In a recent press conference, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed the true intention and strategy behind all of the so-called police reforms that seem to be sweeping across the country.
Addressing protestors, he said: “You don’t need to protest, you won. You accomplished your goal. Society says you’re right. The police need systemic reform.”
The purpose of this political posturing is not to defund or significantly change the police. The purpose is to ensure that the police don’t change in any fundamental ways at all. The police defend this system that exploits and degrades us every day, and they defend it through violence. And those who run this society have every intention of keeping it that way.
The only purpose of these promises of reform is to get people to leave the streets, disband the protests, give up, go home, and think they’ve won. And then to entrust the same old politicians and police departments to do something they’ve refused to do all along.
The reality is that we haven’t won yet. Not even close. But the protests are showing new people every day that if we want to change things, we have to rely on our own forces, not the politicians. The day people stop organizing and go back to normal, continuing to rely on the politicians and their empty promises – that won’t be the day we’ve won; it will be the day we lose.
featured image credit: Zack Seward / Creative Commons
