Defund the police, not education
In a country as wealthy as the U.S., you would think ensuring that students have access to quality education and services would not be an issue. You would think that in a country as wealthy as ours, it would be a priority that students and their families remain in good health and have access to health care, as well as mental health care during a global pandemic. You would think that national COVID-19 testing would be required before opening up the doors of schools to students, educators, and staff.
In this country, the people expect these basic public health needs to be met considering the wealth we have generated. Instead, our reality is we continue to see our public schools defunded, and the funds invested into a brutal, repressive, militarized police force whose purpose is to exercise lethal force on all, irrespective of age, race, gender, or supposed criminality. To reverse this inequity, we should defund the police – not our public education system.
As of early June, this year, on-duty police had killed 429 people across the United States. If this rate continues, more than one person a day will be killed by police in 2020. According to the Police Integrity Research group at Bowling Green State, on-duty police claim the lives of between 900 and 1,100 people, a year – with fewer than eight deaths, on average, resulting in indictments and even fewer convictions.
Despite the plethora of evidence showing the repressive and violent nature of the police across the nation, the uprising against racist police brutality and terror which occurred in Ferguson in 2014, as well as Baltimore in 2015 were not enough to convince Democrats or Republicans that something needs to be done about police departments across the nation. The disproportionate number of Black, Indigenous and Latino people behind bars has not been enough for politicians to take the cries of Black America and all working class people seriously. Politicians continue to ignore the needs of the people, and instead use taxpayers money to fund and militarize oppressive police forces.
For example, the New York Police Department has one of the largest police forces in the nation. In fact, if the NYPD were a military, it would be the 7th largest military in the world due to its size and the level of CONTINUE READING: Defund the police, not education – Liberation News
