There is a lot more victim-blaming and submission to authority here at TPM than I would have expected. There were many opportunities in both recent incidents for the police to de-escalate the situation and in both cases the police chose instead to draw weapons. “Just do what they tell you” is not an appropriate response to that if we want a civil society, and it reeks of privilege. It feeds into the idea that police have absolute authority over their fellow citizens, with no responsibility to exercise judgment or treat those they encounter with respect.
Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes to mean “treating someone like an authority”
For some, “if you don’t respect me, I won’t respect you” means “if you don’t treat me like an authority, I won’t treat you like a person” (Twitter @math_rachel)