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It’s amazing to me that mostly-white progressive activists pushed so hard for defunding this last year, employing every aggressive tactic like rioting and polit

It’s amazing to me that mostly-white progressive activists pushed so hard for defunding this last year, employing every aggressive tactic like rioting and political intimidation. They completely ignored what minority communities want and need in service of their ideological goals. There was a past discussion on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24275500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24275500) about how polls show that Black Americans overwhelmingly want policing to stay the same or increase, an inconvenient piece of data that was given little emphasis on news or social media, and ignored by politicians. In the end numerous cities defunded police departments anyways and the result was a predictable surge in crime. The failure of society to communicate and hold civil discourse just makes me sad and leaves me with little faith that our political process is more than just random noise.

dragonwriter 5y ago
“Defund the police” doesn't mean “reduce law enforcement activity”, it means “move funding and responsibility for non-law-enforcement activity out of police departments to entities that can do it more efficiently and without turning encounters that should not require armed law enforcement in the first place into bloodbaths that then consume even more.law enforcement resources”. Defunding has, as a corollary, more police resources dedicated to core law enforcement activities, despite less total resources. (The disband/abolish alternative works out similarly, though it envisions a more comprehensive reorganization of local community services that wont have a monolithic paramilitary “police department” as a component.)
- zepto 5y ago
  This is not true. It is true that there is more than one view represented by the phrase ‘defund’, but many who say defund do mean abolish.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  I’ve heard this claimed definition of defunding over and over, and it just feels like gaslighting or a distraction tactic. I still think defunding is an unacceptable concept for multiple reasons: 1. Minorities want police. Not social workers, police. Progressives want to play the role of a white savior, but they ignore what minorities want and need, which means this whole push for defunding amounts to exploitation of minorities for political goals. 2. I find the rhetoric around police response to be hyperbolic. Your use of the word “bloodbath” feels that way to me. Use of force is rare, and unjust use of force is incredibly rare. The entire notion of defunding is disrupting an effective system to address a near non-existent problem based on a few heavily popularized anecdotal incidents. 3. The defund movement and abolish movement are the same. First off this is true in the literal sense since to “defund” is to stop all funding. Second, activists regularly claim they truly do mean abolish - at best they are attempting incremental steps towards that dangerous goal. Third, both reduced funding and complete defunding of police go hand in hand with other dangerous ideas like restorative justice policies in places like SF, the goal of which is to not enforce the law in order to reduce consequences (like prison time) in search of “equity”. I would reject any reduced funding policy that is part of this collection of related policies, so the semantic debate doesn’t feel particularly useful (for me).
rayiner 5y ago
Luckily Adams popped the “defund the police” bubble pretty decisively: https://nypost.com/2021/07/10/eric-adams-win-in-high-crime-areas-proves-liberals-are-out-of-touch/ https://nypost.com/2021/07/10/eric-adams-win-in-high-crime-a... > In the 75th Precinct of Brooklyn’s East New York, which has seen nine murders and 34 shootings in 2021, Adams clobbered all others with up to 77.9 percent of the vote. He also took up to 60 percent in the Southwest Bronx’s 44th Precinct where there were eight murders and 44 shootings so far this year. Folks paying attention might also have noticed that Black mayors serving primarily Black constituencies, such as in Baltimore and Atlanta, quickly rejected defund rhetoric. The scary thing about all this to me, as a person of color, is that we have very little way to control the narrative around our own identities. After the Atlanta message spa murders, I saw all these “Asian Studies” professors and activists on CNN and other outlets purporting to present the Asian viewpoint. All I could think of is “my Asian parents would never have let me study a social science—what insight can this person really offer?” Along with “I wonder if you can get tenure at Columbia University writing from the perspective of my mom and aunts?” I mean, imagine CNN hosting some Columbia University professor to weigh in on Italian American or Irish American issues. Nobody would take that seriously, right? It’s really disempowering. Not only for our ability to independently assert our own political interests. But also for our ability to socialize our children in our values.

dragonwriter 5y ago

“Defund the police” doesn't mean “reduce law enforcement activity”, it means “move funding and responsibility for non-law-enforcement activity out of police departments to entities that can do it more efficiently and without turning encounters that should not require armed law enforcement in the first place into bloodbaths that then consume even more.law enforcement resources”. Defunding has, as a corollary, more police resources dedicated to core law enforcement activities, despite less total resources. (The disband/abolish alternative works out similarly, though it envisions a more comprehensive reorganization of local community services that wont have a monolithic paramilitary “police department” as a component.)

zepto 5y ago
This is not true. It is true that there is more than one view represented by the phrase ‘defund’, but many who say defund do mean abolish.
throwawaysea 5y ago
I’ve heard this claimed definition of defunding over and over, and it just feels like gaslighting or a distraction tactic. I still think defunding is an unacceptable concept for multiple reasons: 1. Minorities want police. Not social workers, police. Progressives want to play the role of a white savior, but they ignore what minorities want and need, which means this whole push for defunding amounts to exploitation of minorities for political goals. 2. I find the rhetoric around police response to be hyperbolic. Your use of the word “bloodbath” feels that way to me. Use of force is rare, and unjust use of force is incredibly rare. The entire notion of defunding is disrupting an effective system to address a near non-existent problem based on a few heavily popularized anecdotal incidents. 3. The defund movement and abolish movement are the same. First off this is true in the literal sense since to “defund” is to stop all funding. Second, activists regularly claim they truly do mean abolish - at best they are attempting incremental steps towards that dangerous goal. Third, both reduced funding and complete defunding of police go hand in hand with other dangerous ideas like restorative justice policies in places like SF, the goal of which is to not enforce the law in order to reduce consequences (like prison time) in search of “equity”. I would reject any reduced funding policy that is part of this collection of related policies, so the semantic debate doesn’t feel particularly useful (for me).

rayiner 5y ago

Luckily Adams popped the “defund the police” bubble pretty decisively: https://nypost.com/2021/07/10/eric-adams-win-in-high-crime-areas-proves-liberals-are-out-of-touch/ https://nypost.com/2021/07/10/eric-adams-win-in-high-crime-a... > In the 75th Precinct of Brooklyn’s East New York, which has seen nine murders and 34 shootings in 2021, Adams clobbered all others with up to 77.9 percent of the vote. He also took up to 60 percent in the Southwest Bronx’s 44th Precinct where there were eight murders and 44 shootings so far this year. Folks paying attention might also have noticed that Black mayors serving primarily Black constituencies, such as in Baltimore and Atlanta, quickly rejected defund rhetoric. The scary thing about all this to me, as a person of color, is that we have very little way to control the narrative around our own identities. After the Atlanta message spa murders, I saw all these “Asian Studies” professors and activists on CNN and other outlets purporting to present the Asian viewpoint. All I could think of is “my Asian parents would never have let me study a social science—what insight can this person really offer?” Along with “I wonder if you can get tenure at Columbia University writing from the perspective of my mom and aunts?” I mean, imagine CNN hosting some Columbia University professor to weigh in on Italian American or Irish American issues. Nobody would take that seriously, right? It’s really disempowering. Not only for our ability to independently assert our own political interests. But also for our ability to socialize our children in our values.