At the Center for Policing Equity, we woke up today not only with a sense of grieving and urgency — as we did after November 5, 2016 and again after January 6th, 2021 — but also in the context of the long struggle towards Black liberation. In the words of our co-founder and CEO, Phillip Atiba Solomon:
“Generational progress for Black folks in the United States, and across the globe, arrives in the context of cycles of backlash. It was not surprising, eight years ago, for the nation to choose white resentment over competence. It is no more historically surprising that yesterday voters chose a candidate found guilty of sexual assault, fraud, and racist discrimination over a woman who had spent the majority of her career trying to protect people from those kinds of attacks. We are all made vulnerable by the nation’s inability to quit its addiction to white supremacy.”
The result of this election will be immense pain in the next four years and beyond: family separation at the border, surveillance of women’s bodies, and the exploitation of our poor and working-class neighbors. Much of that pain will be inflicted under the guise of policing and at the hands of police. We cannot pretend otherwise.
There is also good news. Many police officers, executives, and communities are deeply concerned about what police will be asked to do. Most of us understand that police cannot become political pawns or enforcers. Popular opinion on public safety is set against Donald Trump’s approach.
But we must also remain clear-eyed about how much worse these abuses maybe come during the second Trump term. The president-elect — found simultaneously guilty and immune from the law — has promised to bring back unconstitutional policing tactics that target Black and Brown people. His hand-picked Supreme Court justices have declared him immune from prosecution for the manner in which he directs the FBI and the rest of the federal law enforcement apparatus. Mitigating this damage, even as we remain servants of long-term progress, will be our top priority.
Amidst these difficult realities to come, it is easy for people to give in to exhaustion. For vulnerable communities to count in the millions their neighbors who prioritized some political or economic goal against their humanity — their survival — can crush the soul. And seeing the nation choose retribution over progress for a second time has even sparked some to look forward to the negative consequences for those who pulled the lever for fascism. This kind of disengagement, nihilism, and karmic revenge fantasy can be seductive. But vulnerable communities have never had the luxury to entertain them.
Our job, then, is to turn moral obligation into political courage, for the sake of vulnerable communities and for the sake of a more hopeful future. History tells us that striving against the backlash is the only path to progress. At the Center for Policing Equity, we will continue that work because there is no other option.