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What defund actually means..
"Defund the Police" was some of the worst branding/slogan I've ever seen. Like, opponents would literally just say "Can you believe they want to defund the Police?"
The actual ideas of the movement, like the program in this article, are great. They're popular, too. Demilitarizing the police has pretty widespread support.
But the first-glance impression of lawless anarchy that the "Defund" slogan brings up... You shouldn't need to explain why your slogan doesn't mean what it appears to mean.
That's true, but I'm not sure any amount of clever messaging would matter to something like 75% of the US population when they want less accountible, more militarized police. It's like the Kaepernick kneeling thing, no matter how respectful and polite you are, they don't want what you want..
Right but why would you get in your own way considering it's already an uphill climb?
That and "Black Lives Matter" were two incredibly poor branding choices at the same time. I couldn't understand why they needed to shoot themselves in their feet.
It means a lot of things. A big chunk of the movement wants police abolition, too. It's a radical movement, i don't want to see the teeth taken out of it.
That's true, I dont speak for anyone but myself. It's hard enough to convince the unconvinced of bare accountability, let alone abolition!
It's cool, I figured you weren't trying to undermine anyone. I don't think straight-up authoritarians can be convinced that cops should have anything but absolute power. Better to try to convince compassionate liberals that radical solutuons are worth a shot. The activists they lionize were a lot more radical than they think. Some spicy MLK quotes might work. Idk, BLM got me to start learning about history, and it radicalized me a lot.
I don't think this is defunding. This is using resources better. Often times, there are mental health crisis that look like "police" issues. But they are actually just mental health problems.
Mental health is super heavily stigmatized across the world.
Part of "defund the police" includes "fund mental health services" using the money that used to pay for police and police accessories.