Today on Sojourner Truth:
In 2019, U.S. police killed 259 Black people. Between 2013 and 2019, police killed a total of 7,666 people, according to Mapping Police Violence. Overall, Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people. Within recent weeks, there has been a spate of police killings of Black people across the United States. On March 13, 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was murdered by police in Louisville, Kentucky. On May 25, 46-year-old George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Countless others have also impacted, including in Brunswick, Georgia, the case of Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by vigilantes. While police killings of Black people in the United States are certainly not a new phenomenon, a nationwide and multi-racial movement calling for the defunding and abolition of police is now quickly gaining traction.
In New York City, for example, Mayor Bill de Blasio has somewhat conceded to protesters demands to shift funds away from the NYPD toward youth and social services. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti has said that he has tasked the city with identifying $150 million in cuts to invest more money into the Black community, communities of color, women and "people who have been left behind." And in Minneapolis, where the latest uprising against police terror began, nine members of the Minneapolis City Council said that they supported defunding the citys police department and replacing it with a community-based public safety model. Across the U.S., calls for defunding and abolishing police are getting louder by the day.
What is the history of policing in the U.S.? How did it start? What impact did its history have on what is happening in policing today? What is the inter-relationship between the legacy of slavery and genocide against Indigenous people, policing and mass incarceration practices of today? Will reforming policing in the U.S. bring an end to racism in the U.S.? What will it take to end racism?
Our guests are Dr. Gerald Horne and Joseph Williams.
