The Entirely Predictable Result of “Abolishing” the Police in Minneapolis

The statistics have been clear and unwavering for many years: Fewer police on the streets means more violent crime, young Black men will disproportionately be the homicide victims of this street violence and very few of these deaths will have anything to do with the police.

Minneapolis is finally figuring out the obvious, as described through a series of headlines assembled by Melissa Chen, with a cadenza by Peter Boghossian.

Chen

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath February 18, 2021 Reply

    Boghossian is spot on. When we allow a filter of ideology to interpose itself between our senses and objective reality, we never learn the right lessons.

  2. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth March 1, 2021 Reply

    What is the goal? To feel good/righteous or to help Black communities? If it is to feel good/righteous, there is nothing like the religion of the Elect to supercharge that goal. John McWhorter is more concerned about helping struggling Black communities. He comments at his website, It Bears Mentioning. He titles his article: “THE ELECT: THE THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA FROM ANTI-BLACK ANTIRACISTS“:

    Elect philosophy requires the same standpoint. One is not to ask “Why are black people so upset about one white cop killing a black man when black men are at much more danger of being killed by one another?” Or, one might ask, only to receive flabby answers after which further questions are unwelcome. A common answer is that black communities do protest black-on-black violence. But anyone knows that the outrage against white cops is much, much vaster. All of 2020 after March was about outrage against white cops. None of 2020 was about black communities aggrieved at their sons and nephews and cousins killing one another, a trend that spiked in poor black neighborhoods nationwide in the summer of 2020 as it had in countless summers before.

    Is there a real answer? You will hear that black men are killing one another within a racist “structure.” But as an intelligent person you know that doesn’t answer the question. An elegant way of putting that is that there’s a difference between being killed by a fellow citizen and being killed by a figure of state authority. But does that mean “It’s not as bad if we do it to ourselves”?

    We get no real answer at that point except rolled eyes. One is simply not to question, and people can be quite explicit about it. For example, in the “Conversation” about race that we are so often told we need to have, the tacit idea is that black people will express their grievances and whites will agree. “Oh, no, no – you’re caricaturing,” The Elect object – but unable to specify a single thing they might learn, as opposed to what we heathen (see below) might.

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