Read on Twitter
The media is currently extremely invested in distracting folks away from abolition and other radical demands by celebrating Black people in law enforcement in order to convince us that police reform is possible. Do not fall for it. Thread:
After the January 6th riot, stories like this one from ProPublica came out claiming that Black cops knew that Capitol police were racist all along. The article noted that hundreds of Black cops have sued the department for racism in the last 20 years. https://www.propublica.org/article/no-one-took-us-seriously-black-cops-warned-about-racist-capitol-police-officers-for-years
This story from Buzzfeed is doing similar work. Both articles ask the public to feel sorry for Black cops, framing them as a) victims of racist attacks and b) heroes who are undergoing abuse in order to patriotically defend our country. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/black-capitol-police-racism-mob
There are a lot of problems with this sort of framing. I am not for a second denying that white cops make racist remarks to Black cops. But focusing on these singular, isolated moments of racism grossly oversimplifies the structural racism that American policing was built upon.
After hearing these slurs that they were allegedly so disgusted by, these Black cops still chose to put on their badge, don their guns, and work alongside these white police officers, laboring under a violent system that aims to jail and kill Black and low-income people.
These Black cops who are supposedly so disgusted by racism continue to uphold a system that is responsible for mass Black death. So this means these Black police officers are only offended by racism if it personally offends or impacts them.
Similarly, after the Jan 6th riot, many news outlets ran profiles on Eugene Goodman, a Black Capitol police officer who led several rioters away from the Congresspeople’s
hiding places while being chased by a white supremacist mob. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/us/eugene-goodman-capitol-police-congressional-gold-medal-trnd/index.html
hiding places while being chased by a white supremacist mob. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/us/eugene-goodman-capitol-police-congressional-gold-medal-trnd/index.html
The focus on Goodman was meant to show that readers a) while some Capitol police officers, who were caught on video taking selfies with rioters, might be pro-Trump, they are outliers, and most Capitol police are not racist and b) the Capitol police are heroes and martyrs
This framing is also dangerous and inaccurate. While Goodman’s actions most likely saved many lives during the riot, we cannot allow one moment of decency to erase centuries of racist violence which Goodman, and all other US police officers, are still a part of today.
To save face after the riot, many police departments put Black people in charge to insist, once again, that policing cannot be racist if Black people are leading. Yoganda Pittman, a Black woman, was named the new Chief of Capitol Police. https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/11/955598516/in-historic-first-u-s-capitol-police-name-yogananda-pittman-as-acting-chief
More recently Andrea M. Hall will be the first Black woman to recite the pledge of allegiance at Inaguration. https://19thnews.org/2021/01/andrea-m-hall-pledge-of-allegiance-inauguration/
These are examples of the state giving us symbolic "representation" & surface level change that does not do anything to improve the actual lived experience of Black people in America. Putting a Black person in charge of the Capitol police will do NOTHING to stop police violence.
Allowing Black people into inherently racist systems do not make those systems better, safer, or more equitable. This is why even when Barack Obama, Lori Lightfoot, and Keisha Lance Bottoms got power, the number of Black deaths by police in America did not change.
This is why even when Kamala Harris becomes Vice President, the number of Black deaths by police also will not change. Shameless plug, but I wrote about this in November: https://maryretta.substack.com/p/the-fifth-wave
We do not need more Black cops. We do not need Black police chiefs. We need to DEFUND THE POLICE. We need to END POLICING. We need abolition now. The state and liberal media are committed to distracting us from this, and it is disheartening to see how well it's working.
Policing in America is racist on a systemic and structural level. This is why, during BLM protests, our demands were to "defund the police," not "put Black people in charge." It is imperative that even though Trump has lost the election, we do not lose sight of these demands.
We cannot give in to liberal compromises. We cannot on the one hand say "all c*ps are b*stards" and then suddenly feel sympathy when those cops are not white.
If you're interested in learning more about abolition/defunding the police, I'd check out #8toabolition: https://www.8toabolition.com/
