Institute for Public Accuracy News Release
Community Control Over Police
February 1, 2023
February is Black History Month. Many have been startled that Black officers were involved in the killing of Tyre Nichols. But some analysts have been warning that the issue is the structure and nature of police forces, not simply their ethnic composition.
MAX RAMEAU, afrimax@niainteractive.com
Rameau works with Pan-African Community Action and has been an advocate of community control over police.
See the piece “Community Control of Public Safety: Building a Transitional Program for Power” at Black Agenda Report, which quotes Rameau.
He argues that the purpose of much policing is an outgrowth of colonialism and is set up to protect a system of massive inequality rather than protecting human life.
He said today: “Some Black cops wear dashikis and celebrate Martin Luther King Day. So why do they arrest and brutalize Black people? Because that is their job. They work for a system that exploits Black people. Because Black people do not like being exploited, they must be oppressed in order to facilitate the exploitation. The job of the police is to oppress Black communities in order to facilitate their exploitation. That is the job of ALL police: the white and Black ones; the mean ones and the nice ones.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
February 1, 2023
Institute for Public Accuracy
980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045