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Hello other white people, are you alarmed at the way that the police are treating people of color, the homeless, and the poor? Do you wish that police would "protect and serve" all people like they are supposed to?
Guess what -- that concept is NOT built into police forces. 1/7
Guess what -- that concept is NOT built into police forces. 1/7
In fact, it is COUNTER to police forces.
Police forces were created to help control the working class, primarily immigrants in the North and black people in the South. In the South, especially, there is a direct line to the development of the police from Slave Patrols. 2/7
Police forces were created to help control the working class, primarily immigrants in the North and black people in the South. In the South, especially, there is a direct line to the development of the police from Slave Patrols. 2/7
Black people know this history. Often, white people do not. It is our privilege to be ignorant, but it cannot make us innocent as well.
The police have never enforced the law uniformly for black and white, rich and poor, citizen and immigrant. They were never designed to. 3/7
The police have never enforced the law uniformly for black and white, rich and poor, citizen and immigrant. They were never designed to. 3/7
They took their orders from people in power, uniformly the rich and usually white and male. They arrested sex workers because they were impure, Black people because they could fill work crews, immigrants and the working class when they went on strike. 4/7
They put down rebellion after rebellion among the working class. For the comfort of the rich. To keep power in place.
So when POC and others call to “abolish the police,” they are NOT calling for a downfall to law and order. They are asking for the BEGINNING of it. 5/7
So when POC and others call to “abolish the police,” they are NOT calling for a downfall to law and order. They are asking for the BEGINNING of it. 5/7
Educate yourselves, and take responsibility for a world where a white person calling the police knows they will get help, while a Black person or immigrant or sex worker or homeless person knows no such thing. 6/7
There are hundreds, if not thousands of articles on this online. Here’s a very few, which I found in moments:
https://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17505/police_and_poor_people
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/11/why-a-history-of-the-polices-relationship-to-the-working-class-is-being-re-released-now/546788/
https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
https://plsonline.eku.edu/sites/plsonline.eku.edu/files/the-history-of-policing-in-us.pdf
7/7
https://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17505/police_and_poor_people
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/11/why-a-history-of-the-polices-relationship-to-the-working-class-is-being-re-released-now/546788/
https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
https://plsonline.eku.edu/sites/plsonline.eku.edu/files/the-history-of-policing-in-us.pdf
7/7
[Update: It's been pointed out that I'm talking about police forces in the USA. While I might suspect a similar pattern in other countries, I should have specified that I was talking about US history]. 8/7.
