Saying something is wrong is a lot easier than providing a workable alternative. So is shouting radical slogans. Seeing a 4 fold increase in the murder rate in the Twin Cities since 2019, which in a move which should surprise no one, primarily affects the same communities that are the victims of police brutality, has made me feel a kind of cynicism I didn't think possible. I get the sense that the police have basically thrown certain parts of the metro to the wolves. And I sit here wondering, "Really, what else did anyone think would happen? Was it ever about more than a veneer of radical aesthetics at any point?"
There aren't enough police in Minneapolis anymore, and there honestly weren't enough there to begin with. Some commentator (can't remember who) was pointing out how a bunch of the police scandals in Minneapolis involve first- or second-year officers, and wondering if a lack of experience and leadership was to blame for it. I'm curious whether he was on to something. We were having a hell of time recruiting officers before the everything; we're not going to get any now.
A close friend of mine teaches at a school near Lake Street, and every single one of his students (who are all poor and mostly black) has been personally affected by the gun violence. Everyone knows a friend or family member who's been shot. It's fucking insanity. It's such complete dysfunction that it's hard to reconcile "black lives matter" with their utter apathy to the bloodshed in Minneapolis.
To add to what Freddie said, I think a big and slightly more detailed question to ask is: If I invested this much emotional energy in critical race theory and this is the product of it, should I perhaps invest less energy in defending and promoting critical race theory and perhaps invest that energy in something else?
I feel like culture war is all liberals know how to do now. They go on social media and yell at people all day, not just conservatives on the other side, but the less-woke people on their own side. Its less about improving the world and more about shoring up your own status in the gang. I've seen friends fall into this pattern, and it's pathetic. They should realize that every screaming social media-based tactic they're using is something that their opponents know how to use too. They hate you as much as you hate them. At what point do you want to break out of this madness? I know I do.
They do it much more on their own side because they know it hurts more. That is where the power lies - in people who actually DO care what they think of them. On the right, they almost thrive on criticism from the left. So it is futile (though destructive to those who sling it).
I think each platform has it's problems. Twitter is worse character limits as you say, but it's algorithm is specifically evil for some reason. I'm not smart enough to know why. But also, Twitter caters to mob rule. More than Facebook. And that mob can actually control people with big followings. The mob is pretty anonymous. While the blue checks are not. Yeah, it's power to the people, but most non-famous people on Twitter are fucking nuts to be frank. (Also more bots that facebook etc.)
I disagree about the internet as a whole. Substack gets attacked on Twitter, but these message boards are much more civil than YouTube or main website message boards. There's also new things like Clubhouse which are good if you find a nice small room to chat to strangers.
It's all about the algorythms and the addictiveness.
I think people genuinely believe that since screaming and going full fascist works for the right, that it will work for the left. People have told me that "defund the police" for instance is going to "move the Overton window to the left!" because saying crazy things has worked to move the country to the right over the last decade. I get their point, but I don't think it works that way for left politics. The right wing spends every moment just fomenting rage, rage, rage, through all their propaganda platforms. The left thinks if we do the same, maybe progressivism will carry the day. I get this analysis, but feel like there's not much evidence that these tactics work.
Hell no it won't carry the day for the Left. I'm fact it has a good chance of exhausting people so much that they tune out and stop paying attention to politics altogether. How many years of your life do you want to devote to partisan screaming?
This seems so self-evident that one begins to question whether those who have pushed CRT as a means of achieving improved conditions for black people ever cared about them to begin with. . . .
Meet the new ruling class. Same as the old ruling class. Their ticket to ride is this. It's sort of like a Hail Mary pass - sin now, confess, all is forgiven. What could, say, Jeff Bezos or any media empire do instead of this nonsense in their staff struggle sessions? Oh I don't know. How about sponsor ten elementary schools that need funding? How about sponsor ten kids who need college tuition? How about buy sponsors Whole Foods deliveries to families who can't afford the healthy sustainable food THEY get to eat? It's like driving around a hybrid Porsche.
I can think of many things that you suggest that would make a difference to real people as I listen to the nth speech by a $$ consultant telling me I'm not good enough.
Money that could actually go to needy people. (Yes, mostly people of color). But no one wants to talk about money or class. Look how they smear Yang. The only NY candidate who will actually give money to poor people.
I think part of the problem is that it wasn't radicalism burning down laundromats last year: it was a bunch of bored and scared people who were so desperate to get a break from COVID everything that they'd latch onto *anything*. I know people who were involved in the riots in Minneapolis last year (as in, actually looted/broke things/stole trucks, etc). The ones I know are a bunch of teenagers who don't believe much of anything but wanted to impress their friends--who they'd barely been able to see--with how daring and brave they are. Major riots have followed just about every pandemic in history, and I think it's worth keeping that in mind when looking at the 2020 riots--I get the impression that this was not really a release of long-held racial frustrations, and more a release of very specific short-term frustrations related to the pandemic, so expecting it to turn into lasting political will might be a fool's errand.
Yes, people have the idea that content in schools is implemented by teachers and received by students far, far more seamlessly and efficiently than it actually is, or could possibly be. When I student taught freshman World History, my cooperating teacher gave me two days--yes, two WHOLE days-- to cover the entirety of World War II (I remember I made two PowerPoints: Monday- European Theater; Tuesday- Pacific Theater). Like, forget CRT lol.
I'm sympathetic to the the activists in Chicago, for example, who won a requirement that the Burge Torture Scandal be taught in CPS schools. As a concrete event, with a local connection, I can imagine a modestly successful implementation, so long as the teacher / dept chair / admin are on board. But I can't help but think the right-wing approach to propaganda is the far more potent. Simply flood the zone with simple videos and lesson plans (called, like, American History for Patriots or some shit) for harried teachers Googling for ideas to stumble upon.
Far from learning about police torture, how many students are being assigned Prager U?
I won't exhaust you with a list of activities I have undertaken for diversity before 2020. Each time I attend a job fair or program to engage non-well-represented people I have had to plead for funds from my institution or pay myself. I have a fair amount of writing dating back many years about this & it hasn't been a career reason, just right thing to do. With the advent of CRT much $$ is being spent on training us--costs so much more than the $500 to be at a booth promoting librarianship. If the $$$ now being used to train us could be used to help us help others on the ground--the world could change. I thought after summer 2020 when my institution engaged a consulting firm at a large fee to train us I could ask again for $500 to be at a booth (no), but on the ground little changes. Hardy comes to my mind--"How arrives it joy lies slain, And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
My friend's school district spent $500k on a training seminar so all its teachers could learn about "white privilege" and "white fragility"
My friend's school has desperately needed a counselor for their students and has never gotten one. With that money, they could have provided much-needed counseling and mentorship to the students every day for several years. But no.
This is same all over and a great shift from on the ground students needs. Shows bad faith in teacher ed. programs as it indicates to me that schools think their teachers got none of this in their education--but I know they did.
I know, I can't resist that one. But you point out so well that it's the same story---giving money direct to people who need it is the thing to do, not to the priests.
The one point I do think is important to make is that both Democrats and Republicans mean two completely different things when each of them refer to CRT. Democrats likely never heard of it before Republicans started talking about it and then googled "critical race theory wikipedia", leading to their typical "But high schools aren't teaching obscure legal theories." Republicans meanwhile I are using CRT to mean like "Robin DiAngelo/Ibram Kendi/The 1619 Project". This then of course often triggers the slightly ironic comments like "nevermind Republicans are actually good, HR department DEI courses suck and I wish they were banned too."
Thank you for this, Freddie. I finally have the writing to share that won't make me look crazy as a social studies educator. What is extra concerning is the backlash to CRT is going to make it harder to teach what we HAVE been teaching in places like Jacksonville, where I taught history for 5 years using a range of texts, including Zinn. This will hurt good culturally competent humanities teaching, which was already happening more than the left seems to want to acknowledge.
Same here. What we see is lack of trust in teacher education programs which have been incorporating justice for many years and now seem to be seen as locus of injustice.
I'd say public school teachers have one of the most consistent on-the-ground views of what injustice looks like. Ironically, one of the best teachers my kids have had has turned out to be a Tr*mp supporter. Tragic. However, she was extraordinarily caring toward *all* her students, consistently went above and beyond, and was a highly capable educator. I could definitely see her being against CRT in education, so the left would paint her as a white supremacist. Yet, dollars to donuts, she embodies a change-a-kid's-life kind of teacher personality. There can be a difference between the politcal rhetoric people buy into--and fight tooth and nail over--and how they actually funciton in their communities. But once again, society at large is going to take a dump on teachers, who Are the Problem, somehow.
Thank you for this moving and generous acknowledgement of someone whose actions tell you far more about the person than their political ideology. You are entitled, of course, to insist that the teacher has somehow fallen prey to a false consciousness (“Tragic”). But doesn’t it all make you wonder if your own conception of this deplorable political stance might be at least a little infected by its own form of blindness? That maybe there is something about the opposition that you quite literally cannot see and do not understand? Factionalism isn’t inherently wrong, but we should be extremely wary about seeing the world through an ideological lens. It has a way of making us insist on what we must see rather than seeing what is actually there. People are complicated. We shouldn’t settle for cartoon (“Tragic”) representations of that complexity.
True. In this case referring to someone so wonderful falling prey to illogical conspiracy theorizing “tragic” is not dehumanizing or cartoonish. It is an expression of emotion.
I appreciate your willingness to describe the tragic while still acknowledging the humanity of the individual. People are complex. I think you really captured that in your description of her.
I agree. I used the word tragic because I know a lot more about her ideology than I laid out; it was irrelevant. She has openly supported conspiracy theories around Covid masking for instance, and other Q-anon crap.
When people ask what political party I belong to, I tell them that if they are fortunate, at some point in their life something terrible and unexpected will bring them to their knees. At that moment they will learn that while success if fun, it's pain that unites.
When that moment comes, there are those who will be there for you that you did not expect and those who you expected to be there who won't. It will follow no philosophical or political ideology. It comes from some other place.
I’ve come across a good deal of criticism lately about MLK and his group’s tactics and concessions lately. The gist being he wasn’t radical enough. It’s in vogue to uplift Angela Davis and Malcolm X. Which is not wrong! There were many facets to the movement at that time. But one thing I think keeps getting ignored: MLK and John Lewis and their crew *got shit done.* They spoke and wrote prolifically, demanding radical change and also making concessions to what is now called White fragility. They knew that emotional change often trails intellectual change which often trails policy change. The march on Washington was called the march for jobs and freedom. Both specific and aspirational. “Defund the police,” for example, isn’t really either. And CRT? Well that’s so tangential that as you pointed out most people probably don’t haves clue what it even actually is.
In fact I have been perpetually debating doing a post about the fact that Malcolm X never really accomplished anything, in large measure because he was stuck in the NOI, which had some positive local impacts but wasn't even a civil rights organization but a bizarre religious cult.
Has there really been much defense of Critical Race Theory? Most of what I've seen has been people (correctly) pointing out that the right's obsession with it is a nonsensical moral panic and a red herring.
Hmm I think that might be an artifact of the peculiarities of this as a media story; CRT is an immensely influential field in legal education and its consequences can be seen in all manner of legal publications that are not at all specifically race- or social justice-focused.
Yeah, but the culture war isn't pro-CRT vs. anti-CRT, it's a reactionary movement that's positioned "critical race theory" as a catchall boogeyman label that refers to everything from Howard Zinn to Robin DiAngelo, and a pushback against the idea that teaching the realities of race and racism in American society is some kind of unacceptably radical indoctrination. No one is saying "We need to be teaching Critical Race Theory in middle schools!"
I really think you, and everyone, should avoid saying "no on is saying," because someone is in fact always saying what you say no one is saying. Here Joy Ann Reid claims that the alternative to CRT is teaching "slavery was not so bad" and "lynchings and violence never happened."
Just to put the weight of a personal anecdote on the other side, I'm from small town southeastern Missouri (and the 80s) and that version is very consistent with my experience growing up. John Brown was a radical, Lee was the hero who brought him in, slavery was bad, sure, but had not much to do with the war, which was due to the Abolitionists and the Fire Eaters, who drove the country into a war no one really wanted and which didn't need to happen. Once begun, the war was fought with heroism on both sides because after all, we're all Americans. Reconstruction was a dark time of exploitation of the south that only happened because Lincoln died. Grant was a drunken butcher of a general who beat the noble and skilled Lee by drowning him in blood, and then he was a drunken incompetent as a president who was taken advantage of by unscrupulous advisors.
That's not what Reid is saying at all. She's criticizing a sanitized version of history that is, in fact, taught in many schools (see Heer's tweet responding to Greenwald's), and which the moral panic over "CRT" seems dedicated to advancing. You seem to be accepting the frame of "critical race theory" as "teaching about race."
My nieces are in public school in San Diego. They are absolutely 100% teaching CRT in the public schools -- ie that White people are inherently racist and Black people are the victims of that racist thought and behavior. They are teaching equity (those that are traditionally disadvantaged deserve more) is correct and moral; equality (everyone is treated equally) is incorrect and immoral. Whatever your stance on these issues, these are not treated as things that can be discussed or debated. This is indoctrination, not critical thinking.
Is laughable if you're asserting that kids aren't already indoctrinated into racist Lost Cause nonsense, as if conservatives are out there presenting objectivity while liberals are doing CRT. What's your take on this Louisiana handout, describing a woman who owned slaves as a "refugee" who unfortunately "lost her property" because of the Civil War? https://twitter.com/NikkiandDes/status/1404437743170686979/photo/1
The funny part is that the rhetoric has been turned up to such a ridiculous degree. The other side - in this case - are racists, white supremacists, Nazis, insurrectionists, and Literal Hitler. Claiming that your* side's wrong thing is okay because people you claim are actually Nazis are doing the same/something similar should be clearly fallacious. But, alas.
*Not actually your side, just the side you're fanboying/fangirling for as if you were a fan of Marvel movies or the Lakers.
Please don't misunderstand me: I agree with many of the tenets of CRT. Probably, most of us do. Is there at least unconscious bias , if not outright systemic racism, deeply embedded in our society? Absolutely. Is it worse to be poor and Black, then poor and White? I think so. But I am looking at the CRT "solutions" to those problems and finding them not only lacking, but frightening in their zeal. I think it is damaging to tell White children that they are inherently racist; and I think it's damaging to tell Black children they are destined to be victims. This zeal led to the incident at Smith that was covered in a prior Freddie post. Again, the religious fervor, the fanaticism is frightening.
In medicine, we absolutely need to face our biased treatment of African Americans. I had a patient during Covid that was so mistreated by 4 (!) ER visits that I was shocked and furious and the only explanation I could come up with was race. (While certainly lower income, she had good insurance so class alone couldn't explain it.) But here's the other side of what is going on with this rigid dogma: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-doctors-cant-speak
Sorry for long post. I have these debates with my husband all the time, who thinks I'm over-reacting on the damage of CRT. He would argue that society needs the slap in the face right now and it'll settle down with the country more tolerant, understanding and informed. I hope so, but I guess I worry about those that are sacrificed and harmed in the meantime.
Teaching white kids that they are irredeemably racist is not going to lead a country that is "more tolerant, understanding and informed". It's going to lead to a country that is more polarized and at each other's throats than ever.
The lack of understanding of basic human psychology by SJWs is truly astonishing.
My mom is a teacher and I am friends with multiple teachers (one of whom recently went through a Master's education program), and yes, people are absolutely saying we need to teach critical race theory in schools at al levels.
Lets not forget the teacher resignation letters, the parent letters of protest while pulling their kids out of schools, and living parents speaking out at school board meetings, all against CRT instituted in k-12. The details of how CRT is manifesting in schools is bone chilling.
Let me add a bullet to your list: conservatives like myself - with a lifelong disdain for the smug and preachy certitudes of “political activism” - becoming politically active so that we can do what it takes to stop the useful idiots teaching CRT bigotry from destroying the spirits of an entire generation. The elevation of power relations and racial identity to the summit of human experience corrupts children at every point of the intersectional spider web: black, white, brown and all the rest. Those of you - Freddie deBoer included - who think CRT is just an inconsequential sideshow? You have no idea how hard the punch back will be.
Have you actually looked into this and determined CRT is only a legal theory taught in law school? Or you simply haven't encountered it in your kids' own schooling and have concluded it doesn't exist anywhere?
Last night a street in my area was closed down so they could refresh the George Floyd street art in front of city hall. I admit this pissed me off - what does this art matter, one year and many deaths later? The young people out doing this.... I don't dismiss the impact his murder had on people - and art is great - but who is teaching them that change happens like this? Artists can impact movements, but symbolism won't save anyone from being murdered by police.
I agree that there's a newfound love for Angela Davis and Malcolm X out there. They're fascinating people, so I get it, but this is still an outright rejection of the strategies of their grandparents.
People are defending CRT because they think they need to match the tone of the right-wing. That happens all the time now. If you read the bills that are proposed, they're so much broader and crazier than "just" banning CRT. Highly recommend you read them if you haven't.
It's weird nativist stuff that we should oppose. HOWEVER, matching the right tone-for-tone is stupid. They're doing anti-CRT bills because they have power. We need power - not just cultural power. Actual, we-win-elections-and-do-stuff power. What's more important - local elections for Board of Education or George Floyd murals?
This. Everything is so reactionary now. No matter what the issue. If they don't wear masks we have to sleep in our masks. If they support cops we need to abolish cops. On & one. I know he's not that popular now but this is all literally Sneetches by Dr. Suess.
Sadly, the right wing attack on CRT (and there's lots of liberal critiques of CRT, but I'm talking about the Fox / AON panic) will of course just strengthen CRT on the Left. And of course like Freddie says, despite some good stuff in CRT (I've read a bit of Crenshaw, she's no DiAgelo, she's serious and has some good ideas), but it will be applied via social media, Zoom struggle sessions and culture war nonesense.
North Carolina is being especially crazy! They have a bill that states that schools CAN'T teach anything that goes against their civil rights laws. This of course, bans CRT that teaches that all whites are superior yet oppressors, and all blacks are inferior yet oppressed. It teaches that doing well in school is a white thing, so of course we need to lower standards and not just focus on equal opportunities. I'm as liberal as they come but CRT is racist garbage that oppresses black kids the most. I don't know a single person of color who is for this. It's mostly supported by rich white liberals who send their kids to private school which tells you everything you need to know about this civil rights destroying garbage. They tried to teach this in my kids school in Raleigh and we moved. Done.
There's an article in the New York Times today about Virginia, where they did pass a number of police reforms. Short version: After Ralph Northam's 2019 scandal, Black leaders saw an opportunity, and they didn't waste it. While woke activists demanded resignation, these leaders stood by the bumbling white governor in exchange for a list of demands, including loads of money for the Black community, the end of the death penalty, legal reforms, and police reforms. There's also diversity training happening, and the governor loves to talk about his new favorite author Robin Diangelo... but real things got done.
The Times asked Northam what he thinks about CRT. He said, "Critical race theory is a dog whistle that the Republicans are using to frighten people. What I’m interested in is equity." His team was smart to prep him to give this answer and pivot. It's also in line with the approach of Black leaders in the state. Virginia is not going to ban CRT, so there's zero point in debating it.
Older Black leaders must be so frustrated with the kids. They've been making deals with clueless white people forever -- they know better than to demand or expect leaders with "pure hearts" or whatever. And they've lived through enough to know that policy matters way more than symbolism. Money and laws. Get shit done.
I was as disgusted with Biden's call for more police funding as anyone, but given his history as the archetype pro-incarceration, pro war politician you were never going to get anything other than more money for droning weddings and locking kids in filthy cages from "he just gets it" Joe and cop "lock em up" Kamala. The good news is that criminal reform remains primarily a State level issue and does not depend on whatever sociopath currently occupies the White House to move forward.
Criminal reform was never going to be quick and it was never going to be easy even by slow government standards. With everyone from Prison, Prosecutor and police Unions, to the companies that profit off enslaving 2.5 million American's a year, to a media and Hollywood complex that feeds moral panic and irrational stranger danger fear to a public that frankly loves incarceration like apple pie as the perfect solution to literally every societal problem, you were never going to see change around things like qualified and absolute immunity, asset forfeiture, parallel construction, police and prosecutor accountability, testilying, Terry Stops, Brady Violations or any of the other major issues wrong with our intentionally broken criminal system.
We have seen some change at the State level, however, as for the first time citizens started actually attending Police Contract negotiations and challenging the Union wish list. People realizing that the police version of events in a charging is not always equal to proof beyond a reasonable doubt even if the media always treats it that way. We have seen police record disclosure laws in places like New York and while budgets have not really been cut, we have at least slowed the rate of endless pay hikes for police regardless of performance. We have also seen in increase in police prosecuted for at least the most extreme crimes.
In places like Washington state they repealed a unique law giving cops near-absolute indemnity to kill
We have DA reformers like Krasner in Philly, Schmidt in Portland, Chesa Boudin in San
Francisco and Gascon on LA. There supporters are frustrated by the slow pace of change from these DA's, but the very idea that a former defense attorney or child of parents who were incarcerated would become a DA in America was unimaginable for the past 50 years where almost every judge was a former prosecutor elected based on their complete disregard for the Constitution and DA's competed entirely on who could dream up the most sadistic punishment for whatever marginalized group was out of favor at the moment.
Fuck Joe Binden who only believes in criminal reform and compassion when it comes to his own son, but at the State level in many places things are slowly moving forward without him.
I could go on like this listing changes at the State level and someone else could point out how they are all imcomplete. These are partial measures and pathetically minor given the level of endemic injustice in the system, but for a solid 50 years the only topic on the table at the State level is how can we give police and prosecutors more money and less accountability. At least that conversation is over for the time being.
On this issue, I'm not convinced that simply removing money (defund the police, generally speaking) is actually going to fix any problems. I'd venture to say that most police officers (with those glaring exceptions in large cities where some have gamed the system with impunity) make a living wage but not a whole lot more than that. Smaller departments around the country have a hard time being fully staffed. An overtaxed corps of officers isn't going to be in prime decision-making/situationally aware form.
100% yes major reforms ought to be made and a tremendous increase in accountability must happen, but simply taking away funding won't accomplish that. We need appropriately funded, appropriately sized departments with those funds allocated to payroll, infrastructure equipment (radios, cameras, cars, computers), and a decrease in funding militaristic tactical gear and vehicles, for example. That's part of the accountability.
I completely agree that all the examples you've presented are serious issues. And your assessment of Seattle police structures are no doubt on point. I know of a number of officers who left our local department, in a mid-size suburb in North Carolina--for Seattle exactly because the officers are paid well.
I latched on to the police funding issue because that's what you opened with, and I quickly transitioned to defund the police because that is the rallying cry of the day. What I don't want to get lost in the weeds is the fact that for the average beat officer in a mid-size or small-size department, working conditions aren't all that fantastic especially commensurate with pay. And as we all know, the lowest people on the rung always bear the brunt of any financial depletion.
I'm also saying that conflating beat officers with the DA's office or even the jails, which are typically run by sheriffs, is inappropriate because they are related but individual agencies. The sweeping criminal justice reform issues you've highlighted aren't going to be fixed by understaffing the lowest tier of police officers. The bureaucracy and policy machines have very little to do with the daily duties of a beat officer, and that's where the money is.
Finally, I'd be interested to know the specifics of the Seattle budget. Because over the last 30 years, there has also been an explosion of technology, which is extremely expensive. Every police car now has a computer, body cams and car cameras, cell phones, and all the networking and tech support and system maintenance and hardware maintenance, etc. etc. etc. I don't doubt that some unspecified portion of that huge budgetary increase was spent on programs or equipment that might be objectionable. What I am saying is that the allocation of funds (or the removal of funds) from ANY social program in itself isn't a substitute for policy change, and may actually hinder meaningful policy change since it can turn the on-the-ground people into highly vocal partisan actors.
I did not intend to minimize your original post by highlighting the emphasis on defunding. My goal was to point out how even the well intentioned who support reform are quickly dragged into the funding debate and I don't think it's a mistake. This is a debating topic those invested in maintaining power with the status quo have spent millions ensuring we remain focused on. It's the one argument those against all reform believe they can win the widest support for.
I'm reluctant to suggest specific budget reforms in places I don't know much about. There is this increasing tendency to politicize local news to the national stage in order to push specific talking points (murder rates in Chicago, Car jacking in Minneapolis, protests in Portland, homelessness in San Francisco). In the few cases I have looked into these situations they are dramatically different than the narrative being sold to us.
If you tell me the average beat officer in small town America is underpaid I believe you. I am not arguing for defunding, but those who are do not argue that police are overpaid. They are arguing that we need fewer police interactions because police contact brings its own violence and the best way to minimize that is to reduce policing. Once again, not something I am going to debate, but I want to be fair to their argument.
You're right that beat officers, the DA's office or even the jails, which are typically run by sheriffs (along with the prison system and judges) are all different, but they are interlocking and can't be understood without reference to each other. The qualified immunity that protects the police is absolute immunity when it comes to prosecutor's. DAs and the police often split asset forfeiture proceeds. It's ultimately DA's that often refuse to punish the police for criminal behavior and judges who look the other way if they lie under oath on the stand. They are different, but all part of a whole.
The 300% increase in the budget since 1990 and the 50% increase over the past 5 years related specifically to pay. The rate of increase in spending for mass surveillance technology is many times this. Interestingly, this spending increase was sold as a way to reduce the the number of officers, but we have more officers despite less crime and massive spending in this area. We can't even argue this mass surveillance technology leads to more arrests since we are doing far worse at resolving crime than when we had none of this technology in 1990.
Why if I were cynical, based on the dramatic increase in surveillance spending and the steep drop in solving crime, I might conclude the rise of the expensive tax payer funded surveillance state in Seattle never had anything to do with actually stopping, or resolving crime.................
Indeed, indeed. My impulse is always to raise my hand and say “don’t forget about the rank and file” because they often get lumped in with the power structures. Part and parcel of the whole, yes. But I don’t see how activists telling Black and brown people who are police they need to quit their jobs is helping move the conversation forward (I’ve literally seen this exact thing be said). Or vilifying VP Harris for being a DA.
Few people ever think to ask beat officers what their concerns are. You’re not going to get a majority of police officers listing traffic stops and mental health calls as their favorite aspects of the work—so let’s start pushing that agenda forward.
Few people ever think to ask teachers what their specific concerns are. Or ask public school students what their concerns are for that matter.
The rank and file must be part of the conversation otherwise what are we doing here.
You’re absolutely right about local politics being nationalized and that’s just inappropriate and ineffectual. Local politics is of utmost importance but muddies the national conversation to the point of incoherence. Which is one of the problems with the social justice movement: being too granular means there aren’t actionable national policy asks being championed. Just lots of noise and social media callouts. “Do better” is not much of a rallying cry.
Appropriate police funding is a topic, but for all the reasons business supports CRT in an effort to prevent unionization, I think those who oppose criminal punishment reform latch onto the defund debate to avoid a losing discussion around issues they know they cannot win.
People will debate police funding, but who's going to defend, or debate parallel construction?
Along with the 1033 program you cite above. (the militarization of our police)
The criminal system is riddled with endless entrenched unjust systems and policies like this no one on the inside could publicly justify that remain in place simply because the public remains unaware of them. Facing police scrutiny for the first time in a few generations, those invested in protecting their fiefdom from reform quickly latched in to the wedge issue of "defund" to distract from a debate in areas they know they cannot defend.
I will use your thoughtful post as an example. In my long OP I only touched on police funding briefly and it was not to recommend defunding, but I suspect better than 80% of those who read my post processed it as you did. You start by explaining why defunding is not a great idea, accurately list some areas where things should to be fixed, but even couch those observations in a defense of police funding. This is the conversation the Police Unions and others who profit off a broken system want us to have.
I live in Seattle. To the extent I discuss police funding at all, this is how I do it:
In 1990, 1,271 SPD officers handled 65,053 serious (FBI Part 1) crimes and cleared (a proxy measure for “solved”) 13,425, equal to 51.1 crimes handled per officer and 10.6 cleared.
In 2019, 1,371 SPD officers handled 39,055 serious crimes and cleared 3,447, equal to 28.5 crimes handled per officer and 3.2 cleared.
During this same 30 year period we increased the police budget over 300% above the rate of inflation to over $400 million in 2019 and over 50% in just the past 5 years. Seattle police are among best paid police in the country.
Incidentally, America spends more on policing than all but one country spends on their entire military and that one military exception is the US itself.
Over a 30 year period serious crime fell by almost half in Seattle as it did much of the rest of the country, but we still added an additional 100 police officers and increased their pay dramatically. Despite this, the clearance rate for serious crime in Seattle has cratered as far more officers (because there is far less crime to investigate) investigate far fewer crimes and bring dramatically less of them to resolution.
Many police contacts are now for non-serious crimes with 4 officers doing the work of 1 for the overtime and the results ending badly:
At this point, don't you think the voters have a right to question what they are getting for their 400 million/yr+ budget for the SPD and if continuing the last 30 years of constant pay increases in parallel to declining performance is accomplishing what we are after?
Meanwhile in local news as people continue to argue over what defund means and if it's a good idea, we get an endless stream of stories like this showing the criminal behavior of our own police force who face no accountability for it:
"Eight Seattle police officers who registered to vote using the addresses of Seattle Police Department precincts instead of their home addresses—including Seattle Police Officers’ Guild President Mike Solan—will not face criminal charges. Instead, after an investigation by the Office of Police Accountability (OPA), two of the officers (including Solan) received one-day unpaid suspensions and three received oral reprimands; the remaining three officers retired or resigned before the investigation ended.
"The South Seattle Emerald first reported that eight SPD officers had registered to vote using their precinct addresses in July 2020, after a search of county voting records found at least one officer registered at each of the department’s five precincts. Because registering to vote using an incorrect residential address is a felony in Washington—one punishable by a five-year prison sentence or a $10,000 fine—the OPA initially referred the case to SPD for a criminal investigation.
The department decided not to investigate; according to the OPA’s report on the case, an SPD captain justified the decision by noting that the officers were already under investigation by the King County Department of Elections, and by claiming (incorrectly) that all of the officers lived in Seattle."
Yes, the police have been making this argument for years. What we find is that they use the money to give themselves big pay bumps and use the rest on performative bullshit like implicit bias training and microaggression training. When used for body cameras, the police simply turn them off when they know people are not going to like the results and turn them back on when it supports their version of events.
We have the highest paid police force in the world. It's time to start asking why other countries are able to get to the same place we want American police to be with a fraction of the budget. Remember, defund only became a slogan after 50 years of the police getting constant pay raises with a promise to reform. Why do you imagine the next 50 years will be different?
More money might be a solution when the police themselves are interested in reform and do not have full veto power over all reforms they do now. As long as that is the case, given them more money is just a recipe for the greater funding and less accountability we have seen for 50 years.
I think the proponents of CRT would say raising awareness IS the point, that they ARE doing something. If the whole system is flawed and deeply racist, there is no solution besides creating awareness and working to bring the whole system down. And I think they would say progress is being made with changes in school curriculum, in academia, in corporate America -- that these steps are making progress, though those steps are miniscule next to the scale of the problem.
The real issue is that critical race theory is treated not as a theory but as dogma. It's the implementation of the CRT/SJW movement itself that is almost religious in fervor and ruthless in its demand for total genuflection that makes it not just useless, but actually dangerous.
Again, I can't help the comparison to the Marxist views promoted by Freddie and others here. There's a difference between wanting a more just world within the parameters of the (unjust) world we live in versus wanting to tear everything down and start over. SJWs would say "we want a world where there is no racial bias at all, where color of the skin is no different from any other physical attribute, where the history of racism and slavery in this country is fully acknowledged and compensated for" but , for now, we will settle with the changes that are happening in schools, academia, corporate America and the conversation at large. Freddie (Marxists) would say, we want a world of completely fair economic re-distribution of wealth and the acknowledgement of the evils of Capitalism, but we will reluctantly settle for Biden's economic plans, a push for universal healthcare, but note that this falls short of the ideal would we envision.
Saying something is wrong is a lot easier than providing a workable alternative. So is shouting radical slogans. Seeing a 4 fold increase in the murder rate in the Twin Cities since 2019, which in a move which should surprise no one, primarily affects the same communities that are the victims of police brutality, has made me feel a kind of cynicism I didn't think possible. I get the sense that the police have basically thrown certain parts of the metro to the wolves. And I sit here wondering, "Really, what else did anyone think would happen? Was it ever about more than a veneer of radical aesthetics at any point?"
There aren't enough police in Minneapolis anymore, and there honestly weren't enough there to begin with. Some commentator (can't remember who) was pointing out how a bunch of the police scandals in Minneapolis involve first- or second-year officers, and wondering if a lack of experience and leadership was to blame for it. I'm curious whether he was on to something. We were having a hell of time recruiting officers before the everything; we're not going to get any now.
A close friend of mine teaches at a school near Lake Street, and every single one of his students (who are all poor and mostly black) has been personally affected by the gun violence. Everyone knows a friend or family member who's been shot. It's fucking insanity. It's such complete dysfunction that it's hard to reconcile "black lives matter" with their utter apathy to the bloodshed in Minneapolis.
"20000 lives that mattered":
https://postwoke.substack.com/p/20000lives
To add to what Freddie said, I think a big and slightly more detailed question to ask is: If I invested this much emotional energy in critical race theory and this is the product of it, should I perhaps invest less energy in defending and promoting critical race theory and perhaps invest that energy in something else?
I feel like culture war is all liberals know how to do now. They go on social media and yell at people all day, not just conservatives on the other side, but the less-woke people on their own side. Its less about improving the world and more about shoring up your own status in the gang. I've seen friends fall into this pattern, and it's pathetic. They should realize that every screaming social media-based tactic they're using is something that their opponents know how to use too. They hate you as much as you hate them. At what point do you want to break out of this madness? I know I do.
They do it much more on their own side because they know it hurts more. That is where the power lies - in people who actually DO care what they think of them. On the right, they almost thrive on criticism from the left. So it is futile (though destructive to those who sling it).
Yup. I have friends who've posted some way out there stuff. I'll DM them and they're like "I know, it's a bit much, but we have to be active, right?"
How to break it? Cancel Twitter. Twitter is the devil. IMO.
I think each platform has it's problems. Twitter is worse character limits as you say, but it's algorithm is specifically evil for some reason. I'm not smart enough to know why. But also, Twitter caters to mob rule. More than Facebook. And that mob can actually control people with big followings. The mob is pretty anonymous. While the blue checks are not. Yeah, it's power to the people, but most non-famous people on Twitter are fucking nuts to be frank. (Also more bots that facebook etc.)
I disagree about the internet as a whole. Substack gets attacked on Twitter, but these message boards are much more civil than YouTube or main website message boards. There's also new things like Clubhouse which are good if you find a nice small room to chat to strangers.
It's all about the algorythms and the addictiveness.
I think people genuinely believe that since screaming and going full fascist works for the right, that it will work for the left. People have told me that "defund the police" for instance is going to "move the Overton window to the left!" because saying crazy things has worked to move the country to the right over the last decade. I get their point, but I don't think it works that way for left politics. The right wing spends every moment just fomenting rage, rage, rage, through all their propaganda platforms. The left thinks if we do the same, maybe progressivism will carry the day. I get this analysis, but feel like there's not much evidence that these tactics work.
Hell no it won't carry the day for the Left. I'm fact it has a good chance of exhausting people so much that they tune out and stop paying attention to politics altogether. How many years of your life do you want to devote to partisan screaming?
This seems so self-evident that one begins to question whether those who have pushed CRT as a means of achieving improved conditions for black people ever cared about them to begin with. . . .
Meet the new ruling class. Same as the old ruling class. Their ticket to ride is this. It's sort of like a Hail Mary pass - sin now, confess, all is forgiven. What could, say, Jeff Bezos or any media empire do instead of this nonsense in their staff struggle sessions? Oh I don't know. How about sponsor ten elementary schools that need funding? How about sponsor ten kids who need college tuition? How about buy sponsors Whole Foods deliveries to families who can't afford the healthy sustainable food THEY get to eat? It's like driving around a hybrid Porsche.
I can think of many things that you suggest that would make a difference to real people as I listen to the nth speech by a $$ consultant telling me I'm not good enough.
Money that could actually go to needy people. (Yes, mostly people of color). But no one wants to talk about money or class. Look how they smear Yang. The only NY candidate who will actually give money to poor people.
Bezos said he'd get right on that after his space trip.
I think part of the problem is that it wasn't radicalism burning down laundromats last year: it was a bunch of bored and scared people who were so desperate to get a break from COVID everything that they'd latch onto *anything*. I know people who were involved in the riots in Minneapolis last year (as in, actually looted/broke things/stole trucks, etc). The ones I know are a bunch of teenagers who don't believe much of anything but wanted to impress their friends--who they'd barely been able to see--with how daring and brave they are. Major riots have followed just about every pandemic in history, and I think it's worth keeping that in mind when looking at the 2020 riots--I get the impression that this was not really a release of long-held racial frustrations, and more a release of very specific short-term frustrations related to the pandemic, so expecting it to turn into lasting political will might be a fool's errand.
Yes, people have the idea that content in schools is implemented by teachers and received by students far, far more seamlessly and efficiently than it actually is, or could possibly be. When I student taught freshman World History, my cooperating teacher gave me two days--yes, two WHOLE days-- to cover the entirety of World War II (I remember I made two PowerPoints: Monday- European Theater; Tuesday- Pacific Theater). Like, forget CRT lol.
I'm sympathetic to the the activists in Chicago, for example, who won a requirement that the Burge Torture Scandal be taught in CPS schools. As a concrete event, with a local connection, I can imagine a modestly successful implementation, so long as the teacher / dept chair / admin are on board. But I can't help but think the right-wing approach to propaganda is the far more potent. Simply flood the zone with simple videos and lesson plans (called, like, American History for Patriots or some shit) for harried teachers Googling for ideas to stumble upon.
Far from learning about police torture, how many students are being assigned Prager U?
I won't exhaust you with a list of activities I have undertaken for diversity before 2020. Each time I attend a job fair or program to engage non-well-represented people I have had to plead for funds from my institution or pay myself. I have a fair amount of writing dating back many years about this & it hasn't been a career reason, just right thing to do. With the advent of CRT much $$ is being spent on training us--costs so much more than the $500 to be at a booth promoting librarianship. If the $$$ now being used to train us could be used to help us help others on the ground--the world could change. I thought after summer 2020 when my institution engaged a consulting firm at a large fee to train us I could ask again for $500 to be at a booth (no), but on the ground little changes. Hardy comes to my mind--"How arrives it joy lies slain, And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
My friend's school district spent $500k on a training seminar so all its teachers could learn about "white privilege" and "white fragility"
My friend's school has desperately needed a counselor for their students and has never gotten one. With that money, they could have provided much-needed counseling and mentorship to the students every day for several years. But no.
This is same all over and a great shift from on the ground students needs. Shows bad faith in teacher ed. programs as it indicates to me that schools think their teachers got none of this in their education--but I know they did.
It feels to me like the point of getting expensive consultants isn't to implement change - it's to get OUT of having to implement change.
I see it as buying indulgences.
Simony isn't new. But people have paid for pointing it out. I see that we keep doing the same things over and over. https://kathleenmccook.substack.com/p/jan-hus-burned-with-writings-in-1415
That smiling lady in the Jan Hus Day poster always gets a macabre chuckle out of me.
I know, I can't resist that one. But you point out so well that it's the same story---giving money direct to people who need it is the thing to do, not to the priests.
The priests are themselves corrupt. A story as old as time.
The one point I do think is important to make is that both Democrats and Republicans mean two completely different things when each of them refer to CRT. Democrats likely never heard of it before Republicans started talking about it and then googled "critical race theory wikipedia", leading to their typical "But high schools aren't teaching obscure legal theories." Republicans meanwhile I are using CRT to mean like "Robin DiAngelo/Ibram Kendi/The 1619 Project". This then of course often triggers the slightly ironic comments like "nevermind Republicans are actually good, HR department DEI courses suck and I wish they were banned too."
Thank you for this, Freddie. I finally have the writing to share that won't make me look crazy as a social studies educator. What is extra concerning is the backlash to CRT is going to make it harder to teach what we HAVE been teaching in places like Jacksonville, where I taught history for 5 years using a range of texts, including Zinn. This will hurt good culturally competent humanities teaching, which was already happening more than the left seems to want to acknowledge.
Same here. What we see is lack of trust in teacher education programs which have been incorporating justice for many years and now seem to be seen as locus of injustice.
I'd say public school teachers have one of the most consistent on-the-ground views of what injustice looks like. Ironically, one of the best teachers my kids have had has turned out to be a Tr*mp supporter. Tragic. However, she was extraordinarily caring toward *all* her students, consistently went above and beyond, and was a highly capable educator. I could definitely see her being against CRT in education, so the left would paint her as a white supremacist. Yet, dollars to donuts, she embodies a change-a-kid's-life kind of teacher personality. There can be a difference between the politcal rhetoric people buy into--and fight tooth and nail over--and how they actually funciton in their communities. But once again, society at large is going to take a dump on teachers, who Are the Problem, somehow.
Thank you for this moving and generous acknowledgement of someone whose actions tell you far more about the person than their political ideology. You are entitled, of course, to insist that the teacher has somehow fallen prey to a false consciousness (“Tragic”). But doesn’t it all make you wonder if your own conception of this deplorable political stance might be at least a little infected by its own form of blindness? That maybe there is something about the opposition that you quite literally cannot see and do not understand? Factionalism isn’t inherently wrong, but we should be extremely wary about seeing the world through an ideological lens. It has a way of making us insist on what we must see rather than seeing what is actually there. People are complicated. We shouldn’t settle for cartoon (“Tragic”) representations of that complexity.
There's a reason why in war we use stigmatized labels to dehuminize before we can kill.
True. In this case referring to someone so wonderful falling prey to illogical conspiracy theorizing “tragic” is not dehumanizing or cartoonish. It is an expression of emotion.
I appreciate your willingness to describe the tragic while still acknowledging the humanity of the individual. People are complex. I think you really captured that in your description of her.
I agree. I used the word tragic because I know a lot more about her ideology than I laid out; it was irrelevant. She has openly supported conspiracy theories around Covid masking for instance, and other Q-anon crap.
This is so well said.
When people ask what political party I belong to, I tell them that if they are fortunate, at some point in their life something terrible and unexpected will bring them to their knees. At that moment they will learn that while success if fun, it's pain that unites.
When that moment comes, there are those who will be there for you that you did not expect and those who you expected to be there who won't. It will follow no philosophical or political ideology. It comes from some other place.
That's the political party I belong too.
I’ve come across a good deal of criticism lately about MLK and his group’s tactics and concessions lately. The gist being he wasn’t radical enough. It’s in vogue to uplift Angela Davis and Malcolm X. Which is not wrong! There were many facets to the movement at that time. But one thing I think keeps getting ignored: MLK and John Lewis and their crew *got shit done.* They spoke and wrote prolifically, demanding radical change and also making concessions to what is now called White fragility. They knew that emotional change often trails intellectual change which often trails policy change. The march on Washington was called the march for jobs and freedom. Both specific and aspirational. “Defund the police,” for example, isn’t really either. And CRT? Well that’s so tangential that as you pointed out most people probably don’t haves clue what it even actually is.
In fact I have been perpetually debating doing a post about the fact that Malcolm X never really accomplished anything, in large measure because he was stuck in the NOI, which had some positive local impacts but wasn't even a civil rights organization but a bizarre religious cult.
You should absolutely do that. I, for one, am already certain I would enjoy reading it.
Has there really been much defense of Critical Race Theory? Most of what I've seen has been people (correctly) pointing out that the right's obsession with it is a nonsensical moral panic and a red herring.
Hmm I think that might be an artifact of the peculiarities of this as a media story; CRT is an immensely influential field in legal education and its consequences can be seen in all manner of legal publications that are not at all specifically race- or social justice-focused.
Yeah, but the culture war isn't pro-CRT vs. anti-CRT, it's a reactionary movement that's positioned "critical race theory" as a catchall boogeyman label that refers to everything from Howard Zinn to Robin DiAngelo, and a pushback against the idea that teaching the realities of race and racism in American society is some kind of unacceptably radical indoctrination. No one is saying "We need to be teaching Critical Race Theory in middle schools!"
I really think you, and everyone, should avoid saying "no on is saying," because someone is in fact always saying what you say no one is saying. Here Joy Ann Reid claims that the alternative to CRT is teaching "slavery was not so bad" and "lynchings and violence never happened."
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1404192804771860483
Just to put the weight of a personal anecdote on the other side, I'm from small town southeastern Missouri (and the 80s) and that version is very consistent with my experience growing up. John Brown was a radical, Lee was the hero who brought him in, slavery was bad, sure, but had not much to do with the war, which was due to the Abolitionists and the Fire Eaters, who drove the country into a war no one really wanted and which didn't need to happen. Once begun, the war was fought with heroism on both sides because after all, we're all Americans. Reconstruction was a dark time of exploitation of the south that only happened because Lincoln died. Grant was a drunken butcher of a general who beat the noble and skilled Lee by drowning him in blood, and then he was a drunken incompetent as a president who was taken advantage of by unscrupulous advisors.
That's not what Reid is saying at all. She's criticizing a sanitized version of history that is, in fact, taught in many schools (see Heer's tweet responding to Greenwald's), and which the moral panic over "CRT" seems dedicated to advancing. You seem to be accepting the frame of "critical race theory" as "teaching about race."
No, no I accept no such thing. Please, read carefully.
In that case, explain to me how Reid is advocating for Critical Race Theory. She seems to be more concerned with "lost cause" ideology in K-12 materials. https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1403560793996660736
My nieces are in public school in San Diego. They are absolutely 100% teaching CRT in the public schools -- ie that White people are inherently racist and Black people are the victims of that racist thought and behavior. They are teaching equity (those that are traditionally disadvantaged deserve more) is correct and moral; equality (everyone is treated equally) is incorrect and immoral. Whatever your stance on these issues, these are not treated as things that can be discussed or debated. This is indoctrination, not critical thinking.
Is laughable if you're asserting that kids aren't already indoctrinated into racist Lost Cause nonsense, as if conservatives are out there presenting objectivity while liberals are doing CRT. What's your take on this Louisiana handout, describing a woman who owned slaves as a "refugee" who unfortunately "lost her property" because of the Civil War? https://twitter.com/NikkiandDes/status/1404437743170686979/photo/1
30 years on the Internet and "but the other guy is doing bad stuff too!" still the go-to response to "stop doing bad stuff"
The funny part is that the rhetoric has been turned up to such a ridiculous degree. The other side - in this case - are racists, white supremacists, Nazis, insurrectionists, and Literal Hitler. Claiming that your* side's wrong thing is okay because people you claim are actually Nazis are doing the same/something similar should be clearly fallacious. But, alas.
*Not actually your side, just the side you're fanboying/fangirling for as if you were a fan of Marvel movies or the Lakers.
Please don't misunderstand me: I agree with many of the tenets of CRT. Probably, most of us do. Is there at least unconscious bias , if not outright systemic racism, deeply embedded in our society? Absolutely. Is it worse to be poor and Black, then poor and White? I think so. But I am looking at the CRT "solutions" to those problems and finding them not only lacking, but frightening in their zeal. I think it is damaging to tell White children that they are inherently racist; and I think it's damaging to tell Black children they are destined to be victims. This zeal led to the incident at Smith that was covered in a prior Freddie post. Again, the religious fervor, the fanaticism is frightening.
In medicine, we absolutely need to face our biased treatment of African Americans. I had a patient during Covid that was so mistreated by 4 (!) ER visits that I was shocked and furious and the only explanation I could come up with was race. (While certainly lower income, she had good insurance so class alone couldn't explain it.) But here's the other side of what is going on with this rigid dogma: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-doctors-cant-speak
Sorry for long post. I have these debates with my husband all the time, who thinks I'm over-reacting on the damage of CRT. He would argue that society needs the slap in the face right now and it'll settle down with the country more tolerant, understanding and informed. I hope so, but I guess I worry about those that are sacrificed and harmed in the meantime.
Teaching white kids that they are irredeemably racist is not going to lead a country that is "more tolerant, understanding and informed". It's going to lead to a country that is more polarized and at each other's throats than ever.
The lack of understanding of basic human psychology by SJWs is truly astonishing.
I agree with everything you just wrote. I also found that Katie Herzog piece really scary!
I'm 100 percent sure nobody is teaching lost cause stuff in San Diego...
My mom is a teacher and I am friends with multiple teachers (one of whom recently went through a Master's education program), and yes, people are absolutely saying we need to teach critical race theory in schools at al levels.
Lets not forget the teacher resignation letters, the parent letters of protest while pulling their kids out of schools, and living parents speaking out at school board meetings, all against CRT instituted in k-12. The details of how CRT is manifesting in schools is bone chilling.
sorry, *livid parents.
Let me add a bullet to your list: conservatives like myself - with a lifelong disdain for the smug and preachy certitudes of “political activism” - becoming politically active so that we can do what it takes to stop the useful idiots teaching CRT bigotry from destroying the spirits of an entire generation. The elevation of power relations and racial identity to the summit of human experience corrupts children at every point of the intersectional spider web: black, white, brown and all the rest. Those of you - Freddie deBoer included - who think CRT is just an inconsequential sideshow? You have no idea how hard the punch back will be.
Have you actually looked into this and determined CRT is only a legal theory taught in law school? Or you simply haven't encountered it in your kids' own schooling and have concluded it doesn't exist anywhere?
Last night a street in my area was closed down so they could refresh the George Floyd street art in front of city hall. I admit this pissed me off - what does this art matter, one year and many deaths later? The young people out doing this.... I don't dismiss the impact his murder had on people - and art is great - but who is teaching them that change happens like this? Artists can impact movements, but symbolism won't save anyone from being murdered by police.
I agree that there's a newfound love for Angela Davis and Malcolm X out there. They're fascinating people, so I get it, but this is still an outright rejection of the strategies of their grandparents.
People are defending CRT because they think they need to match the tone of the right-wing. That happens all the time now. If you read the bills that are proposed, they're so much broader and crazier than "just" banning CRT. Highly recommend you read them if you haven't.
It's weird nativist stuff that we should oppose. HOWEVER, matching the right tone-for-tone is stupid. They're doing anti-CRT bills because they have power. We need power - not just cultural power. Actual, we-win-elections-and-do-stuff power. What's more important - local elections for Board of Education or George Floyd murals?
This. Everything is so reactionary now. No matter what the issue. If they don't wear masks we have to sleep in our masks. If they support cops we need to abolish cops. On & one. I know he's not that popular now but this is all literally Sneetches by Dr. Suess.
Sadly, the right wing attack on CRT (and there's lots of liberal critiques of CRT, but I'm talking about the Fox / AON panic) will of course just strengthen CRT on the Left. And of course like Freddie says, despite some good stuff in CRT (I've read a bit of Crenshaw, she's no DiAgelo, she's serious and has some good ideas), but it will be applied via social media, Zoom struggle sessions and culture war nonesense.
"We have stars on ours".
North Carolina is being especially crazy! They have a bill that states that schools CAN'T teach anything that goes against their civil rights laws. This of course, bans CRT that teaches that all whites are superior yet oppressors, and all blacks are inferior yet oppressed. It teaches that doing well in school is a white thing, so of course we need to lower standards and not just focus on equal opportunities. I'm as liberal as they come but CRT is racist garbage that oppresses black kids the most. I don't know a single person of color who is for this. It's mostly supported by rich white liberals who send their kids to private school which tells you everything you need to know about this civil rights destroying garbage. They tried to teach this in my kids school in Raleigh and we moved. Done.
There's an article in the New York Times today about Virginia, where they did pass a number of police reforms. Short version: After Ralph Northam's 2019 scandal, Black leaders saw an opportunity, and they didn't waste it. While woke activists demanded resignation, these leaders stood by the bumbling white governor in exchange for a list of demands, including loads of money for the Black community, the end of the death penalty, legal reforms, and police reforms. There's also diversity training happening, and the governor loves to talk about his new favorite author Robin Diangelo... but real things got done.
The Times asked Northam what he thinks about CRT. He said, "Critical race theory is a dog whistle that the Republicans are using to frighten people. What I’m interested in is equity." His team was smart to prep him to give this answer and pivot. It's also in line with the approach of Black leaders in the state. Virginia is not going to ban CRT, so there's zero point in debating it.
Older Black leaders must be so frustrated with the kids. They've been making deals with clueless white people forever -- they know better than to demand or expect leaders with "pure hearts" or whatever. And they've lived through enough to know that policy matters way more than symbolism. Money and laws. Get shit done.
Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/us/politics/ralph-northam-virginia.html
https://www.virginiamercury.com/blog-va/police-reforms-go-into-effect-in-virginia/
I was as disgusted with Biden's call for more police funding as anyone, but given his history as the archetype pro-incarceration, pro war politician you were never going to get anything other than more money for droning weddings and locking kids in filthy cages from "he just gets it" Joe and cop "lock em up" Kamala. The good news is that criminal reform remains primarily a State level issue and does not depend on whatever sociopath currently occupies the White House to move forward.
Criminal reform was never going to be quick and it was never going to be easy even by slow government standards. With everyone from Prison, Prosecutor and police Unions, to the companies that profit off enslaving 2.5 million American's a year, to a media and Hollywood complex that feeds moral panic and irrational stranger danger fear to a public that frankly loves incarceration like apple pie as the perfect solution to literally every societal problem, you were never going to see change around things like qualified and absolute immunity, asset forfeiture, parallel construction, police and prosecutor accountability, testilying, Terry Stops, Brady Violations or any of the other major issues wrong with our intentionally broken criminal system.
We have seen some change at the State level, however, as for the first time citizens started actually attending Police Contract negotiations and challenging the Union wish list. People realizing that the police version of events in a charging is not always equal to proof beyond a reasonable doubt even if the media always treats it that way. We have seen police record disclosure laws in places like New York and while budgets have not really been cut, we have at least slowed the rate of endless pay hikes for police regardless of performance. We have also seen in increase in police prosecuted for at least the most extreme crimes.
In places like Washington state they repealed a unique law giving cops near-absolute indemnity to kill
https://www.resetera.com/threads/thinkprogress-washington-state-repeals-unique-law-giving-cops-near-absolute-indemnity-to-kill.28419/
Colorado made some progress against qualified immunity:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/thinkprogress-washington-state-repeals-unique-law-giving-cops-near-absolute-indemnity-to-kill.28419/
New Mexico has made limited progress against Asset forfeiture:
https://charleskochinstitute.org/stories/taking-the-path-forward-civil-asset-forfeiture-in-new-mexico/
In Oregon they have essentially decriminalized all drugs at the user level:
https://drugpolicy.org/press-release/2021/02/drug-decriminalization-oregon-officially-begins-today
We have DA reformers like Krasner in Philly, Schmidt in Portland, Chesa Boudin in San
Francisco and Gascon on LA. There supporters are frustrated by the slow pace of change from these DA's, but the very idea that a former defense attorney or child of parents who were incarcerated would become a DA in America was unimaginable for the past 50 years where almost every judge was a former prosecutor elected based on their complete disregard for the Constitution and DA's competed entirely on who could dream up the most sadistic punishment for whatever marginalized group was out of favor at the moment.
Fuck Joe Binden who only believes in criminal reform and compassion when it comes to his own son, but at the State level in many places things are slowly moving forward without him.
I could go on like this listing changes at the State level and someone else could point out how they are all imcomplete. These are partial measures and pathetically minor given the level of endemic injustice in the system, but for a solid 50 years the only topic on the table at the State level is how can we give police and prosecutors more money and less accountability. At least that conversation is over for the time being.
On this issue, I'm not convinced that simply removing money (defund the police, generally speaking) is actually going to fix any problems. I'd venture to say that most police officers (with those glaring exceptions in large cities where some have gamed the system with impunity) make a living wage but not a whole lot more than that. Smaller departments around the country have a hard time being fully staffed. An overtaxed corps of officers isn't going to be in prime decision-making/situationally aware form.
100% yes major reforms ought to be made and a tremendous increase in accountability must happen, but simply taking away funding won't accomplish that. We need appropriately funded, appropriately sized departments with those funds allocated to payroll, infrastructure equipment (radios, cameras, cars, computers), and a decrease in funding militaristic tactical gear and vehicles, for example. That's part of the accountability.
I completely agree that all the examples you've presented are serious issues. And your assessment of Seattle police structures are no doubt on point. I know of a number of officers who left our local department, in a mid-size suburb in North Carolina--for Seattle exactly because the officers are paid well.
I latched on to the police funding issue because that's what you opened with, and I quickly transitioned to defund the police because that is the rallying cry of the day. What I don't want to get lost in the weeds is the fact that for the average beat officer in a mid-size or small-size department, working conditions aren't all that fantastic especially commensurate with pay. And as we all know, the lowest people on the rung always bear the brunt of any financial depletion.
I'm also saying that conflating beat officers with the DA's office or even the jails, which are typically run by sheriffs, is inappropriate because they are related but individual agencies. The sweeping criminal justice reform issues you've highlighted aren't going to be fixed by understaffing the lowest tier of police officers. The bureaucracy and policy machines have very little to do with the daily duties of a beat officer, and that's where the money is.
Finally, I'd be interested to know the specifics of the Seattle budget. Because over the last 30 years, there has also been an explosion of technology, which is extremely expensive. Every police car now has a computer, body cams and car cameras, cell phones, and all the networking and tech support and system maintenance and hardware maintenance, etc. etc. etc. I don't doubt that some unspecified portion of that huge budgetary increase was spent on programs or equipment that might be objectionable. What I am saying is that the allocation of funds (or the removal of funds) from ANY social program in itself isn't a substitute for policy change, and may actually hinder meaningful policy change since it can turn the on-the-ground people into highly vocal partisan actors.
You raise several good points here.
I did not intend to minimize your original post by highlighting the emphasis on defunding. My goal was to point out how even the well intentioned who support reform are quickly dragged into the funding debate and I don't think it's a mistake. This is a debating topic those invested in maintaining power with the status quo have spent millions ensuring we remain focused on. It's the one argument those against all reform believe they can win the widest support for.
I'm reluctant to suggest specific budget reforms in places I don't know much about. There is this increasing tendency to politicize local news to the national stage in order to push specific talking points (murder rates in Chicago, Car jacking in Minneapolis, protests in Portland, homelessness in San Francisco). In the few cases I have looked into these situations they are dramatically different than the narrative being sold to us.
If you tell me the average beat officer in small town America is underpaid I believe you. I am not arguing for defunding, but those who are do not argue that police are overpaid. They are arguing that we need fewer police interactions because police contact brings its own violence and the best way to minimize that is to reduce policing. Once again, not something I am going to debate, but I want to be fair to their argument.
You're right that beat officers, the DA's office or even the jails, which are typically run by sheriffs (along with the prison system and judges) are all different, but they are interlocking and can't be understood without reference to each other. The qualified immunity that protects the police is absolute immunity when it comes to prosecutor's. DAs and the police often split asset forfeiture proceeds. It's ultimately DA's that often refuse to punish the police for criminal behavior and judges who look the other way if they lie under oath on the stand. They are different, but all part of a whole.
The 300% increase in the budget since 1990 and the 50% increase over the past 5 years related specifically to pay. The rate of increase in spending for mass surveillance technology is many times this. Interestingly, this spending increase was sold as a way to reduce the the number of officers, but we have more officers despite less crime and massive spending in this area. We can't even argue this mass surveillance technology leads to more arrests since we are doing far worse at resolving crime than when we had none of this technology in 1990.
Why if I were cynical, based on the dramatic increase in surveillance spending and the steep drop in solving crime, I might conclude the rise of the expensive tax payer funded surveillance state in Seattle never had anything to do with actually stopping, or resolving crime.................
Indeed, indeed. My impulse is always to raise my hand and say “don’t forget about the rank and file” because they often get lumped in with the power structures. Part and parcel of the whole, yes. But I don’t see how activists telling Black and brown people who are police they need to quit their jobs is helping move the conversation forward (I’ve literally seen this exact thing be said). Or vilifying VP Harris for being a DA.
Few people ever think to ask beat officers what their concerns are. You’re not going to get a majority of police officers listing traffic stops and mental health calls as their favorite aspects of the work—so let’s start pushing that agenda forward.
Few people ever think to ask teachers what their specific concerns are. Or ask public school students what their concerns are for that matter.
The rank and file must be part of the conversation otherwise what are we doing here.
You’re absolutely right about local politics being nationalized and that’s just inappropriate and ineffectual. Local politics is of utmost importance but muddies the national conversation to the point of incoherence. Which is one of the problems with the social justice movement: being too granular means there aren’t actionable national policy asks being championed. Just lots of noise and social media callouts. “Do better” is not much of a rallying cry.
Appropriate police funding is a topic, but for all the reasons business supports CRT in an effort to prevent unionization, I think those who oppose criminal punishment reform latch onto the defund debate to avoid a losing discussion around issues they know they cannot win.
People will debate police funding, but who's going to defend, or debate parallel construction?
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180110/14482038982/report-shows-us-law-enforcement-routinely-engages-parallel-construction.shtml
Ditto on asset forfeiture used consistently against the poor:
https://spotlightonpoverty.org/spotlight-exclusives/civil-forfeiture-hurts-americas-poor/
Along with the 1033 program you cite above. (the militarization of our police)
The criminal system is riddled with endless entrenched unjust systems and policies like this no one on the inside could publicly justify that remain in place simply because the public remains unaware of them. Facing police scrutiny for the first time in a few generations, those invested in protecting their fiefdom from reform quickly latched in to the wedge issue of "defund" to distract from a debate in areas they know they cannot defend.
I will use your thoughtful post as an example. In my long OP I only touched on police funding briefly and it was not to recommend defunding, but I suspect better than 80% of those who read my post processed it as you did. You start by explaining why defunding is not a great idea, accurately list some areas where things should to be fixed, but even couch those observations in a defense of police funding. This is the conversation the Police Unions and others who profit off a broken system want us to have.
I live in Seattle. To the extent I discuss police funding at all, this is how I do it:
In 1990, 1,271 SPD officers handled 65,053 serious (FBI Part 1) crimes and cleared (a proxy measure for “solved”) 13,425, equal to 51.1 crimes handled per officer and 10.6 cleared.
In 2019, 1,371 SPD officers handled 39,055 serious crimes and cleared 3,447, equal to 28.5 crimes handled per officer and 3.2 cleared.
During this same 30 year period we increased the police budget over 300% above the rate of inflation to over $400 million in 2019 and over 50% in just the past 5 years. Seattle police are among best paid police in the country.
Incidentally, America spends more on policing than all but one country spends on their entire military and that one military exception is the US itself.
Over a 30 year period serious crime fell by almost half in Seattle as it did much of the rest of the country, but we still added an additional 100 police officers and increased their pay dramatically. Despite this, the clearance rate for serious crime in Seattle has cratered as far more officers (because there is far less crime to investigate) investigate far fewer crimes and bring dramatically less of them to resolution.
Many police contacts are now for non-serious crimes with 4 officers doing the work of 1 for the overtime and the results ending badly:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/welfare-check-by-spd-turns-into-ordeal-for-74-year-old-retiree-who-was-handcuffed-held-at-gunpoint-in-own-home/
At this point, don't you think the voters have a right to question what they are getting for their 400 million/yr+ budget for the SPD and if continuing the last 30 years of constant pay increases in parallel to declining performance is accomplishing what we are after?
Meanwhile in local news as people continue to argue over what defund means and if it's a good idea, we get an endless stream of stories like this showing the criminal behavior of our own police force who face no accountability for it:
https://publicola.com/2021/06/14/morning-fizz-voting-police-shower-trailers/
"Eight Seattle police officers who registered to vote using the addresses of Seattle Police Department precincts instead of their home addresses—including Seattle Police Officers’ Guild President Mike Solan—will not face criminal charges. Instead, after an investigation by the Office of Police Accountability (OPA), two of the officers (including Solan) received one-day unpaid suspensions and three received oral reprimands; the remaining three officers retired or resigned before the investigation ended.
"The South Seattle Emerald first reported that eight SPD officers had registered to vote using their precinct addresses in July 2020, after a search of county voting records found at least one officer registered at each of the department’s five precincts. Because registering to vote using an incorrect residential address is a felony in Washington—one punishable by a five-year prison sentence or a $10,000 fine—the OPA initially referred the case to SPD for a criminal investigation.
The department decided not to investigate; according to the OPA’s report on the case, an SPD captain justified the decision by noting that the officers were already under investigation by the King County Department of Elections, and by claiming (incorrectly) that all of the officers lived in Seattle."
I think the reforms that might make a positive difference are likely to cost *more* money, not less.
Yes, the police have been making this argument for years. What we find is that they use the money to give themselves big pay bumps and use the rest on performative bullshit like implicit bias training and microaggression training. When used for body cameras, the police simply turn them off when they know people are not going to like the results and turn them back on when it supports their version of events.
We have the highest paid police force in the world. It's time to start asking why other countries are able to get to the same place we want American police to be with a fraction of the budget. Remember, defund only became a slogan after 50 years of the police getting constant pay raises with a promise to reform. Why do you imagine the next 50 years will be different?
More money might be a solution when the police themselves are interested in reform and do not have full veto power over all reforms they do now. As long as that is the case, given them more money is just a recipe for the greater funding and less accountability we have seen for 50 years.
I think the proponents of CRT would say raising awareness IS the point, that they ARE doing something. If the whole system is flawed and deeply racist, there is no solution besides creating awareness and working to bring the whole system down. And I think they would say progress is being made with changes in school curriculum, in academia, in corporate America -- that these steps are making progress, though those steps are miniscule next to the scale of the problem.
The real issue is that critical race theory is treated not as a theory but as dogma. It's the implementation of the CRT/SJW movement itself that is almost religious in fervor and ruthless in its demand for total genuflection that makes it not just useless, but actually dangerous.
Again, I can't help the comparison to the Marxist views promoted by Freddie and others here. There's a difference between wanting a more just world within the parameters of the (unjust) world we live in versus wanting to tear everything down and start over. SJWs would say "we want a world where there is no racial bias at all, where color of the skin is no different from any other physical attribute, where the history of racism and slavery in this country is fully acknowledged and compensated for" but , for now, we will settle with the changes that are happening in schools, academia, corporate America and the conversation at large. Freddie (Marxists) would say, we want a world of completely fair economic re-distribution of wealth and the acknowledgement of the evils of Capitalism, but we will reluctantly settle for Biden's economic plans, a push for universal healthcare, but note that this falls short of the ideal would we envision.