I think the Bucks have an opportunity to make a difference that most people don't. I think they recognize that opportunity and view it as a responsibility. Plenty of people around me feel that same responsibility and don't have the influence to make a difference. Those same peers are pushing anyone and everyone to take on that responsibility. The Bucks' actions are in line with that viewpoint and, per the Bucks' statement, the direction they propose is in line with your second paragraph, imo. I think it's unfair to tell the Bucks to shut up. Why should anyone shut up if they're offering up constructive political viewpoints?
Also, it doesn't matter if the police job is hard. So stipulated. I've said the same thing over and over. But that's not the end of the story. Of course it's a tough job. That's why so many revere it. But it comes with a responsibility (also the tough part). Many of us, maybe especially the police, have a thankless job. Today, the police don't view it that way. They demand thanks and attack anyone who questions what they provide. It's entirely fair to acknowledge what a tough job they have and also to demand accountability and responsibility from that job.
Also (x2), I've said the same things here about not knowing exactly what happened with Jacob Blake. Maybe it's from my legal training, but I'm typically not comfortable weighing in on a topic when I'm not that well-informed. But parsing Jacob Blake's scenario and diminishing the outcry that follows negates the reasonable rejection of endless examples of police misconduct that continue to go unaddressed. When a handful of officers face accountability (and frankly, that's an outlier scenario), that's not fixing the problem. That just gets chalked up to "a few bad apples" and nothing further changes. Some of the specifics of the outcry might be misguided and misinformed. I get that. But the outcry writ large is pretty much spot on, in my estimation. Knocking down the outcry when it's right at a high level even if they miss the mark on some of the specifics seems unproductive to me (maybe it doesn't matter, but it will likely come across the same as "all lives matter").
Briefly as to the specifics of Jacob Blake, we don't know a lot. Maybe if the facts were "just right" (from a police perspective), you might think, yeah, it's a hard job and tough to know how I would have handled it. E.g., if Blake were the reason they were there, he was actively and physically challenging them, he was tased, the taser hit and even though activated properly Blake was unaffected and thus maybe under the influence of some powerful drug that made him a greater threat, he was crazy enough to ignore the weapons pointed at him and that in and of itself was pretty telling, he told the police he was going to his car to secure a weapon, he leaned into the car with the possible perception of doing just that, and they fired on him, maybe some people can think the "it's a tough job" line. But that's a whole lot of ifs and the police absolutely haven't earned the benefit of the doubt on assuming any of that. Most importantly, though, they still wouldn't have had to shoot him. There were other options available. That might mean they weren't horrible racists, but instead dangerous incompetents. But that's pretty much were we land even on a good day for the police in this case. Hardly the stuff to knock down the outcry of the well-known and obvious flaws of our criminal justice patterns that continue to go unremedied.
