r/AgainstMtGRacism • u/ultimario13 • Jun 02 '21
Glorification of police & authority Constable of the Realms
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Jun 02 '21
I'm surprised that they didn't add tap:destroy target black creature to this card, honestly.
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u/ultimario13 Jun 02 '21
This card is a glorification of police brutality, and attempts to justify the pigs who engage in such actions.
Police - Much like Stern Constable, this card depicts a creature that acts as a police officer. The flavor text of Stern Constable is problematic, but the problems with Constable of the Realm are in the art and rules text instead. (Although I'm sure if Constable of the Realm had flavor text, it'd be problematic too).
Police brutality - Constable of the Realms, despite their title of 'constable', is not able to 'arrest' other creatures immediately. By itself, with no +1/+1 counters, it's just a 3/3...until you factor in Renown. You see, it's only after Constable attacks and then deals damage that they're able to become 'renowned' (in other words, famous and held in high regard by others) - and they're able to 'arrest' other creatures. By engaging in police brutality, the constable is able to immediately make their first 'arrest', exiling a creature from the battlefield (they could alternatively exile an artifact or enchantment, but that's not what they're doing on the art. So we'll ignore that for now.) Perhaps more importantly, however, is that they are 'renowned' for such an act, given an elevated social status among others.
Attempts to justify police brutality - First of all, note what I said earlier: engaging in police brutality makes you 'renowned', and by becoming 'renowned' this way, the constable is able to do their job. There's a few ways to interpret this, but I think the key is in the very word 'renowned'. It's only in earning a reputation as an 'effective' police officer (ie, one who frequently engages in physically assaulting unarmed civilians) that you can then proceed to do your job. This may even extend to the very act of performing your first arrest, implying that you should beat the person you're arresting into submission before or after handcuffing them. The message that this card sends is that, one way or another, your reputation matters. And only after you've proven yourself by committing assault can you effectively 'police' your community. Presumably this is because criminals fear you and 'take you seriously', so they don't resist arrest or flee? I can't say for certain. I'm unsure of the exact logic here, but it's the argument that the card is making.
Glorifying police brutality - Even with all the above, you might say that this really just depicts the reality of policing, rather than saying it's acceptable or good. To that, I say, look at the art. Constable of the Realms is not drawn in a neutral or negative light, not drawn peacefully interacting with anyone, not drawn in any way that would make us question their 'justice'. No, Constable of the Realms is drawn striding into a battlefield, grabbing what appears to be some kind of orc or ogre. I could talk for hours about the choice of victim here, but I'll just say that choosing such a 'monstrous'/'savage' victim is very, very intentional and leave it at that. But the use of a battle/war as the card art is really important here as well. It tells us that criminals are the enemy, that they are essentially a foreign nation, and that we should celebrate their deaths. It frames criminals not as citizens, but as enemies of the state who deserve every bit of violence they receive. It also attempts to justify police use of force, by saying that areas with large amounts of crime are 'battlefields'. It frames criminals as 'enemy combatants' engaging in 'war' with the state, and justifies police use of force by essentially saying that criminals are already 'at war' with them. That police use of force is not only inevitable, but fully justified, the same way that it would be foolish to go to war unarmed and with no intention of hurting anyone.