Defunding the Police is a Feminist Issue
Sorry everyone… this post isn’t going to be a witty feminist analysis of a problematic piece of culture or media… this post is going to be about something that feels much more dire at the moment… and well, let’s be honest, it has been dire since around… oh, shall we say… 1619.
Defunding the police is a feminist issue. It just is.
Policing is an institution that grew out of slave-catching during the years before the civil war. Shortly after the war and the failure of reconstruction, the police served to enforce “vagrancy laws.” What on earth were “vagrancy laws” you ask?
Allow me to explain:
According to Linda Kerber, author of the 1998 text, No Constitutional Right to be Ladies: “The term ‘vagrant’ can be a simple descriptor for wandering or digressing […] but as early as fourteenth-century England, it was already loaded with pejorative implications […] the Oxford English Dictionary put it, ‘having no settled home or regular work’” (52).
She continues that “these assumptions were codified in the English Statue of Artificers […] which provided that ‘every Person’ between the ages of twelve and sixty who did not have a visible [emphasis mine] means of livelihood could be ‘compelled to be retained’” (52).
Let’s unpack that… if a person does not have a visible way to make a living, the assumption was that they were ‘vagrant’ and thus could be ‘retained’ (read incarcerated) for up to a year.
It is on this foundation that American vagrancy laws were founded. If a person between the ages of 12 and 60 was not visibly working, they could be found guilty of vagrancy and thus imprisoned.
Turning to the US Constitution for a moment, I would remind you, my dear killjoys, that when the US abolished slavery in 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment it clearly states the following in Section 1:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Except as punishment for a crime.
The vagrancy laws were a legal and constitutional way to continue the practice of slavery… in the South and the North.
By finding formerly enslaved persons ‘vagrant’ they could be easily thrown back into involuntary servitude.
From catching slaves to catching ‘vagrants’ the police were created with one single purpose: policing Black bodies.
As Kerber points out, “the crime is not what a person has done but what the person appears to be, [such as] living idly, loitering, not having a steady, wage-earning job, strolling about in idleness, leading a profligate life— [all of which ] are perfectly legal for people of property” (54).
These laws were specifically designed to keep the formally enslaved in their place (namely, under the physical control of white authority figures). As we all know, it was always the role of the highest echelons of society not to work, as this was seen as a mark against their pedigree and status.
Not only did these laws ensure that enslaved labor would still be “legitimate” in the eyes of the law, it also established an almost limitless supply of cheap labor, as newly-freed women and men needed to appear working, even if it meant working for almost nothing.
Where white women working was seen as improper, Black women working was necessary to keep from them out of jail.
And who enforced all of this systemic and institutional oppression? The police.
Fast forward to the 20th century where Black Americans were still living under a radically different set of laws than white Americans.
Powder cocaine (white people use), a misdemeanor.
Crack cocaine (Black people use), a felony.
And then there were the 3 Strikes laws which stated that anyone convicted of drug-related felonies three-times would get up to life imprisonment.
Now, I grew up in an affluent white suburb of Detroit, and I never once saw police strolling my streets… drive the 35 minutes into the Blackest city in America (at the time) and the cops were everywhere, performing numerous stops (and frisks).
Would they have stopped and frisked in the affluent white suburbs they would have found a truly astonishing amount of underage drinkers, marijuana, and yes, cocaine.
But they didn’t. They found what they wanted to find where they wanted to find it.
And who was responsible for doing the finding? The police.
The reality of the fact is this: since 1844 when the first police force was founded in New York City, the cops have had one overarching goal: policing Black bodies.
Are there good cops out there who want to help people? ABSOLUTELY.
But we aren’t talking about a few rotten apples here. We are taking about a few exceptional apples in a rotten barrel.
This isn’t about individual cops. It’s about a system designed to oppress Black Americans.
“But Erin! If we defund the police, there will be chaos in the streets! Who will you call when you’re attacked?! What if someone breaks into your home or tries to hurt you or your children?!”
1. Defunding the police and abolishing the police are two different things. Though truth-be-told, I’m open to both/either.
2. It means diverting bloated policing budgets to things like mental-health workers, social workers, domestic violence support services, and the like.
3. The police cannot and should not be a catch all for every problem. When all you have is a gun, everyone looks like a target, especially (it appears) if they are Black.
4. The police are exactly who I would call if someone broke into my home or attacked me or my family, BUT they are NOT who I would want to call if I saw someone having a mental breakdown. They are NOT who I would call if I saw someone using drugs. They are NOT who we should ask to investigate murders… AND parking infractions.
5. Recently, Denver, Colorado launched the STAR Program wherein 911 operators could direct calls to: police, fire, first responders OR STAR which was a two-person team, staffed by a trained medic and clinician. In only six months, STAR responded to 748 of 2500 911-calls. They did not once need police back-up, no one was ever arrested, there was not a single incident of use-of-force, and most importantly, no one was killed.
6. We do not need the police to do everything. And frankly, it is unfair to ask them to respond to incidents for which they are not trained and about which they have no background.
According to the Washington Post’s database on police shootings (grateful they have one BECAUSE MOST POLICE SYSTEMS DO NOT!), Black Americans “account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, but are killed by police at more than twice the rate of White Americans. Hispanic Americans are also killed by police at a disproportionate rate.”
The Stanford Open Policing Project has found that “officers generally stop black drivers at higher rates than white drivers, and stop Hispanic drivers at similar or lower rates than white drivers. These broad patterns persist after controlling for the drivers’ age and gender.” The study has also found that “black and Hispanic drivers are searched more often than white drivers.”
Researchers Frank Edwards, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito write in their 2019 article “Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex” for The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America that “[o]ver the life course, about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police” (16793).
In 2019 Shea Streeter published similar research in the Race and Law Enforcement Symposium, finding that in 2015 alone 11% of police killings happened at traffic stops, and that stops are disproportionately made in Black communities and against Black motorists.
The reality is simple: Black people are more likely than any other population to be killed in a routine traffic stop and just about everywhere else by the people who are sworn to “serve and protect.”
Okay, so why is this a feminist issue?
Because feminism without intersectionality is white supremacy.
Plain and simple.
It is our job as feminists to stand up for those who are oppressed and to fight for justice and equity for all persons—no matter what.
What is intersectionality you ask?
Well, get out a piece of paper and something to write with. It’s okay, I can wait…
Now, for the next 3 minutes write down who you are—what are your identities?
For example I am:
Woman, white, Jewish (Athiest), well-educated, English-speaker, cis-gendered (I identify with the gender I was assigned at birth), tall, glasses-wearer…. etc.
ALL of these identities are valid and they inform one another… they intersect.
We cannot be feminists if we are not intersectional in our demands for equality, equity, and justice.
We desperately need to reimagine policing in the nation. And we need to do it… well… 500 years ago.
Because not only have we made ‘vagrancy’ punishable by law… for Black Americans we have made the following punishable by death:
Standing outside a building (Amadou Diallo)
Standing behind the door of his house (Kenneth Chamberlain)
Needing help after a car crash (Jonathan Ferrell)
Having an attitude (Sandra Bland)
Standing outside a store and selling loose cigarettes (Eric Garner)
Playing with a toy gun (Tamir Rice—who was TWELVE)
Holding a BB gun in a store that he intended to purchase (John Crawford)
Driving his car and legally having a firearm (Philando Castile)
Selling DVDs (Alton Sterling)
Stealing Cigarillos (Michael Brown)
Riding in a car with friends (Jordan Edwards)
Holding a phone in his grandma’s backyard (Stephon Clark)
Sitting in his own apartment (Bothan Jean)
Playing video games (Atatiana Jefferson)
Sleeping in her bed (Breonna Taylor)
Running away (Freddie Gray)
Using a counterfeit $20 bill (George Floyd)
Having an air freshener in his car and expired tags (Daunte Wright)
Having your hands in the air (Adam Toledo—who was THIRTEEN)
And more…
Say their names.
Defund the police.
And scream from the rooftops that BLACK LIVES MATTER.
