Colin Kaepernick endorsed Princeton prof: Police are ‘inherently predatory and violent'
In a series of articles sponsored by Kaepernick Publishing, a Princeton professor stated that policing is “inherently predatory and violent.”
She also said that “reform the police” usually means to “reward the police” as they “brutalize and kill.”
Princeton University African-American Studies professor Naomi Murakawa criticized the conversation surrounding police reform, noting that the goal to “reform the police” usually means to “reward the police” as they allegedly “brutalize and kill.”
Her argument is one of 30 articles penned for the “Abolition for the People” project, which is sponsored by Kaepernick Publishing, which was founded “to create opportunities for Black and Brown writers, authors, and creators to control their narratives and retain ownership.” Its namesake founder, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, gained notoriety after kneeling during the national anthem in an attempt to draw attention to police brutality.
“Police Reform Works — For the Police” by Dr. Naomi Murakawa for #AbolitionForThePeople
“The more police brutalize and kill, the greater their budgets for training, hiring, and hardware.” https://t.co/MnvM9IYC1e— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) October 21, 2020
“Not only do police and prisons fail to make us safer, but reform has only strengthened their most toxic ingrained practices,” argues the project’s introduction. “The only answer is abolition, a full dismantling of the carceral state and the institutions that support it.”
In her article, Murakawa argues that “policing is intrinsically predatory and violent.” She asserted that the police “push millions of people into the carceral state, where racial disparity and other inequities rise through each circle of hell.”
She took issue with conventional means of reforming police departments in the United States. For instance, she said that body cameras expanded “police surveillance powers.” As evidence, she cited the fact that police officers captured images of Black Lives Matter protesters during the summer of 2020.
Similarly, Murakawa says that chokehold bans change the “technique of killing but not the fact of killing.” She compares police moving to different methods of restraining suspects — such as the use of stun guns — to executioners replacing the noose with the electric chair, and then later the chemical cocktail.
“The technique of execution does not comfort the dead. It comforts the executioners — and all their supporters,” she asserted.
[RELATED: ‘Mostly peaceful’? Princeton fuels misleading Black Lives Matter narrative]
More broadly, Murakawa asserts that the mentality surrounding police reform is fundamentally flawed.
“Policing is not law’s absence,” she explained: “it is law’s essence in a system of racial capitalism.” In this system, she adds, “laws affirmatively protect the police’s right to racially profile, to lie, and to kill.”
Campus Reform reached out to Murakawa for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @BenZeisloft
