The former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney just tweeted out Black Lives Matter while marching towards the White House. That’s where we are as a country. Now, is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Is it more performance? Just like seeing random brands tell you they stand in solidarity? Or has Black Lives Matter officially become mainstream and accepted?
In my mind, the Overton Window has shifted. The range of acceptable policy options for solving police brutality has changed from discussing chokehold bans to now seriously talking about defunding the police. Los Angeles plans to cut at least $100M from the LAPD budget, and the Minneapolis City Council just voted to dismantle its police department, and rebuild it with real community input.
Of course, these changes aren’t simply the result of a teenager blacking out their Instagram on a Tuesday, but mainly driven by protestors on the ground. But all the social media input, brand statements, and huge donor drives created the air cover to further boost and accelerate the protestor’s demands.
We literally have an ice cream brand calling out white supremacy. That’s how mainstream this conversation has become, and it’s a good step towards success.
Let’s Talk about Defunding the Police
What does defunding the police really mean? Here’s a shortlist of demands from Color of Change’s petition:
Decrease police department budgets.
Increase investment in education, healthcare, jobs, and housing for communities hardest hit by crime, police violence, and over-incarceration.
Increase funding for community-based solutions to crime and violence.
Police departments have increasingly been tasked with tackling low-level crimes from Eric Garner selling cigarettes to George Floyd using a counterfeit $20 bill. Many of these crimes stem from economic instability or mental health issues, yet we send armed men and women to arrest them. Rather than funding this reactive policing, we should be investing in local communities.
Let’s not use tax dollars to send surplus military equipment to local police departments. Use that money for non-law enforcement alternatives to tackling criminal activity.
And even within police departments, divert funding towards detective work and solving crimes. In 2018, the Minneapolis Police Department’s clearance rate (i.e. charged someone) for rape was just 22 percent. If you’re not solving the crimes, then you can be sure that the community won’t have much faith in your work.
What About Law Enforcement Reform?
Campaign Zero put out a list of immediate harm-reduction tactics that police departments could adopt to reduce brutality. While many of the reforms could help, it’s no guarantee.
San Francisco adopted all of the measures, but even Campaign Zero gives SFPD an F on its scorecard. You can ban chokeholds as they did in New York City, but that doesn’t necessarily stop a cop from using it. You could also adopt a majority of the measures like the Minneapolis Police Department did and still murder George Floyd.
While harm reduction measures could be helpful, a more powerful goal is to defund the police because that reduces the number of potential encounters for violence and brutality.
And Let’s Hold Police Accountable
You’ve likely seen this video of a police officer assaulting a 75-year old man, but what shocked me the most was the absolute institutional rot within the police unit. The Bulwark broke it down:
The act of pushing the old man down and not bothering to help him up
In the immediate aftermath, the other police officers detain witnesses and media for no discernible reason
The police department later issued a press release claiming the elderly man “tripped & fell”
I could probably go further with the 50+ cops resigning in protest after the original officer was suspended. Or the police union standing 100% behind the suspended officers. But you get the point.
In order to hold police departments accountable, you have to weaken the power police unions have over City Councils and District Attorney elections. Their campaign contributions can fuel the people who decide their budget and who decides to prosecute them or not.
Even the most basic reforms can be met with scorn and purposeful evasion by police unions. Consider this case from Chicago:
Unions can be so effective at defending their members that cops with a pattern of abuse can be left untouched, with fatal consequences. In Chicago, after the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke, it emerged that Mr. Van Dyke had been the subject of multiple complaints already. But a “code of silence” about misconduct was effectively “baked into” the labor agreements between police unions and the city, according to a report conducted by task force.
This is the challenge that local progressive activists will face. But the recent defunding successes in Los Angeles and Minneapolis show that it is possible and that we can shift the conversation and ultimately policy.
Signing off it’s Saad. And fuck you, Amy Cooper.
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