In the last week, I've gone from hearing "abolish police" and thinking that's vague and unactionable to learning justice &community safety are *incompatible* with the police.
So if the notion of defunding the police is also unintuitive to you/yours, maybe this thread will help.
So if the notion of defunding the police is also unintuitive to you/yours, maybe this thread will help.
As a preface, it's completely my privilege that I didn't have to really think about this tangibly before. And these aren't my ideas (I'll pepper links in here as I can). This is just the throughline of my thinking over the last few days.
To be overt, this info isn't for marginalized people who don't have any choice to know this because it's their everyday existence. Nor is it for any activists who already know this. For y'all, you are an example to us all and I hope you stay safe out there.
But if you hear "abolish the police" or "defund the police" and have a immediate reaction of "there's no way that could be possible" / "why not just reform?" or if you have friends, family, colleagues, etc that do, maybe this will help.
To start, really think about this- if your house is on fire, the fire dept shows up. If you fall off a ladder, EMTs show up. FOR LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, someone with a gun shows up. Think about how absolutely fucking deranged that is.
And in communities of colour especially, the end result of that is violence, intimidation and trauma perpetrated by the police
essence.com/amp/feature/de…
essence.com/amp/feature/de…
There's a quip that 90% of the time, police are tasked with being a "social worker with a gun."
Or more even precisely, "the police are violence workers"
Or more even precisely, "the police are violence workers"
What communities need to be safe are specialized services that are trained and equipped to deal with specific problems, not a single organization that deals with nearly all problems, especially when that organization is as corrupt and dangerous as it has proven to be.
Policing, as a concept, is fundamentally flawed and unjust. Even if cops were only the most competent, moral individuals (and it could not be more clear that absolutely is not the case), it wouldn't matter, because the SYSTEMS of policing are by their very definition unworkable.
Abolish/defund doesn't mean just delete the police and leaving a void, it means replacing it with better services THAT ACTUALLY IMPROVE LIVES
That could look like all manner of different things, but christ, isn't this so much better to imagine than someone in body armour carrying an M4?
Why not "reform?" Because the amount and degree of reform needed would make the police indistinguishable from what they are today, which the same thing as abolition. Incremental reform doesn't work and the evidence for that is legion.
Policing as a system is fundamentally broken and unjust and cannot be reformed into something better, no more than you can "reform" a Honda Civic into a spaceship. If it were to change that much, it's no longer than same thing and in that case, you should just built something new
In defunding/abolishing police, does that suddenly mean no murders go investigated? Of course not. There can still be homicide detectives. There can still be arson investigations. Specialist organizations THAT ARE GOOD AT THEIR JOBS, not a monolithic and corrupt pseudo-military.
Honestly, there probably needs to be even MORE investigative resources put toward the crimes that actually materially impact people's lives negatively, like wage theft-
No one has ever heard, "Wow, the police really went overboard gathering evidence on that fraud case which wiped the life savings of 20 families."
The police (and then government) ignored flagrant money laundering in British Columbia for YEARS.
The police (and then government) ignored flagrant money laundering in British Columbia for YEARS.
And honestly, in the world we live in, there will still be moments (albeit far more rare that usually imagined) where there is a clear and immediate violent danger to life and state use of force is the only option to save lives, e.g. the monstrous recent tragedy in Portapique, NS
But even in those rare instances, the response should be from a specific organization of the most highly trained individuals with tremendous oversight and accountability. What we have right now could not be further from this.
Again, this isn't for ppl who already get this. But for straight white people like me who probably haven't been menaced by cops, but fully understood that brutality + discrimination by police was very real and didn't get why reform is bad and abolition is needed, maybe this helps
Or if you talk to family, friends, colleagues, ELECTED LEADERS who don't get why the entire thing is rotten and needs to be pulled up, maybe this is a start toward helping them refine their understanding. WE can do that work, it shouldn't be on those victimized by police to do it
And try to meet people where they are. This is a pretty radical and unintuitive notion for some, but when you break it down, it actually follows pretty clearly. Even the more reluctant can hear the sense in arguments like this:
Yeah, there will be some % of people that are just legit boot-licking piss-babies that aren't worth your time or energy, but on some vector or another, more people are actually quite amenable to this since, as the last week demonstrates, the police are bad.
There's a lot more to learn about this, and Alex Vitale's The End of Policing is a good place to start by all accounts - npr.org/books/titles/8…
Do the work, talk to those around you and be open to changing your understand as you learn, because that's growing and is excellent.
Do the work, talk to those around you and be open to changing your understand as you learn, because that's growing and is excellent.
Something different is possible. Something better, something just is possible. But it only works if enough people loudly demand it and do not stop demanding it. And that work should especially be on hetero white people and not only BIPOC who are already facing injustice by police
Black lives matter.
Indigenous lives matter.
DEMILITARIZE. DEFUND. REPLACE.
Until this happens, there can be no justice and no peace.
Indigenous lives matter.
DEMILITARIZE. DEFUND. REPLACE.
Until this happens, there can be no justice and no peace.
