Disclaimer: Not mine.

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I'll never understand why our gloves are white. Sure, I've come up with ideas, theories as to why they chose white, although they are probably far from the truth. There is the traditional idea that white gloves just look good, so clean and they really bring the uniform together. That's probably why they chose it, but then there are the more... sentimental, I suppose you could say, ideas.

For instance, one might say we have white gloves to show we are clean. We are good. Despite the dirt and crap we touch all day, we're clean. Our minds, our bodies, everything about us is clean. And if a dirty cop is found, well, they just take away his white gloves and there you have it. He actually touches the crap with his bare hands, that's why he's dirty. We've got gloves that keep us clean because we're clean to begin with.

Or, you've got the idea, the theory, that we wear white gloves so the dirt shows. So everyone knows we're cops. So everyone knows what we deal with. Of course, that doesn't make a scrap of difference anyway, as it seems people hate us just the same as if they didn't know that we touched crap all day. The gloves are white when you get them, but by the time you retire, or die, whichever comes first, they're black. From the dirt, the crap that we deal with all the time. We wear the white gloves so people can see our dirt, they can see us. We're not just zombies with guns. We're the line of defense between them and the people we lock up. We're the last thing to separate them, to protect them. They don't realize it until it's too late, but they know. They know, deep down inside, that we are protection. We touch the dirt so they can wash their hands of it.

Maybe I do understand why we wear white gloves after all.