Don’t Call theWolf: Defund the Police

When I was 12, my cousin Jackie had a backyard party at her house in Long Beach, CA. Two of our Black male cousins got into a drunken fistfight at the event. Someone suggested that Jackie call the police. Jackie said, “No, they will tire themselves out. You don’t call the police. Don’t ever call the police. You don’t ever call the wolf on the lamb.” Most Black Americans can easily relate to my cousin’s statement. Her perspective was based on the historical recognition that when the police are called, Black people are either imprisoned, beaten, or killed.

While in Oakland on June 6, 2020, The California Highway Patrol (CHP) shot Erik Salgado’s car 40 times murdering him and his unborn child and wounding his pregnant wife. The murder of Erik Salgado and his unborn child proves policing in this country is a disservice to Black and Brown lives. Unfortunately, the relationship that Black people in the United States have with the police is fraught with mistrust rooted in our enslavement in this country. Policing in the United States began in the 1700s when Southern planters instituted slave patrols that were made up of white volunteer vigilante groups. These slavers tracked escaped slaves, crushed slave rebellions, and brought freed Black people who had escaped to the North back to enslavement on plantations in the South. Therefore, calling the police on Black Americans is historically rooted in anti-black terrorism. Today phone calls to the police can result in either modern-day slavery or state-sanctioned violence.

For Black Americans, the nonchalance that people have when calling the police on us connects to our experiences of complex trauma. I conducted a recent interview with Babalwa Kwanele, MS, LMFT. She explains that due to anti-blackness and racial discrimination, Black Americans experience complex trauma on a daily basis.

For people who have been assaulted daily, which is what we experience, a death by a million cuts, we move into something called complex trauma. It’s no longer post traumatic stress because it is present. It’s happening now.

Unfortunately, for Black people, other groups are either unaware of or apathetic to the historical relationship between the Black community and the police. There are countless examples of anti-black police phone calls. Many of the calls have had devastating results on Black victims of police brutality. For example, a Minneapolis store clerk called the police on George Floyd accusing him of using a counterfeit $20 dollar bill. The police arrested and suffocated Floyd to death as the store clerk and other bystanders watched in disbelief. Amy Cooper infamously called the police on Christian Cooper, a Black male Central park bird watcher when he politely asked her to leash her dog. He videotaped her lying to the police as she falsely accused him of attacking her. Ahmaud Arbery was jogging in his neighborhood in South Georgia when his killers called the police on him before murdering him in the middle of the street. Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by the police after they issued a no-knock warrant and entered her apartment. “Bar b Que Becky” got her nickname when she called the police on a Black family that was having a cookout at Lake Merrit in Oakland. Tamir Rice was playing in the sandbox before the police murdered him in Cleveland. Calling the police on a Black person for living their life today is like calling slave patrols on enslaved people who sought freedom during slavery.

During the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance town hall on June 3, 2020, Former President Barack Obama spoke to the need for police reform. He expressed the importance of having community discussions throughout the United States in which local mayors address police misconduct. During those conversations, acknowledge that Black people’s mistrust of the police is warranted because it is rooted in our enslavement. Recognize that both historically and presently calling the police on a Black person for enjoying everyday liberties can result in complex trauma and Black death. End the apathy that results in Black and Brown criminalization within the United States. Abolish the current system of policing. Reallocate the funds to organizations that support education, mental health, and well being. Communities and elected officials must work together to reimagine a system of law enforcement that prioritizes Black and Brown lives.

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