Black Communities Must "Both-And" on Police Violence ... & Community Violence
As debate over "defund the police" intensifies, there is a general reluctance to have a national conversation about an alarming rise of violence in cities
Publisher’s Riff
Black America should not be heading into 2021 splintering itself over “defund the police.”
And, yet, here we are, following a consequential election, locked in a virtual Twitter time-suck over what that means and if it is what it means. We seem split into two camps, with furious absolutism. Either you’re for it – every last syllable – or you’re not … or, no, wait: or your Blackness will be (pause for the foreboding announcer) permanently revoked. On the other side of it are exasperated Black pragmatists like former President Obama and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) begging for calm, retrospection and a smarter path. Activists snap back nastily: oh, you don’t like “defund the police?” Then you must not have liked “abolish slavery.” The pragmatists stop being pragmatists and end up being ugly, too.
What’s fascinating is not so much the vindictiveness of it, but how the debate forgets the topic. “What was this all about again?” some heads scratch while digging sticks through a wreckage of internecine. Many who cringe and urge caution over the phrase’s usage are actually down with the cause: fundamentally overhauling policing in America and erasing its racist warfare mindset for good. The core message is actually fine. It’s just that recalibration of delivery will be required if you Step 1) need the cause to win enough elections to then Step 2) be in a position to actually make the cause permanent policy. So, maybe back to the table for a few minutes to find a new title.
Everyone bruised, it shouldn’t even be like this. Because the inability to center and unify around a common goal obscures focus on an insidious threat demanding equal attention: violence. As pandemic rages, violent crime rates (quiet as that’s been kept) are skyrocketing. Who’s bearing the brunt of that violence? Black communities, particularly in major metropolitan centers. My hometown of Philadelphia (a population of 1.6 million) promises to top 500 homicides by the end of 2020, along with an additional 2,000 plus people shot – that’s a 40 percent increase over last year. Despite the shooting of Walter Wallace, Jr. by Philly police in October, terrified residents aren’t yelling “defund the police” as much as they are asking “where are the police?” Meanwhile, the local police union quietly prepares a trap by cynically holding police services hostage until beleaguered residents beg to have them back.
It’s not just Philly. Milwaukee just broke its annual murder record. Detroit homicides are also way above last year. Atlanta’s murder rate is the highest it’s been in 30 years: ATL reached 99 homicides all of 2019 – not it’s at more than 130. Los Angeles has experienced more homicides so far this year, 300, than its seen in a decade. Prince George’s County, Maryland, a majority-Black haven celebrated as a Black middle class success story, has seen a 58 percent increase in homicides; neighboring Washington, D.C. (where a 15-month Black toddler was just shot and killed this past Wednesday while in a car) has seen a 13 percent increase in murders over the past 9 months. This data is just the tip of the iceberg: there is a nearly 30 percent increase in violent crime nationwide, with the Director of the Police Executive Research Forum saying “we haven’t seen numbers like this since the ‘90s.” Everywhere where there are large populations of Black communities – which are already beat down by coronavirus, high unemployment and food insecurity – there are huge spikes in violence. In Minneapolis, after George Floyd, both Mayor and City Council are forced back to the drawing board after not thinking through a clumsily engineered police department dismantling as violence rates jump.
We need to talk about this, but we seem afraid to. Since Trump hijacked the conversation on urban violence during 2016 and 2020, attempting to shore up White voters with bigoted “law and order” rhetoric, the essential Black community conversation around it is non-existent. It is an elephant in our family room: Black political, activist, clergy and academic sectors are covering their ears, most out of fear we’ll begin to resurrect a toxic soliloquy on “Black-on-Black crime.” True: that is an inaccurate and hateful way to illustrate it – but, real soon, we need to discuss this with the same punch as we do about eradicating police violence against unarmed Black people. If we don’t, we’re going to end right back where we were before the dawn of the 21st century: with something that looks very much like that infamous 1994 Crime Bill a lot of folks screamed about. We’re headed for a repeat episode especially since Democrats ignore the issue, stunned into silence since their local political machines run those cities.
If you were growing up at the time of the 1994 Crime Bill (like me), in cities like Philadelphia, you remember it. You also remember how many of our parents and grandparents pleaded for something … like that bill.
We can be smarter this round. We must head into 2021 fighting, and aligning, a two-front war. Neither of these topics – remixing the police and achieving optimal public safety in our neighborhoods – should be mutually exclusive. Both topics involve the abrupt, senseless killing, maiming and traumatization of Black people. Hence, they are issues we must immediately own and lead on …. simultaneously. Black people under siege in heavily Black cities like Philadelphia shouldn’t find themselves scolding Black Lives Matter activists for not showing up on the block when children (such as the 12 and 14 year old boys murdered in the past two weeks). Black Lives Matter activists should not be, in turn, dismissing that sentiment as petty or overblown if they’re seeking unified community action towards real police reform. There should be an immediate “both-and” where there is interconnected response, both receiving an equal amount of attention, activism, resources and time – and where everyone is planning together at the same table.
Black people are not inherently violent people by any stretch of nature or genetics. But the violence surging in our communities, killing our children, indicates we are a deeply distressed and traumatized people faced with multiple threats. We need to wage our own smart brand of effective asymmetrical warfare against those threats. First and foremost: we need to normalize the notion that Black people deserve clean, prosperous and completely safe neighborhoods, regardless of income – we should not assume that unsafe, unkempt Black neighborhoods are a standard. No, that’s unacceptable; we pay taxes and prop up whole economies, too, so we get to live in communities free of combat zone-like shootouts, too. We own homes, raise families and pay rent, too. We must demand that. We never said, as a collective Black community, that we didn’t want policing at all – we just don’t want bad policing. Of course, we should throw a fit, protest and out-politic the police unions to get the elected officials and police departments we ask for. But, we should throw the same fit, protest and craft policy that protects our people from the vicious violence plaguing us within. Lives are at stake, and being lost, every day.
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