First steps

First steps

Sunday, 7 June 2020. Today Barcelona, like so many other cities, was the scene of a demonstration to denounce police brutality and, more specifically, the recent police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Interlinked oppressive acts like this cut right into the heart of our societies. Such treatment by the police is appalling at any time, but in this case there is the added factor that Afro-Americans are known to be proportionately at greater risk of mistreatment.

This is not only a question of Minneapolis. It involves the entire country. By extension, in a globilizing world, we really are “all in it together.” The United States prides itself on justice for all, and yet race seems somehow to continue to be a factor that sparks injustice and further inequality. The underlying racism and authoritarianism of the Trump administration and our inability to come to terms with an endemic racism makes us look ridiculous. As Jennifer Rubin, writing in the op-ed section of The Washington Post on the hypocrisy of the Trump administration, has written: “Should we feel the need to rebuke a strongman in another country (e.g., Turkey, China, Russia, Hungary) one can only imagine the guffaws that would ensue.”*

The announcement in today’s papers that Minneapolis aims to dismantle its police force and newly rebuild it to promote public safety is a welcome first step.** Obviously many details will have to be attended to in order to carry out such an extensive move. Two questions immediately come to mind: Will it work? If so, can other cities follow suit?

* “How the United States might have condemned the Trump regime”, The Washington Post, 4 June 2020.

** https://www.startribune.com/mpls-council-majority-backs-dismantling-police-department/571088302/