubt their intentions. But I do sometimes wonder if some left-wing men see this as another opportunity to uncover the true nature of the police, in much the same way as they see the latest taser video. I agree that exposing the true nature of the police is a worthwhile goal. But I'm uncomfortable with ways of doing that leave the experiences of the abused women to one side. I don't think that the men in the workers party are any more prone to this than any other left-wing men. But I do think the lack of consideration that went into the title of this talk is probably a symptom of that wider problem.