This Is Policing. As Designed.
White people must end the oppressive system we built
For something to break it must have had a function it is no longer capable of performing. Policing in the United States is not broken, but doing exactly what it was designed to do.
The worldwide protests following the police homicides of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have brought a bevy of ideologies to the forefront of the conversation. Many are calling the American policing system broken. They are tying its failures to figures like President Donald Trump. However, modern policing has been a bipartisan project.
Our society is here because white America continues perpetuating the realities of racism. The narratives that argue Trump and others have broken the system continues this damaging trend. White people need to acknowledge the overarching racist system we built. Otherwise we continue delaying change.
What we are witnessing is not a system failing to accomplish its goal, but rather, fulfilling its designed intent. Since its inception policing has been an institution built to enforce white supremacy and most specifically anti-Blackness.
Police brutality is not new. Police homicides are not new. Local, state, and federal governments enabling police to beat and threaten those who call for change is not new.
We have seen the videos circulating over the past weeks. This Twitter thread compiled by T. Greg Doucette already includes over 340 clips of police violence. It comes in many forms. Officers have used chemical weapons, concussion grenades, tasers, pepper spray, batons, and guns.
Violence has come in other ways as well. Officers have destroyed food and water collected for protestors. Law enforcement apprehended thousands of masks sent to prevent protestors from contracting and spreading COVID-19.
These are not accidents. Solidarity is not a foreign concept to police forces.
After two Buffalo Police Department officers were suspended for committing an assault, all 57 remaining BPD officers refused to remain on an Emergency Defense team. They understand collective action but choose to use it for themselves rather than the people they claim to serve.
The police are working exactly as they are designed to. Finally, it seems more people are realizing the true outcome of those plans.
The white populous has nearly always abided oppressive police expansion and aided the subversion of Black rebellion. Even if white people were never unconditionally safe from police violence, there always were implicit concessions. By never questioning police, embracing white supremacy, and defending anti-Blackness most white citizens have ensured their safety.
If the mere act of questioning any policing undermines it as an institution, we must ask ourselves what that institution hides. The motto “To protect and to serve” should spark questions not answers. Who do they think needs protection? Who are they protecting “us” from? Most importantly, who do they truly serve?
History tells us they serve their uniform. Police departments show us time and time again that they will defend criminal activity when it is done with a badge, but label us all criminals to justify their crimes.
These protests are once again calling for change. According to activist Angela Davis, “This moment holds possibilities for change we have never before experienced.” They are not simply the response to one incident, but the accumulated failure of American institutions.
The protests are for the deaths of Carl Cooper, Eleanor Bumpurs, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland as much as the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Transposing the emphasis to single figures like Trump ignores the centuries that predate his presidency.
We cannot only focus on the actions of today to transform our imaginations, but our collective memory must be recalibrated. Successful radical change is twofold. Abolishing failing systems is only the first step. Constructing and instituting new institutions requires this extensive reexamination. Otherwise, any reform and abolition will only rebrand the same violence.
Saying any recent events broke policing in America implies it worked before. The Black Lives Matter organization was founded during Barack Obama’s presidency. Figures like Trump are only a piece atop a pyramid of bipartisan problematic policing policy. Holistically blaming the republican party, even while they are far more explicitly white supremacist, absolves democratic officials like Bill de Blasio, Andrew Cuomo, Lori Lightfoot, Eric Garcetti, and others in their direct aid and abetment of these tragedies.
This was the United States before George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were born. This was the United States when George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were alive. This was the United States that killed them. Until our society embraces that truth this country will remain at-large. Unwanted. Killing again, again, and again.
