“Defund the Police?” How about “Defund the Schools?” — No, they’re not the same
By: Benjamin Wachs
Tags: Politics, Police, Defundthepolice, Schools, Education

A friend of mine recently tried an experiment — telling people that because of the failures of the education system, he wanted to “defund the schools.” Sure enough, progressive types tended to take the bait and say that was offensive and needlessly alienating … which suggests, don’t you think, that the slogan “defund the police” is as well?

It was a nifty trick, and I’m glad he did it, but I’m not entirely convinced. But before I say why, let me first point out the aptness of the comparison. When you look at what most (most) of the people using “defund the police” actually want, it’s not the abolishment of peace keeping forces. It’s the redistributing of both the funding and the responsibility for so many of the tasks that we have put on police departments that are not best done by armed officers in an adversarial relationship with the public. Why should police be called to deal with homeless people who need services and support? Why should police be called to handle non-violent subject abusers? Why should police be called for domestic disputes? There are so many areas in which they are simply not the best tool for the job — so take the responsibility off their plates and fund services specifically oriented to those tasks. It makes a lot of sense.

It does for schools, too. Schools, very much like police, have become sinkholes where we dump public policy problems that we don’t really want to have to deal with. Why are schools responsible for looking after nutrition and making sure poor students get fed? Why are they responsible for identifying problems at home? Why are schools also “after school centers” for kids with no place to go, and community centers for civic groups and and and?

The answer is not because they’re especially suited to any of these tasks — it’s because they’re there. Which is basically the same justification we have for shoving all kinds of issues onto police, too.

A “defund the schools” movement, if it meant “redistribute and adequately fund the workload” would actually be a very good thing.

But that slogan … “defund the schools” … ugh does it grate and rub the wrong way. It will alienate so many people.

So why isn’t that just like “defund the police?”

Well, because there are a lot of slogans you could choose from to better represent “defund the schools,” and just about all of them would be acceptable — don’t you think? Pick almost any other slogan that’s on point, and it would work.

But when it comes to police reform, everything else has already been tried, and nothing was deemed acceptable.

“Black lives matter!” was tried. Surely there has never been a more anodyne slogan in the history of reform movements! It was deemed too controversial. Professional athletes kneeling during the national anthem was tried. It was deemed too controversial. “Black power?” Oh good lord no. Much too controversial.

No, the truth is that “Defund the Police” was nobody’s first choice — but when no other method of bringing attention to the issue would ever be deemed acceptable, why bother being acceptable at all? At that point you might as well go for the most overt and memorable slogan you have. Because they’ll try to silence you no matter what you say, and so your only recourse is to be loud.

“Defund the schools?” on the other hand? Doesn’t have that problem. A more reasonable slogan or image will be met with more reasonable arguments.

Sadly, the discourse about police reform is not there yet. And if police can’t even say that black lives matter, then they shouldn’t have life or death authority over black people. In which case, of course they should be defunded and their responsibilities given to others. I mean — obviously — you don’t fund agencies who act irresponsibly and can’t be trusted.

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