Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.
The bigger problem revealed by a viral fight between NYC police and subway riders
Like many left wing analysts, I spend a lot of time studying and writing about violent, racist, and fundamentally reactionary policing in America. Although widespread police brutality against everyday people protesting the murder of George Floyd has opened some eyes about the violence and racism inherent to U.S. policing, there remains precious little discussion in the mainstream about the institutional power police wield in our society. Protected by qualified immunity, aligned with reactionary political power, and armed to the teeth, American cops have become a "troopified" overseer class that exists above the law, and by extension, above the peasantry.
Well, if this October 24th opinion piece by Matthew Guariglia on NBCNews.com is any indication, the public at large is starting to notice. Yes, you read that correctly, NBC News. Using a viral video of a man having his rights violated for asking two New York cops why they aren't wearing masks on the Subway platform as a starting point, the author asks tough questions about authority and oversight that no police reform advocate wants to touch. Although Guarariglia focuses on covid prevention regulations, his prose makes it quite clear he's talking about larger questions of power and control in our society; as does the video. From the article:
"It’s bad enough that mask mandates seemingly do not apply to the officers often tasked with enforcing them. But the altercation in New York City highlights a deeper problem: The way police seek to penalize or harass anyone who dares question the unofficial and ultra-legal privileges of being an officer.
Mask mandates are a canary in the coal mine. If there is no plausible way to get all officers to wear a small strip of fabric that does quantifiable good for the public, what does that say about the institution as a whole? Who really controls police?"
Hot damn, now we're cooking with gas! Of course, the answer is that nobody really controls police; even politicians that want to remove violent cracker cops are terrified of police unions and the political consequences of feuding with armed reactionaries who exist above the law. Furthermore, it's still very much taboo to talk about the nexus between policing, reactionary vigilante violence, and fascist street politics, in the public discourse; you certainly won't find anything about that it in Guariglia's article here. Did you know that on the night Trump lost, New York cops literally rioted on behalf of their favorite fascist failson? Apparently, neither does the mainstream media.
Look, I'm not going to pretend an opinion piece on NBC is the blow that turns the tide against bootlickers and appeasement-loving police reformers. You can't reform an institution built to suppress and segregate marginalized people on behalf of capitalist exploiters; there's nothing good there to reform. But as long as we're still talking about bad apples, and worthless body cameras instead of the institutional power police command and represent, few people will truly understand why abolition is the only answer. If articles like this one take us one baby step forward, I'm all in favor of that.
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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