Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.
Diversifying the Police Force Won’t End Police Violence
At this point, I don't think it will surprise anyone to hear that I am not a fan of ongoing efforts to "reform" policing; or for that matter, a so-called American justice system that grinds civil rights protesters and antifascists to paste, while letting nazi murderers walk with a pat on the head. As I discussed in a recent Quickshot Quotation, the plain truth is that most folks, particularly Americans, have no idea what the real role of policing is in our society. Indeed, a careful study of American history, such as that found in books like "Badges Without Borders" by Stuart Schrader, or "Our Enemies in Blue" by Kristian Williams, reveals that pretty much every prior round of "police reform" has only further empowered police to repress protestors, activists, and anyone who would harm the objectively fascist socioeconomic order in the United States.
Unfortunately, and despite these objective truths, even some folks on the left continue to insist that cosmetic reform measures will make a measurable difference in the behavior of fascist murderpigs whose job is basically to conduct class warfare on behalf of capital. Today on Nina-Bytes then, I'd like to turn your attention to a November 17th, 2021 Op-Ed written by abolitionist Reina Sultan over on Truthout, to provide a concrete example of why this approach is doomed to failure.
While the author's main focus is debunking the ridiculous notion that you can reform police by ensuring more brown faces are doing the actual racialized oppression, the fact is that virtually every argument she puts forward to do so, speaks to the larger misjudgment of the police's function that beleaguers most Americans. As Sultan notes, the funny thing about hiring more diverse police officers is at the end of the day, you're still hiring more police officers and those officers are still the enforcement arm of a brutal, white supremacist, openly neofeudalist socioeconomic order that currently dominates life throughout the Pig Empire. More importantly however, the author hits the nail on the head by noting you really can't "reform" a system that's working exactly as it was designed to function:
"Because policing and incarceration are inherently violent and racist institutions, prison-industrial complex abolitionists have been working to dismantle them in the hopes of creating a safer and more just world. Without the prison-industrial complex, abolitionists argue that we can divert resources to life-giving resources and services, rather than death-making institutions.
Prison-industrial complex reformers and preservationists generally argue that the system is “broken” — that it has problems that are ultimately solvable, but that maintaining its existence is imperative for public safety. The truth is that the prison-industrial complex is functioning exactly as it is meant to; its creation was never intended to provide justice, but instead it was born of the desire to maintain white supremacy and racial capitalism. When we reframe our understanding of the prison-industrial complex, it becomes clear that it is accomplishing its intended purpose."
Obviously, you don't really need me to tell you that American policing is out of control; anyone who tuned on the nightly news during the George Floyd protests knows that. I fear however that the real scope of the policing problem, and its role in the ongoing class war being conducted by billionaire supervillains against, well essentially the rest of us, is being lost in the noise. In the war against neofeudalist mass murderers, and an oncoming Pig Empire slide into overt fascism, violent reactionary murderpigs will be the machine's first and favorite response to anyone who doesn't want to go gently into that good night so Elon Musk can escape to Mars.
Not only is it impossible to reform police, but if we intended to dismantle capitalism and save all life on earth, abolishing them as quickly as possible is imperative; the survival of the species might just depend on it.
nina illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst.
You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog
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