“I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from
our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre
Extremist media, led by Fox, have been determinedly advancing the narrative that those advocating for police reform are doing so because they hate the police. When people protest against the killings of unarmed citizens, the O’Reillys of this world deliberately and maliciously distort what is said and done and go out of their way to demonize those involved. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that our side — the sane and honorable side — do and say nothing that would even appear to be supporting the coordinated drive to confuse and misinform the public.
Last Sunday while channel surfing, I came upon a campaign speech being given by President Bill Clinton in Tucson, AZ, on March 20, 2016. It was a good speech. I listened as he ran down his list of hot-button issues, agreeing with him on some and disagreeing with others.
And then this:
We need police reform, but we need the police...
“That’s a weird sentence construction,” I thought with a frown. “To whom is that lecture directed? The idea that people who complain about over-policing and brutality do not want police sounds suspiciously like a right wing meme,” I fumed.
Look we are all sick of seeing these videos of police shooting young African Americans...but, I was in an African American church in Chicago the other day, and the preacher was a chaplain with the police department, and he said, “Look we need police reform, we need it here, but we need the police.
Yes we need reform, but more important if we have more police they should look like the community.”
First, for the record, people in the forefront of the struggle for a sophisticated police force have always recognized the need for law enforcement officers. Poverty stricken urban areas, for example, need cops not only for the deliberately engineered reasons for them to be there, but also because poverty oftentimes breeds hopelessness and despair which in turn often get channeled into criminal activities.
Second, even though the ultimate aim should be to have LEOs look like the people they police, we have seen time and time again that it is the uniform and the prevailing culture that matter; not the race or ethnicity of the cop. Even more important, however, cops “looking more like the community,” is not the same as community policing .
Instead, community policing is a value system which permeates a police department, in which the primary organizational goal is working cooperatively with individual citizens, groups of citizens, and both public and private organizations to identify and resolve issues which potentially effect the livability of specific neighborhoods, areas, or the city as a whole. Community-based police departments recognize the fact that the police cannot effectively deal with such issues alone, and must partner with others who share a mutual responsibility for resolving problems. Community policing stresses prevention, early identification, and timely intervention to deal with issues before they become unwieldy problems. Individual officers tend to function as general-purpose practitioners who bring together both government and private resources to achieve results. Officers are encouraged to spend considerable time and effort in developing and maintaining personal relationships with citizens, businesses, schools, and community organizations.
This is not the first time that the former president gave this speech. In a campaign stop in South Florida on February 15, 2016, President Clinton visited the issue of police violence. There’s still some work to be done, but I think I prefer this version:
"It's important that we listen to the Black Lives Matter movement. I'm tired of seeing kids on television shot down," he said [...] He called for "police reform, because let's not forget we really need our police officers. But we need them connected to the communities."
Yes, we are really arguing about the importance of the “but” and its place in a sentence. It may seem like a small matter, but it does make a huge difference. We need precise, unambiguous language when discussing matters having to do with life and death.
We are rapidly approaching the signature collection phase of our campaign to get the Over-Policed Rights Act on the California ballot. We will be needing your help.
This is a screengrab of the Summary and Title of the Ballot Initiative sent to us by the California Department of Justice:
Our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act as seen through the eyes of the California Justice Dept
We await word from the Secretary of State who will be sending us a schedule with the maximum filing deadline and the certification deadline.
More awesome news! Our law has been submitted as a Resolution to the NAACP. That august body will now discuss and then vote on whether to adopt The Michael Brown Over-Police Rights Act (MBOPRA) at the Legislative Session of the NAACP’s Annual Convention.
In 2012, Ramarley Graham was stalked and gunned down by NYPD Officer Richard Haste after several officers busted into his home without a warrant or legal cause. Ramarley was murdered in what should have been the safety of his own home in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother.
2. Bye Felicia(s)! And good riddance!
While most of the focus of Tuesday night's primaries was on the battle for the White House, something extraordinary occurred in two local elections. Both Chicago's Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and Timothy McGinty, the Cuyahoga Prosecuting Attorney in Ohio, lost their bids for re-election.
3. Charlotte Abotsi - "Mad Libs: Black Death Edition"
“At approximately ‘time,’ on ‘date’, officer ‘Proper Noun’ of the ‘Proper Noun’ Police Department, ‘verb,’ and killed ‘Proper Noun,’ an unarmed black ‘noun.’ Officer ‘Proper Noun’ stated self-defense. Said he was frightened, fear overtook him, and he thought he saw a ‘noun,’ or a ‘noun,’ or a ‘noun’.”
16-yr-old and suicidal. Cried out for help, now dead.
Among those killed was 16-year-old Robert Dentmond. Reports are that up to nine officers fired at the teen.
Police said Robert called 911 and told a dispatcher that he was armed and suicidal. Officers shot Robert when he began walking toward an apartment building with what they believed was an assault rifle and ignored commands to stop, authorities said. Investigators later said the gun was fake.
(Wordcloud composed of Support the Dream Defenders, Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act, Expand Medicaid, Freedom of Information Act Project, Combat Racism, Demand Equality.)
Members of the Daily Kos group Support the Dream Defenders launched four ongoing projects:
1. We came together to support the Dream Defenders in Florida and their mission, our first project and the origin of our name. The Dream Defendersdefend the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. by "develop[ing] the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power; building alternative systems and organizing to disrupt the structures that oppress our communities." Please donate here.
2. Our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act, crowd-sourced at Daily Kos in the fall of 2014 after the death of Michael Brown. Our bill quickly earned endorsements from the NAACP and the ACLU. The NAACP forwarded our bill to members of Congress, and we distributed it to members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other progressive members of Congress. President Obama signed into a law a small piece of our bill in December 2014. The Department of Justice included parts of our law in their reports on Ferguson, Missouri, in 2015. Our state version of the MBOPRA is currently in committee in the Kansas legislature.
3. Our Freedom of Information Act project. Nineteen Republican governors chose to kill poor people by not expanding Medicaid. Ebola has killed about 9000 people in total; Republican governors kill 23,000 people PER YEAR by refusing federal support for Medicaid, a story ignored by traditional media. Our project forces those governors to out themselves, clapping them in a Catch 22. With the support of readers, we publicize our results through letters to the editor, press releases, and petitions.
You can receive all future diaries of Support the Dream Defenders in your Daily Kos Stream by clicking here. Then click "Follow," which will make all STDD diaries appear in "My Stream" of your Daily Kos page.
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