Once again, I’m reading a silly book so you don’t have to. It’s called “Beyond Policing,” subtitled, “What better way to make the case for a police-free world than to show a world where it’s possible?”
The 2024 book was written by someone named Philip V. McHarris, a Black academician described on the back jacket as “an assistant professor…at the University of Rochester.” He holds a Ph.D in African American Studies from Princeton. The book’s argument, as you might have gathered, is that America should entirely defund the police and invest the money saved into “the community.”
We’ve heard this for years from the defund-the-police crowd. In this case, it’s put so fraudulently, with so many lies, that it’s impossible for me to address them all. I won’t attempt to summarize the book, just to debunk some of the dumber claims.
Here we go.
“Police abolition is centered on creating societies that have safety and accountability without the coercive violence of policing.” LIE. There can be no “safety and accountability” unless an external power compels anti-socials to behave, or locks them up if they refuse to.
“It will take radical change to end this cycle.” TRUE: but the “radical change” needs to be in the communities where crime flourishes and is seen as a valid way of life.
“We need to imagine a different kind of existence and different ways to relating to one another.” TRUE: communities that now harbor and encourage aberrant behavior must completely eliminate that behavior and join up with normal, peaceful society.
“Black on Black crime…emphasizes the need to find solutions outside of policing, solutions that don’t rely on a system that was designed to harm, not protect us.” LIE: Who is this “us” you refer to? Not me and no one I know, that’s for sure. The police do protect us, and I want them to harm people who would harm me.
“For Black people in this country there have never been such things as lives free of state violence.” LIE. The main violence for Black people comes from other Black people.
“The newfound focus on crime [in the 1960s] was a direct response to the gains of the civil rights movement.” LIE: This appalling statement is an insult to the true heroes who pioneered the civil rights movement. The focus on crime happened because of the horrible eruption of crime in the 1960s and continuing today.
“The United States has the highest incarceration rates of any country in the entire world, and there is a reason why.” TRUE. The reason why is that so many people in the U.S. commit crime.
“As [illegal] drugs were imported into the United States at high rates, people had the ability to make a living [by dealing drugs]…If those communities had been provided with resources and opportunities, outcomes might have been different.” LIE: this is a pathetic excuse for dealing death-causing drugs. There is NO excuse for dealing crack, meth, fentanyl, heroin, cocaine. None. Many economically-challenged demographic groups did not turn to drug dealing to solve their problems. Sadly, the community McHarris claims to defend, did.
“[Former U.S. Senator Daniel] Moynihan perceived [crime and Black dysfunction] as the breakdown of the Black family, attributing this to antisocial behaviors and poor cultural values being transmitted intergenerationally.” TRUE: Moynihan was right. He still is. Those who deny this truth deliberately encourage continued crime and aberrant behavior.
“[Moynihan’s report] was widely debated.” LIE: No it wasn’t. The only people who criticized it were militant Black activists, who couldn’t handle the truth.
“The digital age has enabled police to engage in discriminatory policing under the guise of being neutral.” LIE: Police ARE neutral. They only go after bad guys regardless of skin color.
“[Police] target communities of color and position punishment and control as answers to social problems created by legacies of white supremacy and capitalism.” LIE: There it is, the raw propaganda of the defund-the-police cult. No community is “targeted” by police, except the community of criminals. “Capitalism” doesn’t force thugs to rob and kill. They make that decision in their own heads.
“Governments…have created new threats to safety by failing to develop institutions that address the underlying causes of violence and harm.” LIE: This is the old “root causes” argument used by police haters. The threat to public safety is badly behaved criminals without moral restraint.
“Police…target poverty and survival economies.” LIE: These so-called “survival economies” include mugging, robbery, theft, bipping, smash-and-grabs, carjacking and murder. The author, McHarris, ought to hang his head in shame for trying to ennoble criminal behavior.
“The fundamental problems [in the Black community are] policing and police violence.” LIE: The fundamental problem is aberrant behavior that is encouraged, or at least tolerated, in the community.
“[Police] are preventing our collectively working toward [a] more peaceful society.” LIE: This is the Big Lie always offered by anti-police, pro-crime activists. The only thing “preventing” rehabilitation in the community is race activists like McHarris.
“Police violence has continued, resulting in recurrent periods of rebellion and unrest.” Who wrote this, Cat Brooks? It’s all part of the Big Lie.
“Even within Black communities, police…rely on relationships with residents who tend to be of higher class statuses to engage in public relations efforts and garner support.” LIE: McHarris is accusing law-abiding, caring Black citizens who cooperate with the police as being some kind of Oreo cookie—fake Blacks who are selling out community. This is a vast, terrible smear of the peaceful members of the community.
“Policing may actually lead to increased amounts of reported crime.” LIE: Again, this is Cat Brooks/Carroll Fife propaganda. It’s like saying, “Water may actually lead to increased amounts of fire.”
I could quote on and on from this litany of nonsense, but you get the idea. This mindset—the McHarris mindset—is what we’re up against. Either McHarris doesn’t have the intelligence to perceive the error of his conclusions despite his Yale Ph.D, or his ideology has finally destroyed his ability to think rationally. Either way, this dangerous, ill-informed political poison is widespread in a place like Oakland, but it really needs to be called out, which is what I’m doing now.
Have a great weekend! Back Monday.
Steve Heimoff