Why Black People Want to Defund the Police: A White Person’s Guide

Because I Know We Have to Spell it Out for You

10/6/20 KC Complains A Lot 14

Dearest Karen and Chet,

I hope this letter finds you well. It has been quite the week or so since my last letter, and I know you are eagerly awaiting answers to the questions that have been churning in your minds. I understand you may be frightened or dismayed by what you have seen on the news, but that is why I, your black friend, am here; to explain things to you that you probably should understand but don’t understand because reasons.

George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Derek Chauvin has galvanized the country towards a specific cause like none other before. While there were riots before (and I’ll get that before), protests are becoming more peaceful and more organized, and perhaps most importantly, they are not going away. While I hesitate to say “this time is different”, this time at least feels different. Local, state and the federal government (at least the Democrats) all appear to be trying to make moves to finally, finally start to curb police brutality and to prevent the deaths of innocent people at the hands of the public servants who are supposed to be entrusted with protecting them.

But lo, I know you Karen and Chet. I know Karen has been watching the protests and telling her friends about the one time she dated a black guy in college and how spending that two weeks dating DeAndre before her dad got mad have opened her eyes to black pain, and Chet has actually stopped asking his black co-workers what to do and actually decided to read any of the many, many books about this. But there’s the creeping feeling, a tingle up your spines, a phrase that has temporarily made you forget George Floyd’s death, even if it’s just for moments at a time:

Defund the police.

You don’t understand this because you like the police, Karen and Chet. The police provide a valuable service to you. When there was a weird looking black guy skulking around the apartment complex you spend $2100 a month to live in, Karen, it was the police who came and investigated the poor Uber Eats driver who was just trying to deliver some McDonald’s. Some of your best friends are police officers, Chet, and you can’t understand why anyone would want them to be out of jobs by defunding the entire department.

Alas, my friends, this is yet another example of how white people can hear one thing while black people are saying another. It’s like when Shantae asked you politely not to touch her hair, but you still took it as an invitation to touch her hair, Karen.

When we as black people talking about “defunding the police”, most of us are not advocating the complete abolishment of police forces. We understand fundamentally that crimes do happen, and that there should be peace keepers in our community to protect and serve cities. We’re not out here advocating that cities become crime ridden hellscapes like Gotham.

Rather, when we talk about defunding the police, we talk about prioritizing funds that go to police departments and re-appropriating them to better social services.

“Well why didn’t you just say that?” I can hear Chet asking as he eats his mayonnaise sandwich. First off, stop doing that, it’s fucking gross, and two, because “Re-appropriate funds intended to fund police departments for better use in the communities they protect” is hard to fit on a sign, my dude.

What we’ve seen from police in the wake of protests from across the country is a symptom of a larger problem that is inherently and institutionally baked into our concept of what “policing” should be. Across the country, we have seen the militarization of police departments, with too much money, way too much weaponry and too little accountability.

In Virginia alone last year, the state has spent a combined $3.8 million to acquire military grade equipment from the armed forces. Since the late 90s, $7.4 billion dollars in weapons and other military grade equipment has found its way from cities as large as New York City and towns as small as Middleburg, Pennsylvania (population 1,363).

To put that insanity into perspective, Chet, it’d be like the government giving a discount on 18 commercial lawnmowers when all you have is a townhouse and a push mower will more than suffice. Moreover, if you’ve got 18 commercial lawnmowers, it’s gonna be pretty hard to act like you’re not fighting a war against grass.

Adding to the problem? Police, who are, again, supposed to protect the peace, are often trained to view black and brown people, and yes, even white people, as enemies in a war. Noted slimebags like Dave Grossman have literally profited off teaching police officers that they are in a war, and to approach the killing of civilians and criminals alike with less empathy.

This type of thinking stands at odds with what the police are supposed to, Karen and Chet. How can the very people meant to protect us also treat us like we are going to kill them at a moment’s notice? Pour on a healthy dose of traumatized former soldiers of war coming home with no career prospects except to go into law enforcement, and you’ve got the perfect cocktail of bullshit for what black folks have been dealing with for centuries.

And that doesn’t even get into the racist history of why we even have the police in this country.

I know this is a lot to take in, Karen, because you hardly ever see a police officer in your neck of the woods. Rockville North Bethesda, Maryland is a peaceful place. If police really are out of control, why don’t you see them?

Truth is, it’s not that there’s less crime in your area, necessarily. It’s that the county police spend less time there than they do in, say, Gaithersburg, or Montgomery Village. (I know you don’t live in Maryland, Chet, but trust me, these Maryland anecdotes are killing with Karen right now.)

Police are incentivized to make as many arrests as possible to inflate their stats, which can help them land promotions, or to help police departments raise money. That’s what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, where cops were told to ticket as many people as possible to raise revenue, and it happened in New York City.

And where are the police gonna go when they need to make more arrests? To poorer, more crime ridden areas, which, thanks to good ol’ fashioned white supremacy and racism, tend to lead them to over-patrol black neighborhoods.

Remember how I told you guys to mind your own damn business? Black people are in a constant state of feeling like police officers never mind their own gotdamn business. Instead, we feel like cops are just waiting for excuses to ticket or arrest us. In many cases, in police departments across the country, that fear is a reality.

Karen and Chet, this is all a lot of words and a lot of data to say something quite simple; the police, in general, as currently constructed, suck at their jobs. If their jobs are to promote peace, prevent crime and bring about justice, then maybe showing up in military Humvees, slashing tires, pushing over frail old men, and resigning in mass when departments tried to hold them accountable is their job but then fam, I hate to tell you this, but the cops you hold so dear increasingly seem not to give a shit about you. About any of us.

And what’s the use of a police force having millions of dollars in equipment if the use cases for it are so small? The only time these weapons of war seem to get bought out are when there are black people peacefully protesting somewhere? You could find nary a Humvee or anything painted in camo when angry, armed white protestors stormed Michigan’s state capital to protest their right to get sick and die without government intervention.

So much of the money the police waste on weapons that they can only be bothered to use on people of color could be put towards reinvestment in poor communities, social services, health care and things that would actually, ya know, prevent crime, and give people incentives not to commit crimes.

That’s what defunding the police means, Chet and Karen. Few people (if anybody) are saying that the police must be vanquished in their entirety. But the vast sums of money that are used to requisition literal, actual weapons of war and are wasted on so called “experts” teaching police officers to view ordinary people as enemy combatants instead of trying to de-escalate potentially violent situations before weapons are drawn could be better used actually trying to vanquish and defeat poverty.

I know this one wasn’t as funny as the last one, Karen and Chet, but I needed to spit facts at you with as little bullshit as possible in order to make you understand. A militarized police forth with buckets full of taxpayer dollars capable of buying weaponry they don’t understand and only use to provoke and possibly kill innocent people of color or protesters is not one that anyone should advocate for.

Black lives matter.

Defund the police.

Sincerly,

Your Black Friend

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About KC Complains A Lot 135 Articles
KC Complains A Lot is another refugee from Deadspin. He enjoys writing and not caving to pressure from herbs.

14 Comments

  1. Are you aware of or a follower of one Michael Harriot over at The Root?

    You two could (should) do a lecture tour. In fact I’d argue you should have an entire Netflix special so you can explain all this to clueless, but not unwilling to help white people.

    Though I will concede without argument that there is already ample resources available for said clueless white person to study and learn about these issues for themselves.

    If I may, I do want to personally wish you well and I hope that you are able to enjoy time with those you value most, preferably with amazing food being involved.

  2. In the past month we saw the amazing contrast in how police treated folks. A bunch of right wing mostly white loons waving their guns in the air over being forced to wear masks and have shitty CoVID cuts were handled with kid gloves. A bunch of mostly peaceful protestors against a brutal racist system get tear gased and treated with riot batons.

    Thanks DeVos and Kochs for showing us the contrast in policing in US Amercia!

  4. I’ve been working in corrections for over 20 years and teach Criminology at the University level. All my experience and research points to early intervention with at-risk kids as probably the best way to address criminal behavior.

    Ted Conover wrote a book about his experience as an officer at Sing Sing. He semi-befriended an inmate who tended toward the philosophical. This guy pointed out that when you plan to build a prison, you are planning for some kid who is in grade school right now to get locked up somewhere down the road. I’d never thought about it that way, and it is a powerful indictment.

  7. “All my experience and research points to early intervention with at-risk kids as probably the best way to address criminal behavior.”

    Lemmy, my friend, we are on either end,of a very short, very straight line, when it comes to our fields, and I couldn’t possibly agree more!💖

    Putting this here, for the bazillionth time I’ve shared the Rolnick & Grunwald report (and essay ahead, that y’all can feel 100% free to TL/DR 😉);

    https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2003/early-childhood-development-economic-development-with-a-high-public-return

    For those who don’t want to read a Fed paper, the important takeaway is that “Investing in High-quality Early Childhood Ed (H-q ECE) has greater & more consistent returns on your investment, than nearly ANY other (legal) option”

    The Fed paper talks of a conservative R.O.I. of about $8.00/return for every $1.00 invested into H-q ECE, but I’ve seen estimated returns of anywhere up to $12.00 per dollar invested.

    Anecdotally, I will also remind y’all, that investment in things like EIDBI (https://www.dhs.state.mn.us/main/idcplg?IdcService=GET_DYNAMIC_CONVERSION&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased&dDocName=DHS16_195658 ), are HELLA expensive, short term,but AMAZINGLY cost-saving in the long term!!!

    It can cost as much as a quarter-million *per year* per child in a HIGH quality Autism day-treatment program. Easily 1 Mil+, by the time a 2-year old receives services before they go off to Kindergarten/1st grade.

    But having been a part of that EIDBI system?

    I can guarantee to you, that the million+ spent on MANY of those kiddos in their pre-K years means literally MILLIONS less spent on them, in adulthood.

    Plenty of my kiddos came in with *zero* communication skills, when they started Day Treatment. *MOST* of my kiddos left day treatment, WITH communication skills, many of them speaking their words (the others using communication devices), and at least half, headed to fully integrated classrooms in their school districts by the time they aged out of our program at 7 years old.

    Those kids who were going into integrated classrooms?

    Most of them will be able to live in–at MOST care-wise–a group home/independent living situation, with only minimal, community-based support, as adults.

    Those kids WILL NOT need skilled-nursing/mental health care 24/7, throughout their adulthood, like happened in previous generations, when Early-Intervention didn’t exist.

    https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/parents/states.html

    A short breakdown of the cost:
    Pre-K ASD Day treatment base-costs (before OT, PT, Feeding Therapy and Speech Therapy) run about $300.00/hr. Three hours a day, five days a week, for a total of $4,500.00/wk.

    Day treatment runs around 48-49 weeks of the year, depending on how the winter holiday season falls, so $4,500×48= $216,000.00…

    If a child needs Occupational, Speech, Feeding, or Physical therapies, those can easily bump their yearly costs up to $250,000/yr.

    But even if we go conservatively, and say $216,000.00× 4 years (ages 3, 4, 5, & 6), the state/federal governments will end up paying $864,000.00 on JUST their Day-treatment.**

    But MANY of these kiddos will need that $864,000-1,080,000 (if 5 years, not 4), and then cost the system MUCH less than the ~$200,000 a fully supported group-home costs, times EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR of their adult lives–ages 18-65+

    Care in a fully-supported 4-person group home, if estimated at $200,000 per year, for just the 47 years of one’s life from age 18-65 will cost a minimum of $9,400,000.

    So you can SEE, that $864,000, or even $1,080,000 is a significant investment, but *also* a MAJOR cost-savings, over a lifetime of adult care. Literally millions of dollars less, over the span of just *one* person’s life.

    Just like “regular” high-quality pre-K funding, the investment–in real dollars–in the early years of a person’s life, yields a significant return.💖

    *Also for anyone interested, on a tangential topic;*

    Later this month the Mpls Fed is also going to be doing a (free!!!!) virtual conference on the cost of Higher Ed, and who pays it, here;

    https://www.minneapolisfed.org/events/2020/opportunity-and-inclusive-growth-institute-spring-conference

    **This is 100% *separate* from the services provided through public education/ECSE/ and their legally guaranteed access to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), because of IDEA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuals_with_Disabilities_Education_Act

  8. Adding, too, that there are SO MANY studies, which also break down/break out the disparity in the ways that young black boys are overrepresented in the field of Special Education, and given EBD (Emotional & Behavioral Disorders) diagnoses, compared to the rates of white boys with *the same behaviors.*

    There is VERY MUCH a problem with systemic racism in Special Education, as well as in Mental Health, and simultaneously, there are massive funding shortages which are *also* tied to endemic & systemic racism.

    And if we COULD defund police departments, and FUND the ed & MH sides of things?

    Y’all, we could do SO.MUCH.BETTER., as a society!💖💓💗💞

  9. To put that insanity into perspective, Chet, it’d be like the government giving a discount on 18 commercial lawnmowers when all you have is a townhouse and a push mower will more than suffice.

    Doug has yet to return my lawnmower, I’m afraid.

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