Words Matter and We’re Still Using the Wrong Ones.

Gratuitous Pootie pic

As a general principle for publishing/speaking purposes, we need to replace “DEfund  the police” with something like “SMARTfund the police.”

I know It is just easier to write or say “Defund” INSTEAD of “Redesigning a truly social services oriented police force equipped with conflict negotiators and drug/mental health professionals who are the ones that SHOULD handle many of the confrontation scenes that the law officers are thrown into.” But, this doesn’t serve our argument well as it provides a handy bumper sticker phrase that doesn’t say what we really mean and can be twisted into a bludgeon for the Republican’ts to hit our candidates with.

The current design of police forces are manned by officers neither trained nor equipped to handle several of the situations we force them into. It is unfair to blame them by saying “To you, every problem is a nail and you’re the hammer!” All we currently equip and train them to be ARE hammers!! This does NOT preclude weeding out the “bad apples” within the forces. Reining in the powers of the Police Unions in hiring/firing and disciplining decisions is a needed tool for cities to gain control of the forces that “serve” them.

The Cahoots Act is a start to get the right kind of help to the right place. It models a successful program that has been functioning with the Eugene, OR force for several years.

In the meantime, each and every time we use “defund” instead of “smartfund” or “re-equip“, we are providing a major talking point to the Republican’ts who then take it and bash our candidates with it.

Stop.

Just stop.

Change the words and we change their attitudes.