I’ve been watching/reading/participating in conversations about how appropriate and effective “defund the police” is as a rallying cry. Ad and marketing people have a thousand different tweaks and critiques and alternatives. Political pros see how naive it is, and know it’s going to do more harm than good – Republicans will have a field day with this! Well-meaning white people (WMWP) are confused and nervous (you can’t really *say* that, can you?).
A lot of it boils down to: But nobody knows what it really means.
To which I say, as much to myself (member of groups 1 and 3 above) as anyone: Shut up and listen.
“Defund the police” became part of the national conversation amazingly quickly. Not because it was a brand-new idea that suddenly appeared out of the ether. Because going back decades, people have committed themselves to this cause, which grew out of the prison abolition movement – thinking about it, writing about it, advocating for it, explaining what it means and how it can be achieved.
“Defund the police” became a lightning rod almost immediately. Not because it was a dumb idea (though yeah, many people think it is). Because it’s a provocative idea that pushes people out of intellectual ruts and societal comfort zones and forces them – us – to face issues that the WMWP of the world have long had the luxury of ignoring.
“Defund the police” became a success the moment it went viral. Not because everybody agrees on it, or agrees on what it means – even the people who espouse it. Not because it became policy throughout the land and led directly to zeroed-out municipal budgets overnight. Because it changed the terms of the debate. It moved the Overton Window. All of the sudden, it’s the idea that every other police reform proposal has to address – even if to say it’s not practical, or it’s political suicide, or it’s just plain wrong.
And again, that movement was only possible because the idea was already out there. When its tragic moment came, after the decades of work that went into shaping that idea, creating variants of it, arguing about it, pushing it forward, fighting obstacles and indifference, the idea was there for the rest of us to discover.
So shut the fuck up. Listen to the people who put in the work. Wrestle with their plans. Do the homework. Agree with them or not. Think of something better. But absolutely take them seriously. Accept this as a valid and valuable position.
Yes, Republicans have pounced on it (as they pounce on anything and everything, no matter how seemingly “safe” or middle of the road, as luridly and tendentiously as possible). Yes, even for many who might consider the cause, it lacks nuance (as pretty much any bumper sticker does). Yes, people will continue to argue – and write definitive, contradictory essays – about “what it really means” (as is inevitable with any paradigm-shifting concept).
Yes, just listen. In the past two weeks dozens of ideas have been presented, which run the spectrum from “abolition yes we mean it” to “defund, then…” to “repeal and replace” to “repair what’s wrong” to “what I really mean is reform.” That’s not a sign that it’s a stupid idea. It’s also not a sign that we – all of us who are new to this – should immediately start watering down proposals that have been years in the making, and sanding the sharp edges off of carefully chosen vocabulary. (There’s plenty of time, and plenty of politicians, for that.)
It’s a sign that the old advertising truism applies here: before you can convince someone of something, you have to get their attention. They got mine.