A version of this post originally appeared in my April 18 newsletter.
If you haven’t seen it, you should watch this 4-minute video in which The Daily Show host asks the obvious question: If all these cases of police brutality are the work of ‘a few bad apples’, then where are the good apples that step in to stop them or rise up collectively to say that the bad among them should be rooted out? Noah comes to this realization: “…we’re not dealing with bad apples. We’re dealing with a rotten tree that happens to grow good apples.” This is significant because it’s an important articulation by a mainstream media figure that the problem with policing is systemic.
There’s a growing realization that policing, in its current state, is not a catch-all answer to issues of public safety. Take a look at this recent Washington Post op-ed that argues for alternatives to police conducting traffic stops. Or this Rolling Stone piece from last summer that offered six alternatives to policing. And Harvard Magazine recently highlighted policing alternatives currently being tested in Boston.
Where Noah’s argument stops short is in pushing for us to reimagine public safety. The logical conclusion, based on the the idea that the problems with policing are not individual, but systemic, would be to ask, “What could public safety look like without police?” It is worth considering the argument and vision put forth by abolition and transformative justice advocates Mariame Kaba (her book We Do This Til We Free Us is a powerful collection of writing on this subject) or Ruth Wilson Gilmore, profiled here in the NY Times.
I predict that it won’t be long before someone with a mainstream platform articulates our need to radically reimagine public safety–not with “police reforms”, but by addressing the root causes that keep communities and individuals unsafe: the lack of jobs, housing, healthcare (including mental health), and dignity. And none of these require men and women who are empowered by the state to dispense lethal force.
There’s narrative change underway, which indicates a shift in public sentiment. We’re not fully there yet, but we should take note when cultural shifts begin.
Watch the video below:
