Let me rant about the San Francisco Police “party” videotape. If you haven’t been following he story, a video recently surfaced which was made by members of the SFPD supposedly for a party. In it were scenes rampant with racism and the objectification of women. People are all up in arms. The mayor is screaming for an investigation and the chief is looking into charges.

Give me a break!

This is a simple example of gallows humor. These are people who, day in and day out, deal with the all the problems in society the rest of us would like to forget even exists. These police offices put their lives on the line on a regular basis. They are in the midst of the worst mankind can be and are fighting to keep all that at bay. They see things that would make a regular person spend the rest of their lives in a padded room.

To keep themselves from ending up in that same padded room they have to vent. Thus comes gallows humor. I do it in my job; I can make some of the most hateful of senior citizen jokes after dealing with a problem customer. Does that mean I hate the elderly? No. My mother worked in the Special Education Department of Rhode Island College and would regularly come home with the nastiest and funniest joke about any number of mental and physical defects. Did that mean she had any less compassion for them? No. The same goes for these police officers.

Nurses probably have some wonderful jokes about their patients. These are the same patients whose butts they have to wipe. Don’t you think they deserve to balance work like that with a little levity? The person on the other end of the phone at your credit card company probably has a whole battery of jokes about you after you hang up the phone. They just listened to you rant and rave about how you know you sent in your payment before the deadline but they still responded courteously and professionally. Don’t you think they deserve to balance work like that with a little levity?

When I worked in the police department I did the same thing. When I worked in radio I made fun of the listeners with other jocks. When I worked for the local newspaper I made fun of the readers. Every profession is fertile ground for satire. It in no way diminishes those who do the work; it just makes the tedium or nastiness of the job easier to deal with.

One of the clips which is getting the most exposure is a SFPD officer running over a homeless person with their police cruiser. I’m sorry; it’s funny. Get over it.