Why “A Few Bad Apples” is Both a Poor and Excellent Metaphor

Bruised apples release ethylene gas, which causes all the apples around it to rot — to stop the process you remove it and every apple near it

We as a country have accepted poor policing for far too long.

Don’t get me wrong, not all of us have. The black and brown people who are regularly oppressed by the police that are supposed to protect and serve them have been protesting for quite a while, in case you haven’t noticed.

My friend group, which is by and large fairly liberal, has been working with them to some degree. Several of my friends have been to protests. One got maced, beaten, and arrested for his trouble, and now walks with a cane. He said, having been set on fire at one point in his life, he’d rather be on fire again than maced again. He was working as a medic at the time.

Others of us do what we can to help our black brothers and sisters. We share news stories and memes. We debunk the garbage spewed by people on the right. We get into internet arguments with our boomer relatives. We do the emotional labor that our black and brown friends have been doing for too long, to help them focus on the work at hand.

What we are all fighting is police brutality. For too long, police officers have gotten a pass to disproportionately arrest, assault, and kill black people. For too long, they have been shielded by city officials, police unions, and qualified immunity, literally getting away with murder in the process.

Meanwhile, a support movement has sprung up to bolster the racist policing institutions — Blue Lives Matter.

You see their logo plastered everywhere: an American flag, all black and grey except for one blue stripe. These men and women protect America, and it’s un-American to protest them. Never mind that an organization steeped in institutional racism doesn’t protect everyone equally. Never mind that the blue lives that matter can take off their blue uniforms, while the black lives that don’t matter can’t take off their skins.

No, the supporters of the police wave their flags and spout nationalist drivel in support of the institution that keeps them safe while putting a knee on the necks of black and brown folks everywhere.

Cops, they say, are mostly good, honest, upright citizens. Who else would volunteer to put their lives on the line for others, run towards danger instead of away from it? The ones who kill unarmed black folks? They were either justified in their actions, or they’re just “a few bad apples.”

Let me take you back to a point in my life when I was right out of college. I promise that this will become relevant quickly.

It was 2009, the recession was in full swing, and I was working at a grocery store. I’d decided that I wanted to work for a nonprofit, but there weren’t any jobs for people with no experience. So, I volunteered to get that experience, while also putting in 35 hours a week in the Produce department.

Part of my job was loading up the coolers with all the fresh produce that came in every day. We were a busy store, so there was always stuff to lug out and put up. I would throw around 50-pound boxes of all sorts of things: potatoes, onions, and yes, apples.

I learned a valuable lesson while working in the produce section. The phrase “a few bad apples” gets thrown around a lot, but the full phrase is “a few bad apples spoil the bunch.”

You see, we would sometimes get in a case of apples where one had gone off. In every single case, the rotten apple had “infected” all the apples around it. This happens when a bruised apple releases ethylene gas, which hastens the rotting process of the apples near it. Thus, one rotting apple causes the apples near it to rot as well. Leave it for too long, and the whole bunch is rotten to the core.

To stop the process, you must remove the rotten apple and every apple near it. Depending on how far it’s progressed, you may have to get rid of a dozen apples or more, all because of one spoiled fruit. It is a painful but necessary step to prevent the loss of a whole box of apples. If the process goes on for too long, the whole thing is a loss, and you have to throw it all out.

Supporters of the police throw around the “few bad apples” thing as if to indicate that it’s only a few cops that are racist shitbags and the rest are upstanding citizens. The way they use the phrase is dead wrong, for the reasons I described above, but also ironically rather apt. In attempting to handwave the problem away, they are actually posing an excellent solution.

The cops that do racist things — pull over more black people than white people, plant drugs or guns in the cars of innocent black men, assault or murder unarmed black men and women — are endemic of a broader problem in policing. The institution is racist from top to bottom and needs to be reevaluated, but not all cops are inherently racist.

That’s why, when we find out that an officer is behaving badly, we must remove them from their jobs. Many otherwise good officers learn a poor lesson when a racist cop assaults a black man and gets defended by the union and acquitted by unjust laws. They learn that you can’t fight a racist system, so you either stay quiet or lean into it.

Racism begets racism. When a bad cop acts racist, you remove the bad cop so that cop doesn’t infect others. If that cop has infected others, you remove them too. It is an unfortunate but necessary step in preventing the spread of racism in the police force.

But, you might argue, if you do that, you may have to completely get rid of entire police forces! Where does it stop?!?

To that, I say good. If an entire police force is racist, you throw out the entire force and start from scratch. It stops when the cops stop being racist and start protecting and serving all citizens, as they should. You may lament the police losing their jobs and livelihoods, but you won’t catch me crying over racists.

We need to make racism wrong again. That means zero tolerance. Racists shouldn’t exist at all, but they do, and they need to be afraid. We need to make it clear that racism is not acceptable in society, and that anyone who tries to be racist will be dealt with swiftly and fully.

I will not accept racism in any form. Not draped in a flag, not hiding behind a badge, not carrying a cross, and definitely not sitting in the Oval Office.

So, when faced with racism, take the lesson from this humble former produce clerk. Get rid of the bad apples, and every apple they touched. Punish the racists. Show them that we as Americans do not accept their views, and drive them back to their holes to hide.

Give them no quarter and show them no mercy. They certainly won’t for you.