I think it’s hard to claim your definition for”defund the police.”
Perhaps some people view it as “reduce police funding” but many mean it to mean “$0 to police” and that’s the definition of defund.
Words matter and language matters and trying to nuance a pretty simple statement like “defund” is hard for people to understand. Especially with people, friends of mine to be specific, literally mean to defund and remove police.
I know no one involved with the Seattle CHAZ [0] but, for example, this is a group that wants to defund police.
If the intent is to reevaluate police funding then a label like “police reform” makes more sense. Calling something “defund police” and meaning reform is dumb, it’s foolish when there are also people using the label who want to defund the police.
I had a conversation with someone using the phrase ACAB who then explained that not really all cops are bad. This is really confusing to me as to why make a statement that I don’t believe in.
I think we need serious improvement in how we fund and operate police. I want reform and work toward reform. But small, suburban, peaceful city has 100 police officers for 50k people and we have military vehicles and whatnot. I want to work on this and make it better but conversations seem current divided between people who want to increase and zero out the budget and people trying to improve are getting shouted down or ignored. So we’re sticking with the normal increase 1% a year.
Do you think you’ll ever move past the initial shock of disagreement with a movement’s slogan that may be an oversimplification or misleading, or will you always need someone to clarify the argument before you can take it seriously (and not take it seriously until then)?
I’ve “moved on” but I think my issue is with the people I’m trying to talk to who haven’t moved on.
I don’t think I need someone to clarify, but it does take me extra time to figure out if someone is taking about the literal or figurative “defund” idea.
Perhaps some people view it as “reduce police funding” but many mean it to mean “$0 to police” and that’s the definition of defund.
Words matter and language matters and trying to nuance a pretty simple statement like “defund” is hard for people to understand. Especially with people, friends of mine to be specific, literally mean to defund and remove police.
I know no one involved with the Seattle CHAZ [0] but, for example, this is a group that wants to defund police.
If the intent is to reevaluate police funding then a label like “police reform” makes more sense. Calling something “defund police” and meaning reform is dumb, it’s foolish when there are also people using the label who want to defund the police.
I had a conversation with someone using the phrase ACAB who then explained that not really all cops are bad. This is really confusing to me as to why make a statement that I don’t believe in.
I think we need serious improvement in how we fund and operate police. I want reform and work toward reform. But small, suburban, peaceful city has 100 police officers for 50k people and we have military vehicles and whatnot. I want to work on this and make it better but conversations seem current divided between people who want to increase and zero out the budget and people trying to improve are getting shouted down or ignored. So we’re sticking with the normal increase 1% a year.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Autonomous_Zone