Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash
Imagine a government service; it can be anything, federal, state, municipal. Imagine that it is funded by your tax dollars. You would, logically, want that service to be reliable, continuous, and worth the money you put into it. Now imagine that even though you pay for that service, the service gets to pick whether it wants to serve you. In fact, based completely on who you are or what house you live in, this service could even harm you.
What is within your rights to do about this?
You reserve the right to request a better service or a completely different one — you are a taxpayer after all.
Now imagine that that service malfunctions and kills your next-door neighbor, your son, your friend, without repercussion, for years. Nothing is done to change or fix it — what then? How angry would you be?
That service is policing in America.
That service is law enforcement for anyone who isn’t white in this state and this country.
This isn’t a hypothetical, this is reality.
A tenet of our democracy is that there is no taxation without representation. If a service we pay into is inherently flawed, we as taxpayers are entitled to restructure, rebuild and defund it until it takes the shape of what we want it to be. The inverse of that right is tyranny.
Daunte Wright did not have to die in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, this week, accidentally or intentionally. He was 20 years old, with his life ahead of him, his son waiting for him at home. His biggest crime was driving to a car wash while Black. His biggest crime was being afraid, and wouldn’t you be?
If a police officer can mistake a gun for a taser, wouldn’t you be scared for your life too?
In defense of Kim Potter, the cop who shot Wright, some have offered that she was under duress, that she was afraid and therefore shouldn’t be expected to have acted properly or thoroughly. Yet they failed to give that same grace to Daunte, and that reeks of racism.
That some reject the idea that law enforcement is rooted in white supremacy is not proof that it isn’t reality. You might have found a reasonable excuse for every example of police violence perpetrated on a Black person, but that doesn’t mean that injustice never happened just because you choose not to see it.
Turning away from a cop is not worthy of execution. A traffic stop is not the place or time for a police officer to play judge and jury.
Black people should not be afraid of law enforcement every waking moment of the day. That fear, that anger, that resentment that communities of color hold for police, is proof enough that it is a government service that is failing and needs to be fixed.
Black Lives Matter.
Nada Elmikashfi is a former candidate for state Senate and chief of staff to state Rep. Francesca Hong.
