Defund the Police. Then Soak the Rich.
We absolutely need to defund the police and put the money in social services. To attack inequality and invest in poor and working-class neighborhoods of color, we need a massive increase in public spending. That means wresting resources from the rich.
New Yorkers hold a rally outside of City Hall in a show of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and to demand less funding for the NYPD and more to social well-being programs, on June 24, 2020 in New York City. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
Some protest movements become defined by three- or four-word slogans. The battle cry of Occupy Wall Street was, “We are the 99 percent.” The current wave of protests has, “Defund the Police.”
Some progressives have suggested that “transform the police” would be a better slogan, but that seems exactly wrong. “Transform” can mean anything or nothing. “Defund” means “reallocate money from their budgets to other services.” The only ambiguity is how much money to reallocate.
As for right-wing critics, we’re talking about people who’ve spent the last decade reinterpreting the phrase, “black lives matter” — an obvious expression of outrage at the devaluing of black life in a society that tolerates brutal racial inequality and lets police officers get away with murder — as a statement that nonblack lives don’t matter.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.