Police

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  7/1/2020
  

  The 1898 Wilmington Massacre Is an Essential Lesson in How State Violence Has Targeted Black Americans

  by David Zucchino

  The coup was the natural outgrowth of North Carolina’s – and America’s – long history of relying on white police to perpetuate white supremacy amid fears of Black uprisings.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/30/2020
  

  The Scars of Being Policed While Black (video)

  by Laurence Ralph

  Anthropologist and police violence researcher Laurence Ralph made the film above to explain exactly what it means to be policed in America today. It moves from my own experiences with racial profiling as a teenager to the horrific history of police torture in Chicago.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/25/2020
  

  Policing the World (Review)

  by Andrew Lanham

  Since World War II, the United States has spread its style of policing—and police technology—around the world as a way to exert control. This link between modern policing and the national security state means they will have to be democratized together.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/26/2020
  

  Racist Violence in Wilmington’s Past Echoes in Police Officer Recordings Today

  by Crystal R. Sanders

  Wilmington, North Carolina police officers who spoke eagerly about the chance to kill black protesters evoke the history of a violent white supremacist coup against the city's biracial government during Reconstruction.

• 
• 6/28/2020
  

  Liberal Reform Threatens to Expand the Police Power--Just as it did in the Past

  by Max Felker-Kantor

  The history of liberal law-and-order reveals that procedural reforms implemented on top of a structure of policing that has been empowered to protect property and control “disorder” are not only doomed to fail but will produce the conditions for more protest and resistance. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole
  6/25/2020
  

  Building The Chicago Police State: A Review Of Occupied Territory

  by Davarian L. Baldwin

  "With scrupulous archival detail and sharp analytic focus, Occupied Territory shows how Chicago’s “powerful carceral machinery,” which present-day Black communities condemns for its under-protection and over-policing, was built in the early twentieth century." 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/23/2020
  

  We Can End Qualified Immunity Tomorrow

  We need not wait for Congress or the Supreme Court to deny police officers qualified immunity when they violate constitutional rights. State attorneys general and city law departments can—and should—lead the charge themselves.

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  6/24/2020
  

  How Police Unions Became so Powerful — and How they Can Be Tamed

  Over about half a century, police unions have become one of the most powerful lobbies in local government. Historian Will Jones is among the experts who explain how. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/18/2020
  

  What Kind of Society Values Property Over Black Lives?

  by Robin D.G. Kelley

  "Let me offer a more productive question instead: What is the effect of obsessing over looting?"

• 
• SOURCE: LitHub
  6/19/2020
  

  A Brief History of the Policing of Black Music

  Harmony Holiday dreams of a Black sound unfettered by white desire.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  6/12/2020
  

  Police Reform Won’t Fix a System That Was Built to Abuse Power

  by Stuart Schrader

  Police have held municipal budgets hostage for decades now, under the premise that without their professional expertise there would be anarchy. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/12/2020
  

  Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police

  by Mariame Kaba

  A police abolition activist argues that the long history of commissions set up to investigate police violence against civilans shows that the institution can't be reformed or regulated. 

• 
• SOURCE: Miller Center (University of Virginia)
  6/15/2020
  

  Lyndon Johnson Addresses the Nation on Civil Disorders (July 27, 1967)

  Lyndon Johnson's words after rioting erupted in Detroit speak to ongoing concerns in American society.   

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/13/2020
  

  Call Off the Dogs, Mr. Trump

  by Clive D.L. Wynne

  Domestic dogs have genetically determined capacities to bond with humans; this has historically made them frighteningly effective conduits for human hatreds and aggression.   

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  6/12/2020
  

  Defund the Police

  by Austin McCoy

  The emergence of a protest slogan is usually followed by struggles over its meaning; calls for defunding the police echo the contested slogan of "Black Power" in the 1960s.

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  Where Was Such Solidarity Two Weeks Ago?

  by Frederick Gooding, Jr.

  The author is skeptical of the sudden wave of "performative solidarity" by white individuals and corporate America. Ensuring that Black Lives matter will require solidarity in the long term.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  6/12/2020
  

  A Short History of Black Women and Police Violence

  by Keisha N. Blain

  Despite, or perhaps because of, their own vulnerability to state-sanctioned violence, black women have been key voices in the struggle to end it.

• 
• SOURCE: Viewpoint
  6/9/2020
  

  Wanted: An End to Police Terror

  by Stuart Schrader

  Radical activists have long used the "Wanted" poster as a subversive strategy to advertise the crimes of police. The author asks if today's activists should move past a political rhetoric that accepts punishment and incarceration as necessary aspects of society. 

• 
• SOURCE: Business Insider
  6/11/2020
  

  52 Years Ago, Police Shot and Killed 3 Black Students at a South Carolina Protest, Pinning the Blame on an 'Outside Agitator'

  The events known as the Orangeburg massacre have remained shrouded in mystery and the state of South Carolina has not helped to advance truth and reconciliation. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/10/2020
  

  Why Minneapolis Was The Breaking Point

  Black men and women are still dying across the country. The power that is American policing has conceded nothing.