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I want to take a step back here and address a glaring contradiction in your beliefs. You make it very clear here that you find the white supremacist problem in the US to be endemic and impossible to curb without tearing it out. The institution must be wholly dismantled to end it, and fluff like anti bias training won't do anything. Correct?
But, you also say complete police abolition is a goal. As I understand it, you're referring to the whole idea of law enforcement.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on either of those. Because if there is no one to enforce the government on a civil level, how exactly are you going to white supremacist crimes?
We both know they're violent and dangerous individuals. When one of them tries to gun down an entire place of worship then, who are we sending to intercept and stop them? Where are we putting them if there's no criminal justice system? How exactly do you intend to do root out the white supremacists and protect minorities from their crimes without some form of civilian law enforcement?
Maybe your solution is to still have law enforcement but remake it in a way that it's completely unlike our current system. And that would be totally fine. I just want to understand if there is a contradiction here, and if there isn't, how you're addressing it.
I'm afraid there is no contradiction here. There is only a contradiction if you believe that the US isn't fundamentally white supremacist... and if you believe that, it will only take a cursory overview of the history of policing in the US to dispel that belief because, surprise, surprise, police in the US has always been the main enforcer of white supremacism - there is a direct, unbroken line of evolution between the slave patrols and the strikebreakers and the police protecting nazis and klansmen from antifa in the last few years.
Oh yes... they are. And the ones without badges and complete immunity from the law are the lesser problem.
There is no such thing as "grass-roots" right-wing movements - white supremacism is enforced from above. The police is merely the most visibly violent aspect of this enforcement at the ground level. That is why the alt-right reacts so violently and hysterically at the thought of people analysing where the white supremacism that drives police comes from through subjects like critical race theory.
If you want to stop the white supremacist from gunning down an entire mosque full of people, you first have to stop the institutionalized white supremacism that created and enabled him.
If you want to start dismantling white supremacism in the US, you have to start with the police, and no... "fluff like anti bias training" achieves nothing except the pretense of dismantling white supremacism and nothing else - the only thing people like Harris will ever do.
So you think if we abolish the police, the white supremacists will suddenly stop being racist? What do we do if they violently protest, and there's no one to arrest them and no system to process them?
Like I get what you're trying to say, but at some point you're going to end up with no police and persisting white supremacists. What's the plan for that? White supremacy doesn't need police stations to survive.
No, if we abolish the police we remove white supremacism's most important institution. You don't understand why they invented police in the first place, do you? "Serve and protect" is a very misleading slogan - who it actually is that they "serve and protect" is not something they will be showing you on CSI any time soon and with damn good reason because it's not you.
There's no one to arrest them now. Right now, it's only extreme public pressure and the prospect of revolt that can force them to throw one of their own under the bus to protect the rest - if you have any hope that an inherently white supremacist institution will be doing anything to curb white supremacism you are indulging in liberal fantasy.
Yes. It does. It needs enforcement from above. It needs funding from above. It needs next-to complete immunity from the society it represses from above.
We'll have to agree to disagree I suppose. I don't have any love for the police but there's still a role for civil law enforcement and protection. Police aren't great at that, but we still have a need for it in some shape or fashion.
I also don't believe removing establishments will solve institutional racism and white supremacy. The South is a great example of how it survives even if it is violently brought to heel.
I'm loathe to argue further because I do agree with a lot of what you say, and you're very clearly fighting for the same goals that I am. Where we disagree is the nature of racism and what is necessary to eliminate it. At the end of the day though, I'd much rather work with you than with the opposition.
I'd say so. I'd say you are unwilling to see just how fundamental white supremacism is to the society you exist within. You are unwilling to admit that it's a feature of said society and not a flaw. And that colors your perception of the institutions that protect and enable white supremacism - which completely includes (but aren't limited to) not just police but the very concept of policing.