| sundid said: [3] I believe I have been fairly consistent on this point, so I'm not sure what concession you believe I made. Either way, I'm glad that we agree. As for your assessment of CRT, I am not an expert on the subject, but the writings I have read have not been incompatible with your criticisms. I similarly don't agree with these ideas (at least in the manner you have stated them) and as you said, it is on the individual making the claim to prove the claim. It may very well be true, however I have yet to see evidence of these claims being fundamental to CRT. [4]: I agree that we largely agree. I don't disagree with your first point (and I said explicitly in my last post that I agree that there is not one single cause) and your second point is...complicated. It is a nuanced position and I would be the first to say that the simple slogan does little to convey that nuance. I'll just run through a couple thoughts real quick: -"Defunding the police" to me, largely means shrinking the responsibilities of the police. The police should not be tasked with solving every societal ill, and we as a society need to decide what needs an armed response and what doesn't. For example, I don't believe traffic enforcement needs an armed response. "Defunding the police" is largely about expanding the ecosystem of law enforcement (and thus expanding it's funding), with separate bodies taking certain responsibilities away from the police, allowing the police to decrease in size. -"Defunding the police" also reflects the long-term goal of reducing the necessity of reactive crime prevention. By investing more in proactive crime prevention (improving education, housing etc), the goal is that crime and other societal ills will decrease which will allow an organic decrease in police funding. -"Defunding the police" speaks to our societal priorities and is largely about deprioritizing policing as a means of fighting crime. It seems that the response to crime is always "throw some cops at it", which has led to massive police budgets paired with underspending relative to many other priorities that should be considered important. Policing should never really be seen as a long term solution so at some point, we as society need to agree to invest in our communities instead of policing them (I believe the difficulty of this comes in part from racist ideas about "the dangerous minority"). This speaks to your last point. I agree that in theory it shouldn't be an "either-or" proposition, but in reality, I don't believe it is feasible to increase spending to the ideal levels without making cuts. |
[3] To judge by people's replies so far, I suspect you and I are the only two people here who have any real knowledge of CRT at all, which tells me that many people don't even realize how they've likely been influenced by elements thereof without grasping the simplistic crux of it.
[4] Our remaining disagreement here comes down to what we perceive as "feasible". It comes down, in other words, to a fiscal dispute over what society can and cannot afford, and especially in that context there is, to me, just an intractably neo-liberal sounding logic and essence to the whole "de-fund the police" argument wherein public budgets must be balanced and yet also cannot be balanced by those who can afford to pay like they used to be all the time and thus we must choose between public safety and public welfare, as we just metaphysically cannot have both. Much of the talk around budget reductions for police forces, I've observed, likewise involves a discussion of union-busting strategies because policing is, proponents often contend, an illegitimate occupation and officers aren't really workers. I dunno about that logic.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 07 June 2021
