How Do We Achieve Change?
The Politics of Police Brutality
I woke up to the smell of bacon on the stove and an empty stomach. Walking downstairs, I said “Hi” to my family and dug in. The mood at the table was normal as usual, everyone deliberating about their plans for the day. My mother turned on the television, as she normally does to fill the silence. That day the sound that filled the room was an ominous one. The reporter told the story of Freddie Gray, another young black man brutalized and killed by police officers. The subsequent weeks were filled with scenes of protests, riots and demands. My anger was shared by millions who witnessed another one of our brothers die. What I saw then was our discourse shift from the topic of justice to one of ethics ; the conversation slowly became one about what it means to be an ethical protester. Instead of condemning murder, America condemned riots. As I see the video of George Floyd being brutally murdered another piece of my heart is broken. Though I’m not surprised; Unarmed black people being gunned down by police is as new to me as the sun rising in the east. There have been hundreds of last straws, demonstrations of violence, and peaceful protests, none of which lasted long enough or had the leadership to achieve meaningful change. I’ve lost faith in decentralized protests as the engine of the change we seek. They tend to give too much power to the media to control the narrative. Without coherent leadership and demands, the direction of where we should go will remain unclear.
My Hope
That being said, there are reasons to be hopeful. White Americans are joining the cause, figurative gold in American Politics. Relatively extreme demands combined with the general acceptance of underlying problems have pushed politicians on the right to accept the idea of police reform. Many smart people have given brilliant and pragmatic solutions to this problem. I mainly question the way we’ve allowed this discussion to be derailed in the media, as well as our willingness to make it easy for them.
“A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.”
— Robert A. Heinlein
My Gripes
Anger and rage are justified when faced with centuries of legalized oppression. Data and history tells us that violence does more to distract from the cause than to bring attention to it. If our goal is to express our frustrations, we’re doing an amazing job. If our goal is to enact change, I have my doubts.
A political slogan that needs a paragraph to explain is a bad slogan. #DefundThePolice is a collection of great ideas to put most of the load on communities to provide the services and duties that police offer. At the same time it is a horrible slogan in a democratic nation. If the goal is to get people to have open minds about the solutions, turning them off with the title is a very predictable road block. Before you say, “we don’t need people who are turned away!”, we definitely do. This is a democracy, political power resides in those that can convince others to join their cause.
Another idea I’d personally push back against is the idea that the police need to be abolished/can’t be reformed. This is probably driven by our societal misunderstanding of how systemic racism functions in modern America. Modern racism isn’t overtly written into our codes. Much of the violence, mistreatment, and murder we witness is due to the subconscious bias and heuristics that officers are subject to like every other person. Any entity made of humans would be subject to those biases, regardless of if they’re called police or not. The real ground the movement can make, in my opinion, is with limiting the police’s ability to exert that bias in harmful ways while still preserving the positive benefits that they can provide. One example is through potential reforms/innovations that might delethalize the police force. Another might include getting rid of Traffic stop duties/opportunities for negative interactions with police. Like I said, there are many smart people coming up with valuable solutions but focusing on implementation and actually improving our lives should be a top priority. Not all police reform policies are created equal and radical does not always equal right.
The Case for Radical Solutions:
As a person who loves to study political strategy, I’ve noticed that the radicals in any movement make room for good policy. Although I’m partial towards scholars like Jonathan Haidt and speakers like Martin Luther King, I can’t help but notice how the “boogie men” of the left push moderates towards more impactful change. One of the many reasons MLK was so effective was because the media demonized Malcom X. The very radical methods and solutions Malcom X championed gave MLK the political wiggle room to be “acceptable” in comparison. Today, the movement to #DefundThePolice has pushed the middle from denial to reform. The fear of the extreme pushes the boundaries of what is agreeable. That being said, the proponents of extreme solutions are more often than not blind to the downsides of their solutions. This makes me hesitate before pledging my support for something like “abolish the police”.
Leadership and Change:
More than anything, I think our movement needs more centralized leadership. It needs people that can barter with those in power in order to get the policy change we want. As of now, our protests get overshadowed by riots, manipulating how Americans talk about the cause. The conversation is again shifting from changing the system to the ethics of protesting. We need leadership aware of how their tactics shape the overall conversation.We need people that can leverage both empathy for our cause and fear for the extreme to get legislation passed. Without it, I fear that history will repeat itself. This moment can’t fizzle out without substantial reform. As agents of change, we have to be able to critically analyze our own decisions. We have to be able to change our methods in order to get stuff done.
