A challenge to my overwhelmingly white, relatively wealthy, and allegedly progressive community.
Read the follow up to this post, We need a task force to reimagine policing in Brookline, and everywhere.
Brookline, it’s time to step up.
The last few days have been tough. It’s been tough to watch pain and frustration turn into violence and destruction in cities across the country, including in Boston. And it’s tough to know that that’s what people will choose to focus on rather than the root causes of this unrest, which for centuries now has been state sanctioned violence, brutality, and murder.
Even as I was marching in a peaceful protest on Friday night, I felt a sense of heaviness. A bit of déjà vu set in — I’d been here so many times before, we’d been here so many times before. And I have to admit, I wondered whether our protesting would make any difference.
I thought back to the protests and riots after the brutal beating of Rodney King when I was just a kid, and also the protests I’d participated in after the murders of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and so many others.
And there I was again this weekend, marching for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others. Déjà vu all over again.
I also thought about my own encounters with the police.
How, as a teenager, police officers repeatedly put their hands on my body without my consent and with no legitimate cause — something we now call stop and frisk.
I also thought about the police officer who put a gun to my head when I’d posed no danger and had committed no crime. I was a college graduate then, on the way to a friend’s wedding.
What white people who are at home watching all of this have to understand is that when police encounter civilians, some of us are automatically many steps closer to death than others.
There’s a centuries-long reason for this rooted in causes that are external to policing as well as those that are intrinsic to policing.
And, that’s what folks like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nikole Hannah Jones, Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo and so many others have been trying to get you to understand. I know some of you are on the path to enlightenment, and I appreciate everyone out there who’s reading these good books and taking anti-racism courses, and all of that. Please keep doing that.
But here’s the thing — our freedom, and I mean our freedom as people of color from so many manifestations of oppression like economic, educational and health injustices, but also freedom from violence, particularly by the state — the freedom of black and brown people cannot be dependent on your full and complete understanding of how we got here.
What we need you to do is — as you continue your learning — to get behind the efforts of the Black Lives Matter Movement and Campaign Zero, which seeks to end police brutality. If you care about us, then you have to trust that we have a plan, and that that plan requires your complicity.
So, what does that mean here in Brookline?
Well, first I want to make note of a certain human tendency. And that’s a tendency to think something isn’t a problem because you haven’t encountered it or don’t know anyone who has. While I agree that our police department is better than most, trust me when I say that we still have much work to do.
I’ve been meeting with our police chief even before being elected, and he’s been a willing partner in efforts to improve policing in Brookline. I was also glad to see his statement denouncing what happened to George Floyd as murder, pure and simple.
So, I’m looking forward to his partnership and your involvement in moving forward a number of policies that will increase trust and transparency, while lowering the odds that Brookline’s residents of color will face disproportionate policing or physical or verbal abuse by our officers.
First, we have to fix our broken police complaint review process.
We need a non-police independent investigator to review complaints and make determinations that the elected Select Board can rely on.
And we need a more professionalized approach to the biannual review and revision of that process, including actually interviewing those who have gone through the complaint process — something that has yet to be done in the years since the process was last approved.
We’re overdue for another hearing on this process, and when it’s scheduled, I’m going to need you to be there to push for these necessary reforms.
We have to put body cams on every officer and dash cams in every car.
This is about building trust and increasing transparency. It’s a teaching tool that can be used to improve policing practices, and it’s an accountability tool that can spot officers who are ignoring their training.
There is a new police contract in the works, and I need you to let the Select Board know that this must be included in that contract.
So, here’s the point where I’m expected to tell you that the vast majority of officers are good. But this isn’t about good and bad officers. It’s about the standards to which we hold all officers.
Just because I’m a good driver, doesn’t mean I can treat a red light like a stop sign. Even if there are clearly no cars or pedestrians or cyclists in view, I need to sit there and wait for that light to turn green before I can proceed forward. One of the effects of setting clear and high standards for driving makes reckless drivers — those who put others at risk — even more obvious.
Likewise, setting clear and high standards for all police makes those who would disregard those standards even more easily identifiable. It sets them even further apart from those who are following the rules, and it makes it so those officers cannot hide among those who are policing in a manner that is approved by the community.
We need higher standards for when an officer can stop someone and especially when they can put their hands on someone.
We also need higher standards for how officers talk to people of color.
How many videos have we seen where someone being brutalized by the police is still calling them sir or officer while they’re being brutalized, and how many have we seen where an officer refers to a young black man as bro, dude, or worse? That has to end.
Put simply, our officers and administration need to be held to the highest standards and we need clear, community-centered accountability measures for what happens when officers fail to live up to those standards.
We also need to rethink our entire relationship with police.
We need to reduce the number of civil violations which require police enforcement, and find other ways to address non-criminal misbehavior. We should employ police resources sparingly and only when there is no other reasonable alternative.
If you agree, let our Select Board and our police chief know.
Police should be our last line of defense to protect us from the worst versions of ourselves. They should never be the instigators or perpetrators of violence. We need a police force that’s lean and limited, patient and understanding, thoughtful and compassionate.
And, there’s a role for the community here.
Brookline residents: police are not the solution to every problem you encounter. The assumptions that are made about you and me by police and our neighbors are different, and that leads very predictably to disparate treatment.
For some of us, especially black people, this is an existential threat.
And that so many of us are willing to gather in public in the thousands during the midst of this pandemic to bring your attention to this fact should show you how serious we are about this.
I truly believe we have an opportunity to be a national leader in our approach to community safety, but it will only happen if you get involved in the process.
We don’t need your platitudes right now. We need you to get involved in changing policy. You can change our bylaws through Town Meeting and you can change policy direction through the Select Board.
However you choose to do it, get started and don’t stop until the job is done.
Black lives are counting on it.
Read the follow up to this post, We need a task force to reimagine policing in Brookline, and everywhere.
