Need for Police Reform Is 'Not Black Versus White, It's Blue Versus the Rest of Us'
Democrats need to step up and take a stronger stand, commentator says
Democrats need to take a stronger stand for police reforms, and not be scared to embrace the concept of “defund the police,” according to a prominent TV host and political commentator.
The beating death of motorist Tyre Nichols — and the video of his brutal beating at the hands of five police officers in Nashville, Tenn. — kick-started the debate on police reform.
The need for such reform burst into the public eye nearly three years ago, after police in Minneapolis, Minn., beat and murdered another Black man, George Floyd.
Activists, who took to the streets following the video-recorded murder of Floyd, began advocating reform known as “defund the police,” which was a slogan to describe a concept in which funding was shifted from police budgets, to those of various social services to meet the needs of the community.
Republicans and those on the political right, however, were able to successfully turn the slogan against Democrats, most of whom ultimately distanced themselves from “defund the police.”
And that's a mistake, according to Mehdi Hasan, commentator and host on MSNBC and the Peacock streaming service.
“The issue here, as plenty of people have pointed out, is not black versus white, it's blue versus the rest of us. Which is why this whole reform nonsense from Democrats is so tiring and so dishonest,” Hasan said. “You can’t reform this stuff with body cameras or diversifying the police, as we just saw in Memphis. That doesn’t solve the problem either.
“Now Democrats, of course, want to run away from talk of abolishing the police or even defunding the police, that is way too radical, way too out there,” he added, in an on-camera appearance. “But consider this. The Memphis Police Department’s response to all this controversy and camera footage on Saturday was to announce that it was disbanding the specialized police unit whose officers inflicted that brutal assault on Tyre Nichols, the so-called Scorpion Unit. Yeah, they defunded and abolished it."
In response to the killing of Nichols, President Biden said that he would call on Congress to approve the George Floyd Act, a package of police reforms proposed after the international outrage after Floyd's murder, but has languished the last two years due to opposition from congressional Republicans.
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