🙌🏽 Guilt Can Be A Start. But Not The Solution

Choose who policies you, and you change the police.

Derek Chauvin has been found guilty of the murder of George Floyd. Irrespective of the sentence, it won’t negate the fact that George Floyd’s killing was part of a pattern of officers using deadly force against people of color, particularly Black Americans - over 5,000 of whom have been killed by police since 2015.

And irrespective of the decision, I think what also concerns me is the focus of the remedy. When police brutality happens, as it does with depressing regularity, we hear: fire the cops, train the cops, defund the police etc., These are all fine, perhaps even necessary steps. But they still focus the remedy on the institutions that perpetuate inequality rather than focus resources on the communities affected by the inequality.

What we should also hear is: the community should have a role in the cops hired to police its streets, young people from affected neighborhoods should be educated to become just and equitable law enforce…