13.1 Resistance to Power

In chapter 9, p. 266, Cheney et al. they write about resistance and how it is used to stand up to power and control. Earlier in the week (Friday, November 21, 2008) I told you about Chief Johnson of the Palo Alto Police Department. She made comments at a news conference weeks earlier and was chastised by community groups and the NAACP for casting the directives given to officers as 'racial-profiling'. She later apologized and then apologized again. But the demonstrations and public outcry for her removal was too strong. Their (community) show a resistance to the authority of the chief. The book describes resistance as an "identifiable counter-pressure to the locus of power or control." She resigned as chief on Friday.