of course, it would be amazing!! imagine a world where we invest in all the well-established factors that lead to reduced crime rates. as a society, we have a clear understanding of these factors, thanks to extensive research and expert recommendations. unfortunately, our country has heavily invested in the prison industrial complex, driven by anti-blackness, making it almost to change. both republicans and democrats are guilty when it comes to this and while i expect it from republicans, when democrats join in the pro-cop fuckery, it’s even sadder and more frustrating.
i mean envision redirecting the billions currently allocated to policing, jails, the military, and tax breaks for the top 1% and mega-corporations towards more beneficial causes such as housing, quality education (not that fuck shit in florida), free daycare, fair livable wages, infrastructure, eliminating the digital divide, universal healthcare (every developed country has it but us), mass transit (less cars and more trains dammit!) and improving schools in impoverished areas to a world-class standard. additionally, ensuring wide access to healthy nutritional foods, especially for children, and adopting an educational approach that nurtures not just a basic understanding of shit but also individual talents and passions.
of course in this new world, there would still be individuals responsible for enforcing the law and capturing criminals, but they would receive extensive education (like years of training not just a few months and “okay now here’s a gun” bullshit we do), focusing on understanding the law, de-escalation techniques, and eliminating any and all those with racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, or transphobic attitudes (cause we all know that white supremacists are all over american police forces). and for sure they wouldn’t be militarized!! also these officers would reside within the communities they serve, and a portion of them would be selected by the local community. importantly, they would be held ruthlessly accountable for their actions, without the protection of a union designed solely to shield criminal cops.
this kind of investment could lead to a significant reduction in crime rates. however, it remains a pipedream to achieve this vision because the prison industrial complex a billion dollar enterprise that continues to profit from the imprisonment of black people. it is a stark reminder that policing rooted in the profession of slave catchers, prison is rooted in the continuation of slavery and the entire system was created to fuck over black people as much as possible. despite the obvious benefits, moving to this better world is hindered by the deeply ingrained racism in our society and it is BOTH conservatives and liberals who are keeping us here.
feeling like this i s a strawman argument who is getting fired for not supporting israel and why would that even come up at the workplace?? *key note: not trying to be rude I just googled it and found nothing*
projection is when a white person knows that “pro-white” groups are hate groups made up of white people trying to eliminate everyone not white (and straight) and so they assume that pro-Black groups are the same as the pro-white groups. they be telling on themselves hella hard.
I’m personally a Holocaust survivor as an infant, I barely survived. My grandparents were killed in Aushwitz and most of my extended family were killed. I became a Zionist; this dream of the Jewish people resurrected in their historical homeland and the barbed wire of Aushwitz being replaced by the boundaries of a Jewish state with a powerful army…and then I found out that it wasn’t exactly like that, that in order to make this Jewish dream a reality we had to visit a nightmare on the local population.
There’s no way you could have ever created a Jewish state without oppressing and expelling the local population. Jewish Israeli historians have shown without a doubt that the expulsion of Palestinians was persistent, pervasive, cruel, murderous and with deliberate intent - that’s what’s called the ‘Nakba’ in Arabic; the 'disaster’ or the 'catastrophe’. There’s a law that you cannot deny the Holocaust, but in Israel you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba, even though it’s at the very basis of the foundation of Israel.
I visited the Occupied Territories (West Bank) during the first intifada. I cried every day for two weeks at what I saw; the brutality of the occupation, the petty harassment, the murderousness of it, the cutting down of Palestinian olive groves, the denial of water rights, the humiliations…and this went on, and now it’s much worse than it was then.
It’s the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st century. I could land in Tel Aviv tomorrow and demand citizenship but my Palestinian friend in Vancouver, who was born in Jerusalem, can’t even visit!
So then you have these miserable people packed into this, horrible…people call it an 'outdoor prison’, which is what it is. You don’t have to support Hamas policies to stand up for Palestinian rights, that’s a complete falsity. You think the worse thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times, and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.
And 'anybody who criticises Israel is an anti-Semite’ is simply an egregious attempt to intimidate good non-Jews who are willing to stand up for what is true.
