Thus, not only must we demand community control of the police, but also community control of those social service agencies that purport to serve the community, and to whom police funds would supposedly be transferred under a "defund the police" policy.
As Frederick Douglass famously said: "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Power will also use every opportunity to reshape people's "demands" that are vague or open-ended - such as "abolition" and "defunding" of the police. Angela Davis, the prison and police abolition scholar most often cited by Black Lives Matter activists, was on hand for the relaunching of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression last year in Chicago, and is 100 percent behind its community control of police campaign.
"Angela Davis is 100 percent behind its community control of police campaign."
Although some of the 14 Black Lives Matter chapters in the U.S. have refused to endorse community control, the Chicago chapter is active in the campaign for CPAC and the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter chapter favors community control of social services, land and all other community resources, including the police.
The same democratic and self-determinationist imperatives that require black community control of police are applicable to a broad range of other services and resources -- most especially schools. Community control is not a reformist demand, because it calls for real transfers of power from the oligarchs and their politicians, to the people. General demands for "abolition" and "defunding," however, invite a reformist and trickster response from Power -- as we see unfolding in Minneapolis.
As we wrote on July 1:"Reforms that leave power in the hands of the oppressor and his flunkies succeed mainly in making the enemy look good. It buys the oppressor more time to harm the people -- which is what the Democrats were seeking when they adopted the vocabulary of protest and embraced 'reforms' they had previously rejected in the face of a Black-led popular insurgency. Movement organizers must avoid providing opportunities for scoundrels, sell-out artists and Democratic Party operatives to pose as friends of 'the community.'"
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