Op-Ed: No More Vanity Projects, Mayor Bowser. Abolish MPD Now.
Black people in DC have been taking to the streets for the last couple of weeks, joining the nationwide uprisings to demand the defunding of police and investment in Black lives. During the first weekend of June, Mayor Bowser unveiled her response to these demands: a street mural that reads “Black Lives Matter” and a street named “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” Despite generating positive press, Mayor Bowser’s gestures ring hollow to many Black people in the District and bring no justice for the Black lives lost.
BYP100 DC, along with Black Lives Matter DC, Stop Police Terror Project, and many other grassroots organizations in DC have been demanding divestment from police and investment in resources like housing, health care, and education for a long time. And while she may fool people outside of the District for some clout by trading twitter barbs with 45, we are clear that it was MPD, backed by the National Guard, who was spraying and beating protestors for several nights, just as they have harassed, beaten, and terrorized Black communities for decades.
If Mayor Bowser truly wants to make life safer for Black folks, she would ensure Black folks have housing. Instead we are being rapidly displaced as she works with developers to gentrify a historically Black city. If Mayor Bowser believed Black lives matter, she would invest in community owned grocery stories and healthcare access East of the River. Instead, Mayor Bowser is still planning to invest an additional $18.5 million in the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), an institution that regularly harasses and terrorizes Black communities.
We’re angry, and we have the right to be. If Bowser thinks she can placate us with vanity projects like renaming streets and creating murals, she’s mistaken. We are calling for the Metro Police Department to be defunded, and we won’t stop until policing is abolished as a whole.
MPD is violent and can’t be reformed. Defunding the police is the demand, and abolition is the goal.
The violence MPD enacts on Black communities can’t be overstated. Jeffrey Price, D’Quan Young, Marqueese Alton, Terrence Sterling, and Ralphael Briscoe were all murdered by MPD between 2011 to 2019. In late 2019, Washington City Paper documented the long history of MPD officers routinely sexually assaulting and abusing people in the sex trades. According to the most recent Use of Force Report from DC’s Office of Police Complaints, 90% of MPD’s uses of force in 2018 were against Black people.
In 2018, 89% of people incarcerated in the Department of Corrections are Black, and the unlivable conditions of the jail are well documented. This year alone, in the midst of a global pandemic, DC refused to release folks from the jail which sadly, yet inevitably, resulted in the death of a 51 year old man.
When we say Black lives matter, we’re talking about all Black lives, including those harmed by policing, jails, and prisons. That’s why Movement 4 Black Lives DC fights for abolition — for a world without prisons and police, where all oppressed people are safe, free, and have the resources they need.
Abolition means dismantling prisons, jails, police, and the military. It means supporting survivors of violence through restoration and transformation, instead of through carceral systems that frequently abuse survivors and further entrench societal conditions that lead to harm in the first place. It means providing all people with housing, healthcare, food, water, transportation, education, and other resources they need to survive and thrive. Defunding police and investing in resources communities need are steps we can take to get to an abolitionist future.
Mayor Bowser has the ability to reallocate DC’s budget to defund MPD and invest in resources. A study from the DC Task Force on Jails and Justice showed that a majority of DC residents support community investments over jails and policing. Bowser herself has publicly admitted that increased police presence has little effect on violent crimes. But she recently proposed a budget for 2021 that would invest over $5 million for a new jail to be built in 2025, and invest an additional $18.5 million to the MPD.
Budgets show us the priorities of a city, state, or federal government. If a budget is a moral document, it’s clear that neither Mayor Bowser nor DC Council have the morals to prioritize Black people’s wellbeing and humanity. DC invests more in policing Black residents than it invests in housing, non-coercive mental health care and interventions, youth programs, and any employment programs combined.
Police, prisons, and jails do not provide safety; our own communities do. Instead of prioritizing profitable punishment and surveillance, the DC budget should contain investments in housing, healthcare for all, public transportation, mental health services, and the root needs of our communities.
It’ll take a lot of work to get to an abolitionist future where we’re all free from state violence and have the resources we need to thrive. Movement for Black Lives DC is pushing for this future on multiple levels. In addition to calling for defunding MPD and investing in resources, we’re also fighting to stop the funding of new jails, to decriminalize sex work, and to free incarcerated people.
Mayor Bowser could choose to defend Black lives by listening to any of the demands that Movement for Black Lives DC has put forward. Instead, she chooses to commission murals no one asked for while cozying up with the main purveyor of violence against Black people in the District, the MPD. Bowser’s allegiances to policing and locking up Black people in DC is clear. Her allegiance to defending and protecting Black life? Not so much.
