Imagine telling Black people getting killed by police to tone down their message so they can get an ex CIA agent elected in VA.
Imagine telling Black people getting killed by police to tone down their message so they can get an ex CIA agent elected in VA.
In sporpsball you gotta get points on the board any way you canOriginally Posted by MHBDemon
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I think some of you guys are being dismissive of how unpopular defund the police is among middle-age and older black people in urban communities
When you say this, you imply that abolition (or even defunding), is the will of the black community. It is very clearly not.
Someone I know who is knowledgeable about police training has told me that police training changed around the turn of the century partly because the trainers changed. It now is much more militaristcally oriented. Police are trained to be much more like an occupying force in a hostile community than a force for quelling spots of violence in a peaceful community of which they are a part.
Once upon a time, big city police officers walked a beat. They knew the neighborhood, and could, sometimes, recognize trouble that was brewing, but not yet at the level of illegal activity, and stop it with some choice words. That intimate knowledge of the neighborhood went away when the police went to squad cars.
I don’t think I imply that. In the past 2-3 years, abolition has gone from relative obscurity to the NYT and now national political discourse. I don’t care how it polls.
Not dismissive at all, there’s a major ideological and philosophical divide between younger POC and older, just like there has always been. Right and wrong doesn’t change based on who supports what, and the elderly don’t lead movements. MLK Jr. was 39 when he died, Malcolm X - 39, Huey Newton - 49, Fred Hampton - 21, Marcus Garvey - 52, Stokely Carmichael was a freedom rider at 20 years old, the SNCC chairman at 25, Ida B Wells owned an African American newspaper in her 20s, James Baldwin became an activist in his 30s, Maya Angelou wrote I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings in her late 30s.
Do you see a trend here? Nothing about this argument is new, it’s the same recycled points that literally always get used by the establishment to discourage polarizing radicalism.
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In 35 years there’s going to be goddamn BLM postage stamps and commemorative plates, and the same people on the streets in 2020 are going to be bitching about the protesters in 2055.
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What percentage constitutes fringe? Pretty sure the support for complete abolishment of prisons as well as police is currently the fringe. Sure it could change over time but at this present moment, fringe.
I think Black leaders of the abolition movement understand as well as anyone the ideological and class differences of Black people and thats why the solution is community organizing and building a mass movement.
And the greatest major political progress contributed to MLK came about from the weeklong national riots in response to his murder.
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I agree
which is why I also think messaging matters when you're working with topics like this
It's not the will of any sane person. I've never met anyone, regardless of political preference, who actually thinks is a good idea to abolish the police, or even defund.
Kind of like Trump supporters have trouble articulating any legitimate reasons for what they actually like about Trump, the defund police crowd has trouble articulating any legitimate reasons for why they want this.
well that's just not true
I don’t disagree, but to who? Liberals will try to convince you that it matters to winning over swing districts, whereas i think activists have different reasons for their messaging.
Also action matters. It’s why i think campaigns like Mothers Day Bailout are so important. You can meme about abolishing prisons on Twitter, but also intervening in the incarceration of a mom because she had unpaid fines or expired tags is part of providing people an alternative vision for what is possible.
Same with housing. You can say “housing is a human right” or “landlords shouldn’t exist” but is that as powerful as interrupting evictions and saving someone from eviction?
Granted, I just jumped in on page 19 of this thread and haven't read through the whole thing but if this is solely because of police brutality then that doesn't seem like a good reason. I'm as angry and hurt as the next guy when some untrained fucking cop kills a guy for stealing a pack of chewing gum, but I've yet to read any legitimate reason to abolish the police. If the answers are in this thread then I'll scroll through tonight.
Well, now...when the defund movement loses support from such exemplary progressives as creamy and LK it really makes you reconsider your values.
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Ha. In all fairness, the defund crew isn't going to get anywhere without moderates and progressives finding any legitimacy in it. Maybe I'm not smart enough to rationalize the thought process behind wanting total anarchy. I'll leave it at that.
messaging to the people you are hoping to bring into your organizing coalition but are not there yet
the person who only knows public safety as being the municipal police, the person who isn't reading theory, the person who gets most of their political news from mainstream sources
I'm not holding slogans up as problem-solvers, but as entry points
I don’t understand that argument. The policy is not going to come about from some national popular vote referendum, it’s just going to require your representative make a choice that you will then most likely go along with and live your life the exact same as you did the day before
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