In light of police executions of Black
people, calls to “defund the police” are
warranted. This is because law enforcement is
doing exactly what it was designed to do with
Black folks, which is to patrol the slave
plantation.
Defunding has become a rallying cry for
members of the Black community and activists
who understand that law enforcement budgets
are crowding out education and other
government services and programs of social
uplift. Particularly in melanated communities
- not the white areas in which police are
there to protect and serve - police are
carrying out functions that are more suitable
for social workers and mental health
counselors.
Often viewed as an occupying force - and
as Malcolm
X once said, “exercising Gestapo
tactics, stopping any black man who is on the
sidewalk, whether he is guilty or whether he
is innocent, whether he is well-dressed or
whether he is poorly dressed” - the police
monitor, criminalize, harass and kill Black
people in their daily lives.
Black people wind up dead in the presence
of law enforcement because their lives are
discounted. Like Sandra
Bland, we die in jail over a bogus traffic
stop, and like George
Floyd, we lose our lives over a $20 bill. Elijah
McClain was choked to death for walking
home from a convenience store, and Eric
Garner was choked over a loosie cigarette.
Daunte
Wright was shot to death over an expired
registration, and Breonna
Taylor was murdered in her sleep. And when
we do not die, we suffer humiliation and
trauma. For example, Windsor, Virginia police
pepper sprayed Army Lt. Caron
Nazario during an unnecessary traffic stop,
and Springfield, Illinois police handcuffed Dartavius
Barnes as they desecrated the ashes of his
two-year-old daughter and tested it for drugs.
Usually, police officers get away with
such behavior, with legal protections such as
qualified
immunity shielding officers from civil
rights lawsuits. A police bill
of rights and police
union contracts that delay or prevent
investigations of bad officers, protect them
from accountability and allow them to act with
impunity.
Similarly, the slave codes in the
antebellum South empowered slave
patrols, deputized white men who were authorized
to monitor Black people on the plantation without
a warrant and prevent uprisings. The patrols
stopped Black people on the road and forced
them to produce a pass from their master
authorizing their travel, and inflicted
violence against the enslaved without penalty.
While Black people were subjected to cruel
punishments and even death for committing an
offense against a white person, white people
faced no
consequences for taking enslaved Black
lives, with a fine at most to compensate
the master for lost property. Before the Klan,
the plantation police were the domestic
terrorists sicced on Black people, our first
encounters with the cops.
When Derek Chauvin was convicted of
murdering George Floyd, he was but one
of a handful of officers to face punishment, out
of thousands
of police killings of civilians. Some offending
officers are rewarded with
a promotion, or fired by their department only to be
rehired
by another. And sometimes, the victims’ families
receive a cash settlement if they’re lucky, as
if that’s justice.
The police behave like the slave patrols.
This is why policing must change.
