CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

If Black Lives Matter, Why Do Democrats Keep Picking the Wrong Side?

"Fund the Police" is a horrible slogan if you care about protecting Black communities from police brutality

Photo by ev on Unsplash

Whether you're walking to your destination or running full speed ahead, one thing is clear — you can't run in two directions at once. Believe it or not, policy initiatives work in the same way. So imagine the dismay of many Black voters as they heard President Biden support Ukrainian democracy without mentioning voting rights and the anti-democratic forces right here in America. And to add insult to injury, Biden said, "We don't need to defund the police, we need to fund them… with resources and training."

But, the problem with Biden's statement is that it rests on a bad faith argument. "Defunding the police" is about a community evaluating its budget. When police departments are overfunded, dispersing those funds to other city programs is worth considering. Police do not have to be college-educated. Yet, we expect teachers to have at least four-year degrees. Police do not specialize in psychology or sociology, yet we're supposed to trust them to understand human behavior and ease domestic tensions — it's illogical. Police do not have to become lawyers or…