I’m having a WTF moment.
If my roof is leaking, I don’t abandon my home. I fix the leaking roof.
There are systemic problems with police in certain populations and geographical areas which desperately need to be addressed. But radical action of dismantling an police force for all of society is sheer madness.
Rich communities would immediately hire a private police force to keep them safe. Poor communities would suffer deeply.
So much for liberal ideals of achieving a more just society.
Too late to edit but:
You think there are issue with police brutality against minorities now? Imagine a private police force accountable only to the gated communities that pay its wages.
For what it’s worth, Portland has started sending
I think the program has just started, but I can’t imagine sending people with more training dealing with people mental illness on those calls will have a negative effect.
And yes, I think something like “Replace the Police” is a much better slogan than defund
Sometimes, you pay someone to rip the whole roof off and put in all new sheathing, tar paper, and shingles.
It just depends on how deep the damage is.
If that is what you want, I guess so. I would prefer other options.
I’m not pushing the idea, I am pointing out that the situatin is actually at the point where the people who are under the “protection” of the police have been told “Take it or Leave it” over and over again, and they are finally saying, “Fine, I’ll fucking leave it.”
You do realize that to much of the populace, that the police really are just one of the lawless gangs roaming the streets, right?
Okay, so your roof is leaking.
You say, “Hey honey, we need to fix the roof.” Your significant other ignores you entirely. During a TV program, you briefly kneel in front of the screen, trying to get their attention to ask to work on getting the roof fixed. They yell at you to move, then they ignore you. Before dinner, you block the door to the kitchen, and say, “Hey before we sit down to eat, we really need to talk about the roof.” They get mad at you for inconveniencing them, and then ignore you once you move out of the way.
Finally, you say, “I’m moving out!”
They reply, “So much for your ideals of fixing the roof.”
Rich communities already have a private police force to keep them safe, it’s called the police force.
I do not agree that poor communities would suffer more at the hands of a community lead neighborhood watch than they do at the hands of the police.
These are just the various pieces of evidence we can and should use to conclude that there’s a serious problem with the way black Americans are treated by law enforcement.
Would the private police force be protected by laws that prevent bystanders from stopping the private police force if they were kneeling on a guy’s neck until the guy died?
The difference is that the color of one’s skin makes a difference as to the perception of economic status as well.
As some comedian once said, “If you see a white man wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, you assume that his 3 piece suit is at home in the closet. A black man actually has to wear his suit.”
I walked into a bank wearing a t-shirt with holes in it, a open button flannel, and jeans held up by a blue nylon dog lead rather than a belt. I walked out with nearly 100k in loans.
I accept my white privilege, and know that I couldn’t have gotten away with that had my skin tone been much darker than it is.
So, yes, it is a class struggle, which is exacerbated by the perceived wealth of others based on visual appearance.
That you choose to only listen to what you want to hear, and refuse to hear the things that conflict with what you want to believe doesn’t actually make your last statement any more accurate as to the nature of reality, nor the argument being put forth by those who would like to see less police brutality.
Are you saying that the police would be brutal to the minorities living within the gate communities, or that the private police force would be policing areas outside of that gated community?
If the former, then I doubt it. If you are in a gated community, color of skin isn’t as important as fatness of wallet.
If the latter, then whatever it is that keeps off duty cops from being brutal to people outside their jurisdiction right now. I’d assume that just because you are a cop doesn’t mean that you can just go out and start beating up people that aren’t even within your PD’s area of influence?
I don’t know why you were so aggressive with you last sentence. I agree with almost everything you said.
There is definitely an economic “crossover” point where a white person will not be harassed by the police where a black person would. I don’t dispute that. It is pretty apparent that happens.
But you kill two birds with one stone when you say to treat poor and lower middle class people the same as upper class people. Everyone–black AND white. To hear the BLM protesters you would think that the police bring white soccer moms dropping their kids off at school cups of Starbucks in the morning before they go out and crack some black skulls.
I simply don’t see the need to have a racial divide here even while admitting that vestiges of racism cause blacks at a certain socioeconomic level to suffer more than whites. Reform the police and get rid of all of that injustice.
I’m not directing this at you personally, but I think that white middle class people who live in the America they recognize have a hard time believing that police are as bad as they say it is. What black people are saying is that it really is that damn bad, and that if you can’t see that after looking at the videos of George Floyd, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, and Philando Castle, then you’re never going to see it, and it’s a waste of time trying to convince you.
Never forget that there are different Americas. America’s policed differently. It receives different justice in the courts. There are different economies. People who live just a few city blocks apart can have radically different health outcomes.
Fire departments and ambulances will not go to areas where they cannot rely on safety offered by a municipal or state police department.
Is this just an emotional response or have you really thought through all the consequences of what you are advocating?
For sure. But the answer is not to burn it all down. The answer is to fix what is broken. I don’t know why people insist that dismantling the police force is the most effective way to fix it.
It was in reply to your last sentence:
"But then they go fuck it up by only talking about one race and then asking to abolish all police. "
Which assumes things are true that we have gone to great pains at this point to assure you are not.
I’m not sure what the disagreement is. I say treat everyone well.
Unless someone is posing a threat to public safety, then there is no reason to offer violence.
It really is that simple.
If cops can’t do that, then I agree, we are better off without cops. Communities can in fact police their own, if they are not being interfered with by the “authorities”. It would not be the ideal situation, but I cannot see how it would be worse than the current one.
The only ones making it into a racial divide are the ones who keep insisting that there must be a racial divide. I’m not sure what the reason for that is.
BLM does include white victims of police brutality when it protests. Does ALM include black victims when it has a protest? sounds like the ones making it about race are the ones that keep saying, “What about white people?”
I am having a rational response, and acknowledging the emotional response of those who live with the “policing” that they get.
watch this, and tell me what she has wrong. Spoiled for NSF language.
You tell me how we rebuild the social contract. How do we build the trust in the community?
Once again, they have been told time and time again that there will be no changes, no reforms. They have been told that they can take the policing that they get, or that they will not have any police to protect them. What other position can you take?
Personally, I love the police. They treat me well, I have several as my clients. I even have a couple K9 officers that come in for a bath once in a while. But I am of a geographic and demographic cohort that is protected by the police, not bound.
I ran the same stop sign 3 times in a month, and got pulled over by the same cop every time. I thanked them for watching out for us, and complained with them about people that accelerated through the intersection (I just did a “California roll”, as she called it). She told me to be careful and have a good night.
If everyone’s interactions with police were like that, then we’d have no problem.
Not everyone’s interaction with police is like that.
We have had countless “reforms”, and we still are where we are.
We need something more than meaningless platitudes that they will do better.
The police need to be entirely rebuilt from the ground up, from the principles of “protect and serve.”
We cannot just take the one we have, and try to “fix” it. Sometimes, it’s just too broken for that.
The slogan “black lives matter” talks about a single race. They advocate, as do you, abolishing the police.
What part of that is untrue?
You are taking a huge leap there. You are assuming that because some or even many cops treat black people poorly that the only possible solution is to abandon all law and order.
That would be an absolute travesty. Roving gangs and anarchy on the streets of the United States. Law abiding citizens afraid to leave their homes. It’s like killing a fly with a nuclear weapon.
If BLM includes white victims of police brutality then its name needs changed. It’s misleading. It makes me somehow think that its goal does not include whites when it specifically mentions only blacks.
Honestly, I’d say the reason to burn it all down is that the police don’t think anything is broken at all. They are the people committing the violence we want stopped, and they think the violence is completely justified. Not just the ‘bad apples’ but huge swaths of the LEO community think that these deaths and beatings, and tasings are just what ‘needs’ to be done to police the people who live in this country.
How do you fix the fact that an entire 57 member squad of a police department thinks it was good and correct to put an old man in the hospital because he didn’t move when told to? That squad and more officers came out to cheer the officers who shoved the guy down and busted his skull. How do you fix that?
That you have chosen to take the slogan that way is on you, not on them.
And yes, they do wish for the police to stop with the brutality, and have come to the conclusion that they cannot do so in the current law enforcement structure.
You are taking quite the leap here, and assuming that abolishing the police means abandoning law and order
That sounds like a pretty good description of the current situation.
I disagree with both your diminishment of the problem, as well as your hyperbole of the proposed solution.
Yeah, and that’s because you have chosen to take that interpretation, and no amount of explanation will swing you from the position that you have chosen to take.
Tell you what, you start up All Lives Matter, and you go out and you start protesting against police brutality of all people, and then you can ask BLM to join with you. As it is they are the only ones out there willing to take a stand against police brutality, and all you do is to try to tear them down.
All I am saying is that if I started a group that advocated the end of police brutality, for blacks as well as whites, I would pick a different name than “Black Lives Matter” because the implication, even if untrue, is that they are only concerned with black lives and not white lives. Seems pretty straight forward to me.
If I started a “Shetland Sheepdog Rescue Association” would you think it outrageous if someone assumed that although I might incidentally approve of rescuing other breeds of dogs, my primary concern was rescuing Shetland Sheepdogs? If a person was concerned about Rottweilers as well, wouldn’t another group be better for them?
So in that scenario, if the Sheltie group truly wanted to be inclusive and rescue all dogs, shouldn’t it pick a different name?