Like most Americans, I was sickened by the senseless violence and destruction across the country this weekend, just as I was sickened by the murder of George Floyd.
In recounting the terrible acts this past week, let me start at the top, with the evil and incompetence of Donald Trump. In one tweet on Thursday, Trump declared, "Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts." This was a call for the mass murder of looters. Trump was demanding the repetition of what happened to George Floyd, a person accused of a minor non-violent crime who was murdered by law enforcement. Trump tried to defend himself by claiming that he was “wouldn’t know” about the racist origins of the phrase over 50 years ago. But you don’t need to be a historian to know that calling for the shooting of minor criminals is wrong. And every politician who supports Trump must be asked by the media if they agree with Trump’s call for law enforcement to kill looters.
Some progressives have claimed that racist groups are instigating the riots this weekend. I’m very doubtful of that happening beyond a few isolated cases. I have tremendous faith in the ability of my fellow Americans to do incredibly stupid and destructive things even without the help of racist scum.
But let’s assume these conspiracy theories are true. If racists are behind an effort to hijack the protests and turn them violent, then everyone should agree that we must refuse to participate in that and oppose all of these protests. And if you can’t tell the difference between your protests and those of racist provocateurs, that’s a sign that your protests are terrible and you need to stop them.
Obviously, everyone should have the right to protest. But it doesn’t follow that every protest is good and should be encouraged. Even if you’re naive enough to imagine that protesters didn’t commit any of the crimes, these protests provided cover and help to the criminals who vandalized, looted, and burned down businesses by preventing the police from focusing on those crimes. This is a clear case where it was morally wrong to engage in protests because the protests had a destructive impact.
Too many people on the left revere the street protest as the epitome of working for social change. They harken back to the days of the Civil Rights Movement and imagine that protests on the streets are an effective tool for social change. That’s rarely the case anymore. The truth is that most street protests are useless, and the rest of them (like all of the protests this week) are usually worse than useless.
Street protests often divert activists from doing the things (like gaining political power) that result in real social change. The mistake of protesting is more clear than usual during a time of a pandemic. The reality is that more African-Americans will probably die this year from coronavirus spread by protestors to each other this weekend (and then to their friends and family) than will die from police brutality this year. Covid-19 testing sites, school meal programs, and various other humanitarian efforts have been forced to close due to the riots.
And the protests that led to riots this weekend are likely to create a political backlash. Donald Trump appeared likely to lose his re-election bid until this weekend. If Trump wins in November, experts will probably point to these riots as the reason why. The protests against police brutality and murder may become the reason why an advocate of police brutality and murder is re-elected, and the result will make police brutality and murder worse.
The uselessness of protests is particularly true against the evil of police brutality. What, exactly, is the plan for stopping police brutality? Justice is a word, not a plan. No one can identify a single coherent useful idea for dealing with police brutality that protesters are calling for. Some people think that the protests led to a slightly quicker arrest of the police officer who murdered George Floyd. I doubt that’s true, and it’s not a benefit of any importance (especially since the rush to arrest the officer can lead to mistakes that could reduce the likelihood of conviction).
So what should we do about police brutality? The usual answer is something about police training, which is a long-term fix that usually doesn’t work. As we saw with George Floyd, police officers are more likely to defend misconduct by fellow officers than prevent it.
The best solution to police brutality is sunlight and surveillance. The only reason for the mass outrage (and the firings and the arrest) in the George Floyd case is because a cell phone videotaped the murder as it happened. The only reason why there was justice in the case of Laquan MacDonald is because of the public release of a police car dashcam video of the killing (despite attempts to cover it up). Surveillance is the only thing that exposes police brutality, punishes police brutality, and discourages police brutality. We need more cameras on police cars facing in all directions. We need more cameras on police officers. And we need more security cameras in general to make us safe, by taking video of criminal activities (by police and others).
The truth is that police brutality is at lower levels than it used to be, thanks to all of these cameras. Ironically, the videos of police brutality make people think that it’s getting worse, when in reality things are getting better because more cases of police violence are actually exposed and punished.
But we can do more to encourage surveillance of police. We can pass laws and policies to protect those who film the police, including the media (who have been targeted by both police and criminals this weekend).
And we should establish programs at colleges to monitor police and train students to be a part of these efforts.Imagine if, instead of the usual cycle of protest and inaction that accomplishes nothing, colleges across the country established interdisciplinary programs to help provide permanent solutions to the problems of racial disparities and police violence.
Some modest efforts have begun, mostly by journalists trying to simply document the vast number of police killings that happen. But we need to stop misconduct before it reaches the level of murder. We need a national effort to make Freedom of Information Act requests for video of police violence, to put the video of all cases of police brutality online, to demand answers from police and politicians, and to help victims file complaints and lawsuits. That’s the clear answer for stopping police brutality, and it’s something that academia can play an important role in changing. Instead of encouraging protests that are worse than useless, we need to redirect rage toward real solutions.
Crossposted from AcademeBlog.