Police Brutality: Ways to Get Involved From Home
By: Mreenal Shukla & Hanna Koh
With the current circumstances standing in a global pandemic and those fearing for their personal safety of the outside community, many of us are working to get involved in ways from the comfort of our homes. Varying examples include, but are not limited to, gathering information to pressure city leaders, writing to representatives, supporting activism groups, and voting for thoroughly educated government officials.
Before performing any graded academic test or preparing for a job interview, words you commonly hear would be practise, practise, practise. In this case, you want to stay informed and up to date on political matters in order to communicate your voice clearly, meaning research, research, research, is vital. Before writing to city leaders/mayors, become educated on the police conduct review process, one of the greatest sources where police brutality and misconduct takes place. By simply researching “police conduct review” and your city’s name, proking further will provide a clear transparent view behind the scenes. Keep in mind questions to ask yourself such as who is responsible for reviewers of civilian complaints, readily updated information on disciplinary conduct of officers (for public view), overlooking civilians, etc.
Apply the information into analyzing and interpreting areas lacking in civilian protection, and issues of police misconduct/brutality from reliable sources. Now with a stable foundation to build off of, petitioning, writing letters, and organizing online city council/town hall meetings are all actions that can be organized from your home in order to address spotted issues. Persistence in getting answers is crucial (tip: detailed demands for reform are harder to be ignored by elected officials) as this is not a dropping matter. Once successful, question how you may further contribute and remember to maintain a detailed database on concrete contacts or sources throughout.
Writing now appeals to a larger audience than the contacts of the city. Governments and agencies have wider impacts in comparison to city officials and contacting close representatives will lead you to engage in contact with them (virtually). The objective is taking a stance and addressing the scars the toll has taken on the victims, their families, and the public community.
Spreading awareness as well as informing others about the impacts of police brutality is a great way to be a supporter of victims of police brutality. By using platforms such as social media we are able to not only warn people about the impacts that come from police brutality but are also able to do it from the comfort of our homes, which is good due to the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic- going out is not most ideal.
By spreading awareness we will be able to minimize the likeliness of police brutality occurring against others. Getting involved even from our own homes is the least we can do for the people who have suffered through police brutality. By raising awareness or simply letting people around you know about police brutality we will succeed in decreasing the number of incidents that will take place with the police and whatever they may inflict on others.
Supporting activism groups is another way to show that you are a supporter of victims of police brutality. You can do this online by directly searching up a few activism groups that appeal to you and once you do so, you can join them and discuss as well as educate yourself more about issues you may be interested in such as police brutality for example. This will benefit the cause because once you join an activism group that supports victims of police brutality and are more educated about the topic, you will feel as if you should educate others in your life as well and so the chain will continue. This will evidently spread the word about the issue and will help put an end to it in addition.
Ultimately it should be said that supporting victims of police brutality is something we should all be doing and learning more about. Even during this global pandemic that is currently going on, we should be trying our best to support the issue from our homes and doing everything in our power to make police brutality come to an end.
Sources
- https://www.hypefresh.co/3-ways-to-fight-racial-inequality-police-brutality/ James, Turner. Hyprefresh:3 ways to fight racism and police brutality.June 2 2020
- https://www.laprogressive.com/stopping-police-brutality/ Daniil, Balabushkin.LA Progressive:What Can Government Do to Stop Police Brutality?
- https://www.ravishly.com/2015/04/10/what-you-can-do-right-now-about-police-brutality Ijeoma, Oluo. ravishly:What You Can Do Right Now About Police Brutality 12.28.16
- “We Want to Create Awareness about Police Brutality in Washington.” Neighborland, neighborland.com/ideas/dc-to-create-awareness-about.
- Zhang, Lucas. “Students Use Social Media to Raise Awareness About Police Brutality and Race Relations.” The Spotlight, slspotlight.com/news/2020/07/05/students-use-social-media-to-raise-awareness-about-police-brutality/.
