Hasnain says:

“Kaba: To me, the reason “defund the police” resonates with people is because we’re saying what we actually want to see happen. Some people on the left say: “‘Defund’ is totally ridiculous, it’s a budget gimmick.” Then some on the right say, “All hell is going to break loose, you all want the end of society.” For me, defund is such a clear, easy demand to understand. People understand it, they just don’t want to do it. People are like, “Oh, it’s so complicated!” No, it’s not. We’ve seen for years people defund public education and take that money and put it into more military, more policing, more prisons. The demand is to reverse that trend.

Ritchie: The common response is “that was the wrong slogan”, but it clearly had an impact because it generated the powerful backlash that we’ve seen, which is police doing exactly what Mariame was talking about – exercising their power politically and with ferocity over the last two years, precisely because their power was threatened by this idea, because they faced one of the greatest crises of legitimacy in at least a generation. Yes, we want to take money away from death and put it toward life, especially in a pandemic and climate catastrophe and economic crisis. People also say: “Defund movements have come and gone and are dead.” But people are still pushing defund demands on the ground across the US and are seeing now that mayors and city councils are having to justify and put a lot of energy into re-legitimizing police and refilling their budgets.”

Posted on 2022-08-30T01:18:13+0000