by Indianna Taylor
This story was originally published at Prism.
Last year the call to create change by defunding the police could be heard from all over. It was meant as a step forward to re-envision public safety, rather than the immediate abolition of policing. While there were many who didn’t understand the purpose and reality of the cause, organizers like myself were able to garner solidarity from places we had never been able to reach. Trapped by the pandemic and glued to their screens, people seemed unable to turn away from the inequities in our so-called “justice system” and actually wanted to do something about it. But after a whirlwind year of public outcries and companies branding themselves “BLM friendly,”the abandonment of calls to Defund the Police by politicians and social media activists is more alarming testimony to the attention span and performative, reactionary nature of this country.
This is partly because we’re not in an election year anymore and too many people feel less motivated now that former President Donald Trump isn’t in office. In 2020, streets were full of budding revolutionaries who chanted “No Trump! No KKK! No Racist USA” to vote for Biden, jarred from their apathy for the political process by the brazen racism of public figures and hate groups. When you are thirsty for water in a desert, a mist can feel like a tsunami, and Defund the Police activists hoped they could drink heavily from that momentum to fuel their efforts.
