Black Lives Matter... but what does that mean?

Brookline MA

Description

There was a post a few days ago complaining about BLM and the supposed counter-intuitive nature of the movement. This is one of many conceptions of BLM that are flawed in one way or another Black Lives Matter isn't about sticking it to the police for the sake of sticking it to the police. Black Lives Matter isn't about calling any and all white people white supremacists. Black Lives Matter is about bringing people to realize what a police state does to non-white communities. 'But these communities disproportionately commit more crimes than other communities. Shouldn't we advocate for more policing in these areas?' Police are not a one-size-fits-all solutions for societal problems. The police are, at their core, an institution of violence operating at the behest of the state. They are a violent solution to certain problems, many of which many of you would agree are reasonable. For example, we trust police to handle people committing robberies, or to stop people attempting to steal the life or lives of others. We trust police to stop fights on the streets. We trust police to solve problems that require violence. But the message behind Black Lives Matter is that police are being used, violence is being used, when the solution is non-violence. Take drug addiction. According to federal law, there are several substances which, if consumed, warrant criminal prosecution against the user(s). But... addiction is a medical problem, one that can be difficult or even harmful to respond to with force, one that can be easily and effectively solved using non-violent policies, yet when the police see a drug addict, their response isn't to accompany them to an addiction facility that can treat their condition, but rather to a prison. Let me be clear: there is no rational reason why we would ever throw an addict in prison when we could medically treat their condition - that is, of course, if your goal is to improve society. If your goal is to imprison black people, taking away their livelihoods and their right to vote, throwing away their liberty and possibly enslaving them (as is legal under the 13th amendment), appealing to racist conservative voters who only want to see these communities burn, then it's a perfectly rational course of action to criminalize these substances and avoid actual treatments. This is just one example of how our system responds to problems facing poor communities, not just non-white communities but of all poor communities. It responds with violence when we need aid. It responds with prison guards when we need school teachers. It responds with militarized police when we need comprehensive welfare. That is what BLM is about. It's about dismantling the current system that only knows violence and force. We can all agree: the police have a place in society. But their place today stands in the way of what we really need.