Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

We're talking today about policing in America.

My guest is Professor Rosa Burks of Georgetown University Law Center.

She is the author of How Everything Became War and the Military became Everything,

and most recently tangled up in blue, the American city recently issued in paperback.

Professor Brooks, thank you so much for joining me.

Hey, Nathan. Thank you for, thank you for having me.

Now, many people around this country become police officers every year. It's not an unusual profession to enter into,

but I think what our listeners and readers need to understand is that for you, for many reasons, it was an extremely unusual profession to enter into. This book is about your experience

becoming a reserve police officer

with Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. And yes, for you, a very odd thing to do,

so I've got to start by asking you, why on earth did you decide to become a police officer?

Oh, golly. Do you want the short answer, the long answer, the true answer, or the, or the lie?

Or all of the above?

Oh, my God.

The vast menu of options, I'd like the true one at a reasonable length.

Okay.

All right.

All right, then.

I'll do my best.

So I've always been interested in the relationship between law and violence.

It's something that I've worked on all kinds of different capacities over the course of my career,

...