Law enforcement in the U.S. has increasingly moved into a more aggressive, militarized and deadly body of governance in this nation. Even though they’ve always served as an extension of military policing for communities of color, we’re witnessing them digress this nation back to the days of Jim Crow/Civil Rights Movement enforcement tactics. As of late, there are some hints to prominent U.S. police officials advocating for greater acknowledgment of the role that law enforcement has played in historical racial injustice in communities of color, to include racially motivated violence, in hopes of transforming police-community relations. But in my honest opinion, these calls for transformative justice don’t scratch the surface of how big the issues of social injustices caused by law enforcement really is from a historical vantage point. Members of the Black, Brown, Indigenous Native and other immigrant communities are living in a society where we (unarmed civilians) are forced to remain calm during interactions with police officers who’re being taught how to escalate a situation (while armed) as a result of seeing skin color as the enemy combative.
The end result is members of law enforcement being empowered with the ‘right’, or the courage to kill more people, more often. Basically, police institutions in the U.S. are held unaccountable to the community they’ve sworn to protect and serve. Instead, its accountability routinely ends with the unnecessary death of our community members, our leaders for peace, either during routine traffic stops or minor misunderstandings. This is why citizens from all walks of life are outraged — from a global perspective! Policing in the U.S. has a culture of violence that has historically dominated Black, immigrant, Indigenous Native, Muslim faith practicing, feminist, poor, homeless and LGBTQ+ communities.
My fellow veteran brothers and sister with Common Defense support broad and meaningful criminal justice reform at the federal, state and local levels. Our communities have fallen into disrepair and neglect because we (America) have invested far too much tax payer’s money into militarizing our police rather than community resources. It’s time to ensure:
- #NoWarOnOurStreets – removing weapons of war from our communities and out of the hands of potential White supremacists that have infiltrated the ranks of law enforcement.
- We defund the police – this is not radical, its rational thought, particularly while we are facing a shortfall of resources to address a global pandemic.
- We hold police accountable – police are unaccountable to the community they terrorize — particularly in disenfranchised communities across the country. Militarizing our police has made police take the form of an occupying army in communities already disproportionately represented as victims of police brutality and police-involved shootings that result in death.
Our nation is finding itself interlocked within forever wars both overseas in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, and right here on American soil, with law enforcement agencies that now look like the military. Using military troops against Americans is utterly unacceptable and a threat to the foundation of our democracy as well as the safety of us all.
#NoWarOnOurStreets #EndForeverWar
