Pigs are often referred to as such because of their conspicuous presence in our society, which fortunately takes place for the most part in unproblematic circumstances behind the scenes (and I think even people who call pigs pigs recognize that the vast majority are honorable civil servants), although it is also clear that police brutality is rampant; racist police violence is a common horror; and police officers (pigs) are permitted legally and professionally to commit acts of violence, and not infrequently murder. If, in your daily life, some person gets up in your face and intimidates you, it is almost certain that said person is a cop, and they can and will do so with impunity. So the suspicion and trepidation with which people often experience the presence of police is not unusual nor is it ungrounded. The harmless epithet, “pig,” as a reference to the police is not by any social standards considered offensive (probably not even by pigs) and, nay, the utterance of the word “pig” is often accompanied with a cathartic release. In other words, the use of the term “pig” as a reference to the police is a social good. It is an emblem of our solidarity in the face of injustice (even if most pigs are cool).
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