On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African American man, was killed by Derek Chauvin, a police officer who pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for an inconceivable eight minutes and 46 seconds, marking yet another act of police brutality against Black Americans in the dystopia that is America. Following his death, protests have erupted across the United States, demanding justice for Floyd and the prosecution of the officers involved in his unnecessary death. Floyd’s death, like so many before him, is hardly surprising, given that the American police system emerged from the remnants of the slavery era. Structural and systemic oppression is enacted by and built into all three branches of the US government–legislative, executive, and judicial–to ensure the continued oppression of Black Americans. Thus, protestors are also demanding a long-overdue reform of a policing system that is plagued by systemic and deeply-entrenched racism.
As expected, critics have decried the looting and rioting, not recognizing that these are essential components of uprisings and revolutions. After Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) was assassinated in 1968, riots spread across over 100 cities in the US, causing more than $47 million in damage. This rioting and looting led to the swift passage of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon B. Johnson within just six days.
In fact, Professor Erica Chenoweth from the University of Denver calculated that, from 1900 to 2015, non-violent protests have had a success rate of 51%, compared to just 27% for violent protests. However, outcomes in the former are gradual and far less tangible. For this reason, alongside the fact that the success rate of peaceful protests has declined since 2000, peaceful protests often turn violent once protestors realize the reluctance of the government to introduce change or offer concessions that aren’t piecemeal or consolatory. While violent protests have a lower success rate, they offer a greater possibility of quicker resolution and tangible structural change.
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Accordingly, the ongoing protests have already yielded many tangible changes. First and foremost, Derek Chauvin’s charges were raised from third-degree to second-degree murder and manslaughter; the three other officers on site were also charged, and all four were arrested. Furthermore, the Minneapolis City Council announced its plans to “dismantle” the city’s police department and “replace it with a transformative new model of public safety”.
Indeed, the protests have had a cascading effect across the country. A judge approved the trial of three men in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year old Black man who was shot dead by White civilians while he was on a jog. It was determined that there was probable cause and that Arbery was “chased, hunted down, and ultimately executed” after news emerged that the perpetrators uttered racial slurs over his dead body. The Metropolitan Council of Louisville passed “Breonna’s Law”, which will ban no-knock warrants, after Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot in a no-knock search of her apartment in March. In Colorado, a bill was introduced that will ban chokeholds, force law enforcement agencies to fire officers who plead guilty to the inappropriate use of force, and also require the use of body-cams and the release of that footage within 14 days. The San Diego Police Department has banned carotid restraint, and California’s governor ordered the state police training program to “stop teaching neck holds”. The Memphis police department introduced punishments for officers who fail to stop colleagues from engaging in misconduct. Michigan will now require law enforcement officers to undergo implicit bias and violence de-escalation training and will conduct mental health screenings of its officers. Los Angeles reduced its police department’s budget by $150 million, while city councilors are pursuing a 5-7% cut in New York, which has spurred similar discussions in Boston, Seattle, and Lansing. Seattle banned its police officers from covering their badge numbers. And Cleveland’s city council categorized racism as a public health crisis.
The unrest generated by these protests–and the accompanying riots and looting–is too hard to ignore, and has forced lawmakers and law enforcement agencies to reconsider age-old policies and implement new ones. In an attempt to facilitate peace, authorities are making concessions that they wouldn’t have otherwise made–though they haven’t even scratched the surface of what it will take to construct an equitable society.
Yet, opposition remains strong. Many have steadfastly condemned the destruction of property, with complete disregard for the destruction of human life. The fact that the sadness, anger, and desperation driving the riots are considered secondary to the preservation of buildings, or that petty theft is more of an affront to one’s senses than centuries of targeted oppression is merely indicative of the deeply held biases and prejudices that these protests aim to confront and eradicate. Others have decried the dangers these protests pose to the US’ already precariously placed recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. It is lost on them that Black Americans, who are more at risk of contracting and dying from the coronavirus than the average population, aren’t taking to the streets because they want to, but because they have to. Citizens shouldn’t be put in a position where they have to choose between potentially contracting a deadly disease or staying silent in the face of continued oppression in the first place. That this conundrum exists for some and not for others is the very privilege that the protestors aim to expunge. A system that forces its subjects to choose between their health and their safety is a system that is broken.
Mending a system that is intentionally unequal is impossible, and thus requires a complete redesign. Implicit bias training, body cameras, and police-community dialogue sessions might be seen as welcome changes, but they don’t work. Racial sensitivity is a foundational skill that one should have developed long before entering the workforce. As comedian Chris Rock once said: “Some jobs can’t have bad apples. Some jobs, everybody gotta be good. Like … pilots”. The high stakes involved mean that policing is not a profession where employees can afford to learn these belief systems on the job, but one where they should be a precondition for hiring. The issue is not that police officers don’t understand what racism is, but that there are racist police officers in the first place. A few classes aren’t going to change that.
What is required, therefore, is the complete defunding of the police. At present, the police are simply tasked with too much. They’re in charge of schools, homelessness, human trafficking, mental illnesses, traffic violations, the sale and use of illicit substances, youth violence, petty theft and forgery, murder, noise complaints, littering, domestic abuse, rape, and so much more. Do the officers in charge of the vast majority of such interactions really need to be armed?
Armed officers should form a specialized unit within the police force that only responds to proportionate threats, like in the United Kingdom, for example. This requires a reduction of the police force and the use of municipal departments or community groups, rather than asking police officers to be jacks of all trades. Leaving heavily armed cops to deal with every single one of society’s failures and issues is the recipe for disaster that Americans are currently stewing in. Mental health calls, for example, should be answered by health professionals and social workers. Forcing poorly trained, heavily armed officers to address issues they are not equipped to deal with yields sub-optimal short-term and long-term outcomes. By empowering dedicated, qualified professionals for each specific issue, it is far easier to de-escalate situations, while also offering solutions beyond the current formulaic responses of detention, arrest, incarceration, or murder.
Reducing the staff and budget of police departments also allows for these funds to be diverted towards education, health, housing, employment, and social-service programs. This facilitates the upward social mobility of persecuted communities, such as Black Americans.
Also Read: Is Solidarity Amongst People of Color Realistic?
Some cities have already begun implementing such reforms. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, for example, committed to “reinvesting in community-based public safety programs and solutions”, while San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that the police will no longer respond to “non-criminal activity”. Similar plans to either reduce the police budget and redirect it elsewhere, or to dismantle the force altogether are being discussed in various cities across the US. Public officials in the following cities have all “proposed or pledged to reduce police resources”: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Hartford, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Durham.
The viability and implementation of these plans are threatened by politicians like Donald Trump, who view armed White anti-lockdown protestors who consider the coronavirus to be a hoax as “good people”, but Black Americans demanding their rights as “thugs”. Hence, it is hardly surprising that Trump is “appalled” by calls to defund the police, saying it will lead to lawlessness and chaos. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell deemed the proposal “outlandish”, while House minority leader Kevin McCarthy issued a promise to police officers that “Republicans will never turn our backs on you”. Meanwhile, Attorney General Bill Barr called the ‘defund’ movement “dangerous” and “wrong”.
That being said, no matter the underlying biases that are guiding Republican politicians’ vitriolic responses to calls for reform, their suggestions of chaos have inadvertently highlighted the issue of gun control. Taking guns away from police officers while allowing them to remain in the hands of civilians can potentially lead to the lawlessness that Trump and his ilk are supposedly concerned about. Therefore, defunding the police requires the American population to accede to gun reform, either by destroying the guns or by using a buy-back program, like in Australia. Given Americans’ love for guns, however, this is much easier said than done.
Also Read: The Inherent White Privilege of Anti-Lockdown Protests in America
57 years on from MLK’s infamous speech, Black Americans continue to dream. They dream of a country where: Tamir Rice can play cops and robbers; where Botham Jean and Atatiana Jefferson can relax in the comfort their own homes; where Jonathan Ferrell, Corey Jones, and Terrence Crutcher can have car trouble; where Stephon Clark can answer a phone call; where Aiyana Jones can go to bed; where Sandra Bland can receive a routine traffic violation ticket; and where Clifford Glover can go on a walk with his stepfather without being killed.
Nevertheless, there is some cause to celebrate. The New York Times, for instance, reported that, over the last two weeks, support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has “increased almost as much as it had in the preceding two years”. In fact, net support for BLM has risen across all age groups and races, regardless of education levels or political inclinations. Without the tireless efforts of the protestors, this would not have been possible. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “A riot is the language of the unheard”. The momentum generated by these protests has meant that long-silenced Black American voices are finally being heard. Could this represent a turning point in American history?