While I’ve always been against the militarization of U.S. police forces, and in favor of more transparency, accountability and civilian oversight, I have to confess that I’ve never taken calls to “defund the police” very seriously. When, in the past, I’ve heard people say that we should abolish the police, I’ve thought that they were being naive. And, while I still think that to some extent, I’ve come around considerably over the course of the past decade, to the point where I now think that, yes, our ultimate goal should be to live in a world where officers of the law, at least as we know them today, are no longer existent. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable aspiration to work toward.
I should preface this conversation by saying that my interactions with the Ypsilanti police department have, over all, been relatively positive. Over the past few years, I can think of two specific encounters that I’ve had, and, in both cases, I’ve found the officers I dealt with to be thoughtful and well-intentioned. I’ve never talked about it here, but we had a mid-day home invasion not terribly long ago. My daughter was home alone at the time, and called the police. The man was arrested inside our home without incident, and my daughter, thankfully, was unharmed. The police, in my estimation, did their jobs well. I arrived just after the arrest to find the man unharmed, and my daughter speaking with two female officers who were both reassuring and kind. I could imagine, in another instance, with a young teenage girl calling from a closet to say that a man had smashed a window and let himself in, the police might have been inclined to respond with maximum force, and, thankfully, that was not the case. The man in question was an older man with a long history of drug addiction and non-violent property theft, and he was taken without incident. In the second instance, I was fortunate to have heard a scuffle while working in my yard, and intervened to stop a man from choking a woman on the sidewalk in front of my house. [The George Floyd case brought this instance rushing back to me, as the older woman being attacked, like Floyd, called out for her mother while being choked.] Luckily, I had a shovel in my hand, and the man took off without a fight. The police, when they responded to our call, were kind to the woman, who appeared to perhaps have a substance abuse problem, and genuinely seemed to care about her well-being, offering assistance and directing her toward other community resources. This, I suppose, could have been because I — a white, middle-aged, male homeowner — was standing there next to her, advocating on her behalf, but I was impressed by how the officers engaged. This isn’t to say that we don’t have a police problem here — I can still remember the David Ware killing — but only to suggest that, yes, I’m painfully aware of the fact that there are instances, such as home invasions and attempted murders, where law enforcement officers are, and will continue to be, very necessary. That isn’t to say, however, that there may not be opportunities for us to start the process of rethinking policing in America.
I should further say that this revelation — that I support #DefundThePolice in theory — didn’t just come to me because of the recent murders and subsequent protests. It’s a path that I’ve been on for quite a while. I can remember, for instance, a conversation I had about four years ago with prison reform advocate Shaka Senghor, in which he pointed to our national recidivism rate of approximately 75%, and asked if we’d accept that rate of failure from any other institution. Of course, we wouldn’t. And I think that probably holds true for the entire prison industrial complex, right down to the cops on the beat who feed the prison pipeline. The system isn’t working, and we shouldn’t just accept it. And we should probably begin asking ourselves, “If we’ve spent all of this money on policing, and it hasn’t given us the kind of world that we want, why shouldn’t we try something different… maybe investing more in pre-K and social services, and less on urban assault vehicles and military hardware.” [If police departments really want those things, maybe they could do what school systems do, and have a bake sale.]
I should also add that I’ve resisted getting behind the “defund the police” movement up until now for a few reasons. Most notably, there doesn’t seem to be any consensus as to what “defund the police” actually means. Maybe that’s by design, but it doesn’t sit well with me. Some, like Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, say the phrase means “invest in the resources that our communities need,” which I can totally get behind. And others, like the folks who made this next graphic, apparently take it to mean that we should move with incredible speed toward abolishing law enforcement in America altogether. I can totally understand why, as someone pointed out here in the comments section earlier today, you’d start the negotiations by calling for the total abolition of police, and go from there, but I don’t feel as though right now, five months out from the most important election in our lifetimes, is the right time for the Democrats to embrace an “abolish the police” platform, even if it might be the best negotiation tactic. I just think there’s too much at stake right now to risk another four years with an increasingly unstable, divisive and authoritarian Donald Trump in control. And I agree with former Bill Clinton advisor Douglas Schoen when he says that talk right now of disbanding law enforcement plays “right into the hands of President Trump and will increase his chances to win the election this year.” [Our first objective, I think, has to be getting Trump and Barr out of power, and I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize that.]
I should add that people, of course, have the right to demand whatever they like. I don’t want to tell anyone what they should and shouldn’t fight for. I very much understand that a significant number of Americans really, sincerely believe — and with good reason — that they would be safer if not for the existence of police officers. It’s easy for me to sit here and talk strategy, saying that a campaign to abolish the police will never move forward as long as we have an authoritarian racist like Donald Trump in the White House, and that people should focus instead on getting him out of office, but I don’t know what’s it’s like to live in constant fear of my son being pulled over by the police. And I can certainly appreciate why some would prioritize this fight over the one against Donald Trump. I don’t, however, see myself actively championing the #DefundThePolice movement right now, even though I accept the idea in principle, for the reasons articulated above… The statement is too broad. And it plays too much into Donald Trump’s “law and order” narrative.
Speaking of Donald Trump’s “law and order” narrative, he just tweeted out the following.
This, by the way, is all that Donald Trump has to run on. He’s losing support among white suburban women, the elderly, and evangelicals, and the only thing that will change his electoral prospects at this point is an appeal to fear that resonates with white America. And we cannot help him make that case. We can’t allow him to define this movement by drawing our attention to those few who are smashing windows and demanding the abolishment of law enforcement.
With all of that said, and campaign slogans aside, yes, by all means, let’s start cutting. Let’s encourage every community to impanel a citizen review board, and conduct an analysis of every 911 call made, thinking creatively about how, under a different paradigm, those requests for assistance could be met by unarmed professionals trained in things like conflict resolution, dealing with the mentally ill, addiction counseling, etc. Let’s look at everything the police do, and think creatively about how each discrete task could be handled differently.
And, again, I like the vision of a cop-less future. I just think that it would be helpful to present it in a way that a larger coalition of people could rally behind. I’m reminded of a campaign that Shaka Senghor, whom I mentioned earlier in this post, was involved with a few years ago called #cut50. Their vision wasn’t to abolish every prison in America, but to cut America’s prison population by half in something like 12 years. And I could see something like that working here — a well articulated plan to incentivize communities to demilitarize and shrink their police forces over a certain number of years, pushing them to think creatively about the work that could be done by unarmed public service workers, and putting a system in place to share best practices that arise from these experiments.
And this, by the way, is already beginning to happen to some extent. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio just pledged to cut the NYPD’s $6 billion annual budget, and use the funds for social services. In Minneapolis, a majority of people on City Council have indicated a commitment to “strategically reallocate resources, funding, and responsibility away from police and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention. And, in Los Angeles, there’s a proposal to cut the LAPD’s budget by $150M. Here, with more on that, is an excerpt from an editorial in today’s LA Times.
City Council President Nury Martinez and her colleagues proposed reducing the LAPD budget by as much as $150 million — a cut of up to 8% — in the coming fiscal year. Garcetti agreed to redirect $250 million from the Police Department and other city programs to pay for jobs for youths, health initiatives and “peace centers” to heal trauma in the black community.
It’s hard to tell if L.A. leaders consider this a one-time cut to the police budget to answer protesters or the beginning of a larger rethinking of the mission and scope of the LAPD.
…But it’s also clear that the decades-long effort to remake the LAPD has come at a steep price. The Police Department consumes more than half of the city’s “unrestricted funds,” which are tax revenues, fees and fines that can be spent however city leaders wish. Protecting Police Department funding now would require heavier cuts in services and programs that could be used address the root causes of crime, including poverty, joblessness and lack of opportunity.
The LAPD budget has grown 58% over the last decade even as crime has fallen dramatically. The homicide rate in 2019 was the lowest since 1962. In January, Chief Michel Moore declared this was “one of the safest times in Los Angeles.”
To activists and budget hawks, that’s all the more reason to cut spending on the LAPD and reset the mission. They argue that the department is too big, too militaristic and too ever-present in communities of color. Residents in those neighborhoods are more likely to be stopped by police, which puts them at a greater risk of a citation, an arrest or a deadly confrontation. In a “People’s Budget” offered earlier this year, advocates with Black Lives Matter and other grass-roots groups called for a 90% cut in LAPD funding, with the money redirected to housing, health, transportation and community services.
That’s extreme, but the groups are right to challenge the status quo. The city relies too much on the Police Department. Officers direct traffic. They check fares on Metro subways. They’re sent to do welfare checks on the homeless and people experiencing a mental health episode. Do we need law enforcement officers doing those jobs? Or could the work be better done by civilian specialists?
And that’s pretty much where I stand on this. We can, and must, do better as a society. We have an obligation to consider new alternatives to the current paradigm, in which an increasingly militarized police infrastructure presides over us like an occupying force. And this shift does not have to be scary. It can be positive. And, if done right, it can actually lessen crime. It does not mean, as Tucker Carlson says here, that black people will be coming after white Americans as police officers step aside. It does not mean an end of law and order. It just means that we’re going to approach the fact that we’ve got a clearly broken system like fucking adults and create something that serves our communities better.
“This may be a lot of things, this moment we are living through, but it is definitely not about black lives and remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will."@TuckerCarlson said black people are coming for you.
That just happened.pic.twitter.com/ATwYiwpOoh
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) June 9, 2020
85 Comments
There’s too many Dems that have already voiced support for defunding the police to take it back now. And you won’t fool anyone by waiting to talk about it until after the election. Suburban women will not vote to put their families in harms way. By trying to be the big tent party that embraces every crazy faction of our society you have lost the support of regular hard-working people who wouldn’t consider a life of crime and just want the chance of living a quiet, peaceful life.
Demilitarize the cops. Stop using them as class warfare soldiers. And we clearly need more cops policing narcissistic white collar criminals.
Here’s good documentation of cops coordinating with fascist during protests, like the allies they are.
https://itsgoingdown.org/this-week-in-fascism-63-police-and-far-right-make-common-cause-in-midst-of-rebellion/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
The Clear Differences Between the Left and the Right
https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/the-clear-differences-between-the-left-and-the-right_3381183.html
Actually EOS it seems that the white suburban women I know are some off the most disturbed by our current situation.
It’s hard to explain to your children why the officer has his knee on that mans neck. Why the officer killed him.
And you ignore the plight of many Black people who just want to live a quiet peaceful life but are targeted and discriminated against because of the color of their skin.
If you want to take the moniker Sad from me I wouldn’t mind.
You seem a lot worse off than I am.
Aloha, crime in general and violent crime specifically has been in decline for decades now. Those who study our changing crime statistics predicted these declines based on the aging US population. Despite violent crime falling, the “war on drugs”ensured a steady infusion of new inductees into the “criminal justice system”. As the popular movement de-criminalizes more and more actives, the need to have heavily armed para-militaries imposing order will decrease. Neighborhood policing models make much more sense than the current model, and most honest law enforcement professionals know it.
Aloha EOS, it is interesting how pagan asian religions finance right wing media publications in the US. First it was the false messiah Sun Young Moon establishing the Washington Times and now it is Fulang Gong and the Epoch Times. About as far right is your believes that you can go.
Sad,
And you seem to ignore the plight of many black people who have worked hard to achieve what they have and are in no way supportive of the elimination of or reduction in police. They played by the rules and took advantage of the many paths to success available to them. Many of the businesses that were destroyed by the “peaceful protests” were owned by these honest, hard-working Americans.
EOS you seem to ignore the voices that are rising up and the people marching in the street.
But that’s your right.
Time will tell.
EOS, I just heard a woman on the radio who is black and a 1%-er describe that when she leaves her house, she is profiled and in fear constantly. She’s a successful wealthy person that’s achieved everything one is ‘supposed to’ in our society, yet she get’s followed by security in stores and stopped by police for no reason. I think you’d be hard pressed to find very many black people that are not in favor of reducing police. Regarding black owned businesses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_xj_Z7mxZs
This is a great topic to consider so thanks for writing about it. I’m wondering what it will take to get you (as in anyone sympathetic to the idea of defunding the police) to fully commit to the idea of police abolition and actively start working to make it reality? I think now is the time to take a clear stance on this-yes or no-just like the protestors in Minneapolis asked of their mayor. When he said he couldn’t commit to the idea he was booed and took a long walk of shame out of the protest.
We can advocate for police abolition and not get trump elected, I think. Saying “this isn’t the right time because of A, B or C” is a little insulting. It is the position of MLK’s despised white moderate. Police abolition has been written about quite a bit so the info is out there. I’m seeing a lot of excuses about why this isn’t s good idea right now…just hold on a few more years, let’s change the slogan etc. it is tinkering which, again only serves to impede the idea of police abolition.
There is likely a response to many concerns about police abolition and a refutation of previous attempts at reform in this book (which is free):
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2817-the-end-of-policing
So defund the police-yes or no?
Abolish police and replace them with military when everything goes to hell. Military must obey orders or be imprisoned. Forced vaccination, quarantine, martial law…What’s not to like?
Max,
Your YouTube video is exactly right. The woman says she owns “nothing” so why the F doesn’t she burn it all down. Why does she own nothing at her age? It’s not because of systemic racism – that’s just her excuse.
I see a large number of middle class blacks in 48197/48198 that have good jobs with great benefits, and own nice homes. They have access to the nation’s best healthcare. They are college educated and are sending their children to college. In our community, anyone who needs it has access to free education (pre k -12), free food, and free healthcare. Still many fail to take advantage of the opportunities. And some blame it all on police and racism. A person can make the wrong choices all through life and then they are envious of people who have more and feel they can take whatever they want.
Those of us who have worked and struggled our whole lives to overcome obstacles in order to reach our goals appreciate the police that help protect our lives and property.
EOS:
“Those of us who have worked and struggled our whole lives to overcome obstacles in order to reach our goals appreciate the police that help protect our lives and property.”
Equating your struggle with those of black people is where I think you’re struggling here. There is a system in this country based in inequality and the police enforce that inequality. Police historically exist to protect white peoples’ lives and property from black people. I am not saying police need to be abolished. Quite frankly, defunding police as a concept never crossed my mind until I saw a few teenagers walking past my house holding signs with the slogan a few days ago. I do know that police are tasked with way more than they should be and some of the funding they receive should be spent on organizations focusing on those things they shouldn’t have to respond to – mental health, drug addiction, animal control, etc.
Max,
Why do the signs say “Defund Police” if what is really needed is to increase spending on mental health, drug addiction, animal control, etc? The signs don’t say defund recycling, bike paths, public golf courses or boat launches. Why don’t we agree to defund non-essentials to help increase funding in more essential areas. Defunding police helps criminals at the expense of the law abiding.
Nobody knows the extent of another individual’s struggle. To assume all whites have it easy and all blacks struggle is racism.
EOS:
I explained what the police are used for. Boat launches and golf courses don’t spread fear and terror and kneel on the backs of black peoples’ necks till they die. Boat launches and golf courses don’t receive training to be aggressive and don’t spend money on paramilitary equipment. The concept of reverse-racism is a fallacy. By being part of the race that controls the unequal system, you cannot experience racism. You might be able to experience prejudice, but the power of the system will always, always be on your side.
Aloha EOS, the reason we say “Defund Police” is because people you elected have defunded every other social saftey net. You believe there is communism in this country for the poor–what an idiotic believe.
In most of the world normal “policing” duties are performed by an unarmed constabulary. The use of “deadly” force is almost unheard of in most of the civilized world. It is only in countries like our own, where a substantial portion of the population is identified as being “other” and as a consequence the “police” have a duty to keep them in their “place” do we see police killing unarmed citizens.
I think REPLACE POLICE is my favorite way to encapsulate defund, abolish, and reroute the money.
Max,
Many people work and struggle to overcome obstacles that have nothing to do with racism. No one said anything about reverse discrimination. The power of the system has never been on my side. Your stereotypes are getting in the way of accurate analysis.
Good day, EOS.
From Bridget Eileen (Rivera) @travelingNun
Do you or somebody you know think that #AbolishThePolice is unrealistic? It might be because you haven’t taken the time to understand what it means, the reasons for it, and why it actually makes a lot of sense.
Abolishing the police isn’t about establishing some kind of free-for-all anarchy where everybody polices themselves and you just hope that nobody decides to police themselves into robbing you or killing you.
Abolishing the police is about the end of policing *as we know it.* It’s about recognizing that the role policing plays in our society is not a role that it should have ever been given or that we should allow it to continue to have.
It’s about recognizing that we have taken almost every single one of our country’s most pressing social issues and handed them over to the police to fix with guns and handcuffs and charges and prison.
Our cities face a housing crisis. So instead of figuring out a way to provide affordable housing, which seriously shouldn’t be that complicated for the richest country in the world to figure out, we criminalize homelessness and send in the police to make arrests.
Drugs are destroying people’s lives in this country. So instead of providing access to treatment and recovery support and helping people escape addiction, we criminalize and send the police. Unless they’re white… in that case, they need treatment and recovery.
Our public education system is failing communities of color and students in poverty. So instead of funding schools better, paying teachers more, and reducing classroom size, we send the police to patrol public school entryways and hallways and funnel kids into juvie.
We live in a country where millions of *hard working* people don’t make a living wage and thus resort to desperate measures to feed their families. But instead of addressing rampant wealth inequalities and fixing the issues that cause them, we send the police.
We live in a country where 1 mistake could get you branded as a felon & permanently relegated to an underclass where you can’t find work, can’t vote, & where police control every aspect of your life & if you mess up even once by, say, forgetting to “call in” you go back to jail.
Abolishing the police is about recognizing that if we took away from the police every single public issue that they should have never been given to fix in the first place, the police would literally have nothing to do because we’ve turned them into “social workers” with guns.
It’s about recognizing that *we don’t know* what a healthy police force looks like because we can’t imagine a world where we actually take care of our social ills instead of policing them.
It’s about recognizing that we’ve used the police as a cover for rampant racial and economic inequalities that our country is unwilling to fix and that the ones who have paid the price for this most dearly are black people, whose communities are policed into oblivion.
It’s about recognizing that policing in this country as we know it must end because it’s wrong and unjust and untenable in a free society. It’s about recognizing that this country needs to stop hiding behind the police and finally take action to fix our social ills.
It’s not about establishing some kind of unrealistic utopia where everybody just magically gets along. A just and free society will still have people who break the law, who kill, who steal.
But police in that society will be SO different from everything that we assume needs to be true about police today that we might not even recognize them as “police” because our concept of policing is so twisted and wrong and messed up.
Abolishing the police is about recognizing that every single effort at police reform has only ever resulted in reinventing the same oppressions all over again. It’s about recognizing that maybe we just need to start over with a clean slate.
And finally, abolishing the police is NOT about hating cops. Any police officer whose taken time to honestly & critically reflect upon his own frustrations with his own job *knows* that this country expects police to be social workers with guns and *that this is wrong.*
You don’t have to agree with #AbolishThePolice but at least give it enough respect to understand what it means. And if you do support abolishing the police, educate yourself on why this is reasonable and what that could look like so you can represent the movement well.
I’d suggest starting with this book by Alex Vitale, The End of Policing. It’s worth a read.
Bridget Eileen
@travelingNun
I brought this possibility up weeks ago. Quite a coincidence. If you don’t think something could be fucky with this whole saga I can’t help you.
CBS Evening News
@CBSEveningNews
In Minneapolis, new details are emerging about a history of friction between George Floyd and former officer Derek Chauvin.
One former nightclub coworker tells CBS News the two men “bumped heads.”
@jeffpeguescbs
has more
https://cbsn.ws/2AQxnBw
703.8K views
0:14 / 2:13
6:40 PM · Jun 9, 2020
“No one said anything about reverse discrimination. The power of the system has never been on my side. ”
— EOS sounds so much like a racist. If I were FF, I’d just call EOS a liar.
El Nuevo Rodeo, where Chauvin and Floyd worked together was burned by arsonists during a riot. The building appears to have been sold in recent months. All of this should arouse no suspicion at all. Go back to sleep now.
https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/mn/minneapolis/2709-e-lake-st/pid_28063737/
Today’s Detroit Free Press headline sums it up nicely.
“ Defund the police? When a bad hashtag imperils a good idea”
Aloha HW, from what you are saying it seems that Chauvin should be charged with pre-meditated murder and his accomplices as well. The buying and selling of property is what makes Americans great, seeing making money as “suspicious” seems extremely un-MAGA of you. You are slipping HW, first it was spreading WHO lies, now you are out here undermining the MAGA way, next thing you know you will be saying bad things about the Leader, Get with the program, your as bad as EOS getting sucked into liberalism.
Oshkosh is almost to 400 confirmed cases of the Trump virus–300 in just 3 weeks. I expect their will be a doubling of the deaths after the weekend when they start taking the dead ones off of life support–MAGA
Aloha, another good reason to seriously evaluate other policing models
https://nypost.com/2020/06/09/police-slashed-tires-of-cars-parked-near-minneapolis-protests/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR3Ypox5LQrm7NiPp9vqW3hfx1ArJTUgMuNjdEYUnOo01vl6iAfQIEpLfM8
You better hope the club was not a front for illegal activities. If it was a HIT then obviously it is murder in the first degree.
The capitol hill autonomous zone has some good data for you to mull over. Sounds like they have a budding warlord of their own named Raz Simone. Within two days they put up a border, established police and began stopping and frisking!
Another difference between the left and right is that while the right talks about the issues, the left hurls derogatory labels against the person presenting the facts, while ignoring the facts themselves.
Wobblie,
Supporting a safety net for those who are truly needy is compassionate conservatism, not communism or liberalism.
“The left hurls derogatory labels”
This is super rich coming from the party of Donald Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Donald_Trump
Save it, EOS. You’re a joke.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-derek-chauvin-nightclub-bumped-heads-changes-story/
Oops! Mistaken identity. About as observant as HW
If he had such a close relationship with George how did he mix him up with someone else? Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?
“She specifically said she was unable to give detail information about George because she did not have a close relationship with him as I did,” Pinney said in the email. He said that led to his mistake.
About as observant as HW.
Observant enough to know things like Floyd and Chauvin working together weeks before you do plus you only find out because of me!
Aloha, try to shoot his daughter in the head and then kill him when he try’s to defend her–MAGA
https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article243405831.html
I don’t know about the rest of you but I think EOS is demonstrating quite well the difference between the left and the right although certainly not in the way they think.
I doNt care what fucking hashtag they use, we need dramatic police reform 30 years ago.
Calls to defund the military or the oil companies were not taken so ducking literally. Why is it in this instance?
Many countries have low crime rates and unarmed police. Many countries have social service agencies and rehabilitative facilities dealing with the issues we throw on the prison system. It’s beyond private prisons now. We need to throw it all out. It’s expensive and doesn’t work. We need to undo the damage Nixon policies started and Reagan expanded and all GOP leaders after Reagan perpetuated.
Yes defund the police. Get over it white america.
Here’s a good primer. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/john-oliver-explains-defund-the-police-and-why-it-doesnt-mean-no-police-2020-06-08
Here’s a much more detailed history of the modern prison and police abolition movement and its godmother. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html?smid=fb-share
Here is a group in Brooklyn already doing diversion work into a therapeutic setting.
https://www.commonjustice.org/#
Action steps to take now:
1) A2 Police Union Contract is up for renewal June 15. Demand renegotiation.
2)The ICPOC have their own set of demands.
3)So does BLM.
4) follow groups like Police Watch A2 to keep abreast of actions.
5) vote for Eli Savit for Washtenaw county prosecutor. He is by far the most progressive on police reform. I think it would be cool if Mark interviewEd he and Arianne Slay also a prosecutor candidate. Forget the other guy.
In lieu of reparations could we just excuse Black people under a certain income threshold from paying taxes?
You wouldn’t have to have enslaved relatives, you just need to be black to suffer economic oppression and struggle under the legacy of Intergenerational poverty.
Let’s be clear, this is not a stimulus (though it may function like one) or a give away (though it may look like one), it’s reparations. It is a small attempt to overcome the impact of generations of structural and cultural racism in this country.
No I don’t care about fraud and if you support UBI then neither should you.
I just realized is that the much-anticipated Trump perp walk is likely to be the military escorting him from the White House on Inauguration Day. If not before. I’ll take it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLnJ3-gp-MI&feature=youtu.be&linkId=90631849&fbclid=IwAR21mq6rCp0JowFfCXN-F47Knrn1Butdmhmt03sCjWjeOWHTV3AlSQnR3WM
While reframing ‘Defund the Police’ to be more palatable to anxious white liberals may seem like the right move to gain acceptance, BLM and other Black activists have specifically asked White liberals not to riff on their slogans.
I know because I just said Disarm the Police and was told they have different language for that. Demilitarize Our Communities.
So. hey! let’s all stop rebranding black movements for freedom from oppression. And their communities. And their music etc etc. honor the source. Honor the mission to rebalance power.
Good discussion and background on Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police. (Putting Trevor Noah on blast while doing the household chores has proven a winner move tonight)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVW2eaCyC5c
Aloha, first the Leader decides to have a rally on Juneteenth Day in Tulsa, and then schedules his acceptance speech in Jacksonville on “Ax Handle Saturday”.
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/ax-handle-saturday-a-dark-day-in-jacksonville-history-occurred-56-years-ago/309628839
Glad to hear other voices here who support the movement to Defund the Police.
Further expansion on the MLK white moderate point:
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/black-lives-matter-blm-protests-george-floyd
I love the part about negative peace being the absence of tension and positive peace being the presence of justice.
“…Of course, the resistance to reevaluating that policy is real — and it will persist with the help of “moderate” allies who express rhetorical sympathy for the goals, but who inevitably serve as the Tone Police. They will rail against the proponents of change and whose foremost priority is not justice but is instead what Dr King called an “obnoxious negative peace.”
In his letter’s passage about the “white moderate,” King described the appeaser who is “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.’”
King lauded protesters as “the creators of tension,” saying:
[We] bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
The protests today are doing exactly that: they are using provocative language to deliberately — and rightly — create tension and force ugly truths out into the open.
Nobody knows if “Defund the Police” is a perfect motto. Nobody knows if the protesters’ rhetoric will ultimately succeed or fail. Nobody knows the electoral implications of any of the slogans that might emerge.
What we do know is that those who actually want things to change are not the folks priggishly berating the language of protest amid a paroxysm of police violence. The pedants doing that are the “moderates” who pop up in every chapter of history — the naysayers who always try to undermine the righteous cause.
They are the Tone Police standing in the way of progress.
They should be ignored.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/national-guard-protests-309932
Even the National Guard is torn about their deployment.
Decades ago, there was a nationwide movement to reform the way we handled mental health. In general, it focused on closing down large institutions (that, admittedly, were little more than warehouses intended to keep people suffering mental illness out of sight, out of mind), and releasing patients into communities, where – it was thought – they would receive comprehensive outpatient care.
In reality, what happened is that many of the nation’s large psychiatric institutions closed (and their patients released) – but the corresponding increase in funding for community-based, outpatient care never materialized. Tens of thousands of people suffering with mental illness were released into communities that were not prepared (or funded) to care for them. The impacts of that terrible decision continue today, as a significant portion of homeless people, and prisoners, are actually people suffering from untreated or under-treated mental health and/or substance abuse issues.
If “Defund the Police” REALLY means shifting a significant amount of law enforcement resources to address mental health and substance abuse issues, then great … let’s do it. Let’s have fewer, better-trained police available to prevent and solve real crimes … and also more funding for mental health and drug treatment professionals, social workers, and other resources (like treatment centers) available to deal with these issues.
Instead, my fear is that many politicians will see this moment as an opportunity to cut police funding (and shift public tax dollars to other pet projects) without a corresponding significant and meaningful increases in funding for other needed services. If that happens, we’ll just end up with fewer police trying to deal with serious crime – while still having to deal with myriad personal, family, and social issues that would be better handled by trained professionals.
Defund police? Is this just a slight spin on the Purge movies? Does Deep State and the Progressive Left need more than one day a year to kill off all targeted individuals? They’ve already shown how easy it is to kill the elderly by putting COVID patients in nursing homes. Next step is to energize criminals who will exercise no restraint in their frenzied crime sprees. The wealthy will hire their security experts and private police forces while economically disadvantaged communities will be obliterated. Is that the goal?
Defund the Police means different things to different people.
Social workers in the existing system are a better substitute but none I know would say that systemic racism isn’t also embedded in that bureaucracy, not too mention gross underfunding that won’t be solved by sliding police funding over. Modern day abolitionists absolutely want the police system to be dismantled and another rehabilitative and restorative one put in its place. They want prisons as configured now to go too.
EOS’ belief that the police keep all people safe is clearly untrue. Some people feel safer with police. Other groups on innocent people fear the police and will not call them or cooperate with them for good reason (not guilt).
We should be careful not to say what defund the police means, especially as white people putting words and meanings in Black activists’ mouths that are not there.
Neither Bernie nor Biden support defunding.
Those guys are both chumps.
Here’s an academic perspective on the slogan by former local BLM activist Austin McCoy.
EOS is off their rocker.
Black lives matter. Especially to Planned Parenthood. There are more Black babies aborted in New York City than are born each year.
https://youtu.be/pLuNy8qfK9Q
EOS, I am sure that is linked to poverty. I suppose a benefit of reparations would hopefully be more black women in an economic position to choose to have a baby.
EOS believes she would be protecting Black bodies by denying Black women autonomy over theirs.
If Black women want to have abortions, let them. No one is forcing them.
You, EOS, would force them into servitude to their unwanted children, whether just via unwanted pregnancy to term or for their whole lives. Thank God for abortions. Thank God for Planned Parenthood.
An abortion ban would be yet another example of the State exerting undue authority over the rights of its citizens with disproportionate impact on Black and Brown people.
Poverty doesn’t cause women to kill their offspring. It’s a narcissistic person who chooses to do so. It’s a sociopathic personality that considers only themselves and not the harm they might cause to others. It’s caused by selfishness and distorted moral values.
That’s 25% of women whom you are calling narcissistic, EOS.
You have no idea how many other people any woman may be considering when choosing abortion. Who is hurt by abortion? There’s no pain for that clump of cells you call a person.
It’s narcissistic to believe that you get to impose your religious moral code on people who don’t share it.
Abortions are great. Abortions are good. Every woman should try one. First step to freedom from caring about what people like EOS think.
For those insisting the statement “Defund the Police” is something less than fully sincere, this is a good read.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html
What up, Chaz?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV6wk5N05eY
Chaz is an innovator.
Chaz might be a genius.
It was the natural unfolding of the wedding crasher idea that resulted into using grieving women at funerals for sex. It’s only going to get worse for you guys.
Jean being the point person and interpreter of the movement is LOL hilarious. You guys are so fucked. Hahahaha
Dominoes pizza delivery.
#Quiznos
#Columbos
#dialectical
(My god you people are dumb and/or cowardly.)
#Quiznos&Columbos&Dominos
#complicit
#silenceisviolence
Watching you guys get re-educated by reality is going to be a beautiful thing.
FF you are just as obnoxious but I appreciate your limiting your use of words.
Kudos
Thanks for the compliment Sad.
I am just glad we have a local blog for the revolutionary landlord sect.
Is it new for me to talk about issues of white supremacy and structural racism in this forum full of crackers?
I’m not speaking over anyone and I’m amplifying voices of Black activists with different takes than the white leftists to arch conservatives gathering people here.
Here’s another for iRobert. Love and education aren’t the answer.
https://theundefeated.com/features/ibram-kendi-leading-scholar-of-racism-says-education-and-love-are-not-the-answer/?ex_cid=story-facebook
I think that it is those who would deny a woman the right to choose abortion are the ones who are selfish and are operating with some pretty disgusting morals. It is not about life for one thing so the idea that such terrible people, whose sole aim is to deny women rights to their own bodies, would call themselves “pro-life” shows how very dishonest such people are. Women die when abortions are illegal but since they aren’t really interested in saving lives but only in controlling women, they are ok with that. They also like to lie about how things like poverty influence a woman’s decision because they are too selfish to want to address those issues. They also don’t want to give women other options. The anti-abortion people are selfish control freaks.
Thanks for that, Jean.
Good luck with everything. We’ll compare notes later.
Cracker? You are the one that thinks you have the run of the plantation. You represent the people Q talks about who want the people divided.
June 13 2020 15:10:58 (EST)
YOUR VOICE MATTERS.
YOUR VOTE MATTERS.
Everything you see today is an attempt to eliminate that.
To remain silent _living in fear [controlled] is to remain powerless.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/powerless
A Moment In Time.
History has taught us that People Will Rise [Judgement [Revolution] Day] against the Rulers.
From Pharaohs to Kings to Elected Officials.
A rigged system of control and corruption [evil].
[on the backs of people]
Modern day slavery.
People Will Rise Again.
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Q
HW– Sounds like Q is on board with Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA.
Rhetoric like that makes zero sense in support of a promo-fascist president with totalitarian tendencies. It shows how hollow political rhetoric can be. It can be applied to any belief. So people always think politicians agree with them.
Only talk about policy and strategy exposes the differences among leaders and candidates.
Reality does not matter.Slogans and narratives are what really matter. Jean told me.
bot
BLM and antifa represent the ones who want to see all of us fall; the real fascists. You making some wack-ass claim means nothing.
How could the President be totalitarian when he didn’t interfere with the states’ severe crackdown on basic constitutional freedoms? Whitmer a totalitarian: I can see that. Trump? How?! His basic attitude is “let the states decide.”
IRobert should check out the NYTimes bestseller list.
Maybe I’m not so ‘off my rocker’ as he thought.
https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/
Jean, people being interested in the issue of race doesn’t validate your specific views.
Would a person on their rocker need that said?
If the best sellers were all on the topic of organized crime, it wouldn’t be validation of my particular views regarding organized crime.
I’m just enough on my rocker to understand that.
“Bozo the clown show” is no longer played on Saturdays, WWJ channel 4. I guess Jean really is not a clown in Southeast Michigan.
We understand that there is literature from which your non-sense is derived. We have read a lot of it. Duh.
JH, I love it that people are reading those particular books! It is about time.
iRobert– did you notice that among the bestsellers were books I had recommended to you?
I know white straight dudes hate being fucking wrong, but, well, that’s kind of the problem isn’t it?
Please note iRobert, that on the subject of race, FF feels free to use the royal ‘we’ in reference to your alignment with him.
That can’t feel good.
“We” includes you Jean. We have mostly all read similar crap, Jean. Your belief that you are somehow ahead of the curve on discussions around racism makes me laugh. Sorry. You lack capacity to think critically, imo. Plus, you have a bigot brain so how much could really understand anyway?
These are just my opinions.
Aloha, I have not read a one. But I am part of the great illiterati that is the vox populi.
Huh!
https://m.startribune.com/at-urging-of-police-hennepin-emts-subdued-dozens-with-powerful-sedative/485607381/
By ANDY MANNIX , STAR TRIBUNE
June 15, 2018 – 12:16 PM
Hennepin County medical responders sedate people using the powerful tranquilizer ketamine, at times over the protests of those being drugged, and in some cases when no apparent crime was committed, a city report shows.
On multiple occasions, in the presence of police, Hennepin Healthcare EMS workers injected suspects of crimes and others who already appeared to be restrained, according to the report, and the ketamine caused heart or breathing failure, requiring them to be medically revived. Several people given ketamine had to be intubated.