- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
A new lawsuit filed in federal court last month alleges that the Baton Rouge Police Department ran a “torture warehouse” where members of its Street Crimes Unit strip searched, beat, and otherwise humiliated people and then released them, often without their being charged with a crime. Soon after the lawsuit was filed, the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into the allegations of misconduct at the now-shuttered warehouse known as “the BRAVE Cave.”
Very good.
Those are fine ideas. They need a new slogan then.
How about… “fuck the police”?
I would just add the note that whatever the slogan, however branded the movement, there will be a concerted effort to delegitimize it, both from without and from within.
Defending the police or dismantling existing departments and replacing them whole cloth is very likely the only viable solution when the cultures in and around the institutions are the problems.
People seem to think that the marketing needs to be palatable. I don’t. It won’t matter. It will ultimately come to force. It’s unfortunate but the reality is that it seems like the force of violence is the highest truth in this world. We won’t get reforms through dialogue or nibbling at the edges. These institutions need to be forced to change, and they will resist. It will come down to individuals with strong wills who refuse to back down in the face of violence.
The solution is not in how you describe it but how you run it. The description is merely the vision on which you build or tear down as necessary. Merely saying defund x or y is no basis for evaluation needed for the widespread acceptance which will lead to implementation.
And yet the police are the ones who have all the guns. Curious.