Why Black Women Should Reconsider Defunding and Abolishing the Police
As national outrage increases, and rightfully so, about the unjust murders of Black people at the hands of police, the conversation of defunding and abolishing the police has resurfaced. Now, more than ever, this conversation has peaked.
In essence, it sounds like a great potential and immediate solution in halting the amount of injustice brought by the police by limiting their access to Black and Brown communities. However, the demographic of Black women, being the most unprotected group in the United States, should reconsider not having access to law enforcement.
Black women and girls have high statistics of facing abuse not just from law enforcement, but from their surrounding environment as well. This includes their romantic partners, family members, and neighbors. The replacement of law enforcement by community policing may not be a useful solution as many people who reside in crime-ridden or poverty-stricken areas are less likely to trust their neighbors to police one another. Not only that, but policing by a community may cancel out the unbiasedness that law enforcement usually has. In other words, if community policing was enabled in these communities, the community police would be more likely to forgive a crime if they were familiar with the person who committed it. Thus, it is very likely that people would feel more comfortable committing crimes because they are aware that the authority would grant them an immunity of some sort.
History has been a great resource for humans to consider our actions before we proceed with them. In the United States, there has never been an abolishment of law enforcement that would provide us with enough details or information on whether or not it would be a successful solution.
In the case of defunding the police or essentially taking funds away from law enforcement, intended to cause fewer officers to be hired and to be working, it is argued that this would be a great solution as the funds would go to other sources such as schools, hospitals, and more.
However, when discussing racism as a general issue, we must acknowledge that law enforcement is not the only source that is harmful to Black people. The funds that would be taken away from the police would be placed into other systems that practice institutionalized racism and are inherently anti-Black. For instance, it is suggested that these funds be placed in hospitals. However, Black women suffer the highest levels of maternal mortality rates in the United States and are the most likely to be discriminated against by doctors.
It is important to acknowledge that institutionalized racism affects all institutions along with law enforcement. Law enforcement is not the only institution that is harming the Black community. Hospitals harm the Black community by discriminating against them and not acknowledging their pain. This leads to delayed treatment and the denial of medicine. The education system harms the Black community by hiding the true history of the United States and by discriminating against Black children which causes them to be suspended and expelled at higher rates than their counterparts.
Let us not ignore the other systems that are causing harm just because it is not getting filmed. By not acknowledging this and being neglectful of tackling and dismantling the entire problem of institutionalized racism, we take funds out of the hands of racist law enforcement and put it into the hands of racist doctors and racist teachers.
These points stand to offer a reconsideration or another thought to defunding and abolishing the police. Before I began to preach the saying of “defund the police” I wanted to understand what it would mean for me, a Black woman- the least protected person in America, if that were to happen.
I hope that the police can be successfully reformed and that Black people become liberated from any forms of racism. However, I'm not too sure if defunding or abolishing police is the answer.
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