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Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower
It was not just the “status quo” (whatever that means in this case) that was deeply concerned about the ballot amendment to defund the police.
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Whoops, gotta stop you right there as defunding the police was not on the ballot. (yes, I saw your parenthetical).
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The City Council was (rightly, in my opinion) harshly criticized for rallying behind empty “defund” rhetoric without having done the hard work of figuring out what that meant
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So, there are two frustrating things about this very common take. First, it does not acknowledge the years of work from city staff, including a detailed analysis of 911 calls and the resources necessary to respond to them, and the various non-police resources being stood up across 7 city departments. They absolutely have been doing the work. They just don't have the final org chart for the proposed department of public safety because the city attorney told them they couldn't (and they do no currently have the power to create one anyway, that's what the amendment was for).
Second, nobody defunded, or was about to defund, anything. We had a whole giant flip out over an amendment that amounted to nothing more than a reorganization of city departments (yes, with the potential for fewer police in the long run).
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“The debate has also played out among racial and geographical lines — with many Black residents of north Minneapolis accusing liberal White residents of south Minneapolis of supporting ‘an experiment’ that could prove harmful to Black residents as they are trying to be better allies in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.“
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ot-initiative/
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It's super fun to credit white progressives with the longstanding work of groups like Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective.
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