What’s Next for the Defund Movement? – In These Times

MINNEAPOLIS

In the birthplace of the summer 2020 uprising over the police murder of George Floyd, the defund movement took ablow in November 2021. Ballot Question 2, which would have opened the door for major structural changes to the Minneapolis Police Department, failed 44%-56%. Yet city council challenger Robin Wonsley Worlobah, who campaigned in support of Question 2, won by 13 votes in arunoff. And aprogressive ballot measure to allow rent control, known as Question 3, passed 53%-47%.

Kandace Montgomery

is a Black and queer organizer in Minneapolis and a national leader in the Movement for Black Lives. She is co-executive director of Black Visions, which co-issued the May 2020 demand to defund the Minneapolis Police Department. She was board chair of the Yes 4 Minneapolis coalition to remove the citys mandate for a police department.

Kandace Montgomery: The result of the summer 2020 uprising that was led by young Black and brown people here in Minneapolis was apolitical opportunity to create systemic and transformative change in the ways police hold power and how resources are moved within the city to support public safety. Many of us understood it as astep toward abolition. For others, it felt like anecessary step to actually ensure folkssafety.

So the Yes On 2campaign looked to change the city charterour citys constitutionto remove arequirement to keep the police department as it is. Then, it could be replaced by aDepartment of Public Safety that would take apublic health approach to our safety. That department would include police officers but also abreadth of other things, like mental health responders and nonpunitive socialworkers.

Im still processing lessons learned. Ithink our opposition made the conversation very much about abolition or not. That created alot of fear for people who are not quite there, who have some really real concerns around their physical safety and intercommunal violence. And so the conversation became verynarrow.

But my experience of talking to folks on doors, talking to our canvassers, being on the phones, is that once you are able to actually have the conversation of, Heres what aDepartment of Public Safety could look likeit could include youth programming, it could include all of these thingsI found, overwhelmingly, that even people who were still very committed to the idea of still having police were able to embrace this vision. They just needed more time to let go of the policing thing. And that was OK, as long as we were consistently doing thatwork.

In the birthplace of the summer 2020 uprising over the police murder of George Floyd, the defund movement took ablow in November 2021. Ballot Question 2, which would have opened the door for major structural changes to the Minneapolis Police Department, failed 44%-56%. Yet city council challenger Robin Wonsley Worlobah, who campaigned in support of Question 2, won by 13 votes in arunoff. And aprogressive ballot measure to allow rent control, known as Question 3, passed 53%-47%.

Kandace Montgomery: The result of the summer 2020 uprising that was led by young Black and brown people here in Minneapolis was apolitical opportunity to create systemic and transformative change in the ways police hold power and how resources are moved within the city to support public safety. Many of us understood it as astep toward abolition. For others, it felt like anecessary step to actually ensure folkssafety.

So the Yes On 2campaign looked to change the city charterour citys constitutionto remove arequirement to keep the police department as it is. Then, it could be replaced by aDepartment of Public Safety that would take apublic health approach to our safety. That department would include police officers but also abreadth of other things, like mental health responders and nonpunitive socialworkers.

Im still processing lessons learned. Ithink our opposition made the conversation very much about abolition or not. That created alot of fear for people who are not quite there, who have some really real concerns around their physical safety and intercommunal violence. And so the conversation became verynarrow.

But my experience of talking to folks on doors, talking to our canvassers, being on the phones, is that once you are able to actually have the conversation of, Heres what aDepartment of Public Safety could look likeit could include youth programming, it could include all of these thingsI found, overwhelmingly, that even people who were still very committed to the idea of still having police were able to embrace this vision. They just needed more time to let go of the policing thing. And that was OK, as long as we were consistently doing thatwork.

Robin Wonsley Worlobah: Ithink often in these conversationsand within our movementits about policing only. And thats also how the opposition tries to frame it. But actually, under acapitalist society, policing is only one piece. My city council campaign put Question 2within asocialist analysis: We have to correct the conditions under racial capitalism that cause apower imbalance and inequality that policing ends up reinforcing. We have to make mass investments in our public infrastructure, which we know actually address crime by stabilizing peoples lives and their communities. Neoliberals dont want to hear anything about mass investments. We lead with transitional demands that not only improve peoples material conditions, but also shine alight on an enemy to rally working-class people arounddemands like rent control, which maintains some level of housing security for working-class people and has avery clear class enemy in corporate developers, who generate millions if not billions of dollars of wealth from working-class people through ever-expansive rents. So then we link these issues by saying, You are going after our localized enforcement structure of capitalism, thepolice.

I think the movement backing Question 2made amistake of not naming the enemy. Because then the opposition was able to say, You hate the police chief, this upstanding Black man. Or, You hate Black people, you want them to live in communities riddled with gun violence. The mayor, these corporate-backed PACs like Operation Safety Now, the Downtown Council, the chief of police and the police union literally went on four months of aspeaking tour. Almost every weekend, out over in north Minneapolis, where ababy has just got shot and killed, they would basically say, Look at these grieving parents, look at these grieving Black folks, we cant afford to try somethingexperimental.

We didnt have anarrative to counteract that at that scale. And thats finebut if we dont have the narrative, then we damn sure have to have the ground game. Because, Imean, were only running on people power, we aint got none of these corporations sponsoringus.

I think there was amissed opportunity to have astrong ground game in the places that the corporate elite targeted, which was working-class Black folks. It was agreat testament to the signature campaign [to get Question 2on the ballot] that they reached 1,400 Northside residents, but what if we had joined forces with the rent control coalition [backing Question 3] to do joint canvasses across north Minneapolis? To say, This is your better offer. Not only will you get aquality, equitable public safety system, but youll stop paying all your money to the slumlords. This is how you dont got to work two jobs in order to take care of your kids. And then youre missing out on your kids, and theyre being pulled to get involved in otherthings.

Another point the opposition said was, You progressive abolitionists, yall aint got no plan. This public safety department aint gonna do nothing. Ill be very frank, the coalition had internal debates about this. Very early on, we knew the opposition was going to weaponize the language of the ballot amendment. And Ithink there was amissed opportunity of putting out that proposal Kandace mentioned, around alternativeresponders.

My campaign made our own democratic socialist public safety plan. We made zines of it that we distributed when we were door knocking to say, What if we actually invest in what Kandace namedunarmed responders, first responders, mental health providers, socialworkers?

In our ward, we turned out more than 50% of registered voters, and Question 2won [56% to44%].

And Iknow Kandace wants to throw in something,too.

Kandace Montgomery: Iagree with alot of those offerings, Robin, and Im excited to sit down to debrief. Just adding, Ithink its important to see the conditions in which we were fighting, coming out of 2020. Folks were exhausted, living through apandemic. Our organizations were all very much pulled. Multiple organizations, including Black Visions, were dealing with internal conflict. And alot of organizers were experiencing alack of activity from community members because of the economic conditions, because of the pandemic, because ofisolation.

Some opportunities had to be missed because people just literally didnt have the capacity to pick them up. Iname that because Ithink our movements need to really think about how, in these low moments, we are fortifying our organizations and our bases and our relationships. How are we actually developing Black organizers so that its not just 10 of us who are brilliant, radical Black strategists in the city? Because, to be real, its hardly much more thanthat.

To the rent control piece: The rent control coalition was abit broader, and it was not necessarily aligned on policing. Some of the leadership intentionally decided not to sign onto our question. And so those collaborations werent really possible. Again, it speaks to the ways we have to build alignment, shared vision. Ithink everybody should understand how police abolition gets us to housing justice gets us to these other things, but its long-termwork.

Yes 4 Minneapolis volunteer Tira Howel (right) garners support for Question 2 on Election Day, Nov. 2, 2021, which would have allowed Minneapolis to restructure its police department. Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images

AUSTIN, TEXAS

Proposition A, on Austins November 2021 ballot, would have mandated two police officers per every 1,000 residents, amajor expansion. More than 80 groups joined aNo Way on Prop Acampaign, including the Travis County Democratic Party, Austin Democratic Socialists of America, AFSCME Local 1624 (the county employees union), the firefighters union and the emergency medical services union. Prop Alost 31%-69%.

ANDREW R. HAIRSTON

is a civil rights attorney and writer in Austin, Texas. He organized with the No Way on Prop A campaign to block an increase of hundreds of millions to the citys police budget. He is running a democratic socialist campaign for Travis County justice of the peace in the March 1 Democratic primary.

Proposition A, on Austins November 2021 ballot, would have mandated two police officers per every 1,000 residents, amajor expansion. More than 80 groups joined aNo Way on Prop Acampaign, including the Travis County Democratic Party, Austin Democratic Socialists of America, AFSCME Local 1624 (the county employees union), the firefighters union and the emergency medical services union. Prop Alost 31%-69%.

Andrew R. Hairston: Apretty tremendous victory was registered November 2. We defeated this unfunded mandate for the policeprojected to cost up to $600 million to the detriment of parks, libraries, fire and other socialservices.

A little bit of political background. In 2019, Austin City Council voted to lift the camping ban that had been in place for some years and to allow folks who are experiencing homelessness to be in public spaces. In 2020, the city council started to move toward adefund strategy and mandated aseries of cuts to the policedepartment.

But in 2021, at the behest of Gov. Greg Abbott, the Texas Legislature stepped in to undo local efforts and codify in state law that local police budget cuts are impermissible without voter approval. And then this conservative-backed group, Save Austin Now PAC (SAN PAC), got ameasure on the May 2021 ballot to reinstitute the camping ban. Austin DSA and other nonprofits fought against it, but it passed 58%-42%. Alot of wealthy white folks in West Austin are like, You know, we just dont want to see folks experiencinghomelessness.

Then, SAN PAC kind of doubled down and said, You know what, lets super-fund the police. We have thismomentum.

The super-funding ballot measure failed miserably. The voters were like, You know, we dont want to affirmatively support people experiencing homelessness, but Iguess we also dont want to super-fund thepolice.

So thats where we are. Ithink theres still alot of organizing appetite to push back against the super-funding of the police pushed from the state government, but as Robin uplifted, theres this tepid response from neoliberal folks. Theyre like, We dont want to super-fund the police, but were not going to really entertain this conversation aboutabolition.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Because D.C. is not astate, its election cycle coincides with federal elections, the most recent being November 2020. In the June 2020 city council primary, democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George ran on adefund platform against Democratic heavyweight Brandon Todd, aprotg of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and asupporter of the police union. Lewis George won 55%-43% (a third candidate won 2%). But in the November 2020 election for two at-large council seats, both candidates supporting police defundinglost.

Because D.C. is not astate, its election cycle coincides with federal elections, the most recent being November 2020. In the June 2020 city council primary, democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George ran on adefund platform against Democratic heavyweight Brandon Todd, aprotg of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and asupporter of the police union. Lewis George won 55%-43% (a third candidate won 2%). But in the November 2020 election for two at-large council seats, both candidates supporting police defundinglost.

Makia Green: As organizing director with the Working Families Party, Iworked on Janeese Lewis Georges campaign for Ward 4councilmember. She ran on acampaign of housing rights, good jobs, demilitarizing and divesting from the police, and investing in communities. Defund MPD [Metropolitan Police Department] has been talking about divest/invest for years: Take away the infrastructure from things that are harming us and put money into things that will helpus.

The council campaign was along shot to everyone elses mind. She was going up against an incumbent [Brandon Todd] in aseat from which people often become mayortwo times sofar.

Lewis George was attacked by her own party members. This out-of-state PAC, Democrats for Education Reform, put in tons of money. Everyone was getting these postcards taking her words out of contextjust acomplete misinformation campaign. They made it sound like she could and would fire all the cops. Come on, right? It just missed her platform completely, as well as what was realistic. But honestly, alot of times, we thought our folks were going to believethis.

On Election Day, the mayor, whos apro-cop mayor, put acurfew because of the protests supporting folks in Minneapolis. There were hundreds of people downtown in front of the White House. The curfew started before the polls ended. And we knew who that was going to impact Black and brown voters. We knew what she was doingshe was backing BrandonTodd.

And in spite of that, people stayed in line till after midnight. Young people came to vote, saying, Im here specifically for Janeese and Im here to vote because Black lives matter. Folks had their fists up in the line and, around 7oclock, the time of the curfew, everyone kneeled together. Janeese won by alandslide, in myopinion.

November 2020 was acompletely different landscape. The presidential election was polarizing everything. The Democratic Party started to say that the defund demand was erodingsupport.

In D.C., there was a24-person race for two at-large city council seats. Two of the candidates, Ed Lazere and Markus Batchelor, ran in support of what we called, Defund MPD, Refund D.C. Unfortunately, neitherwon.

For me, the lessons in this moment are: One, strike while the iron is hot. Context does matter. And two, run acampaign that canvasses to find out, Is everybody really on board? Everyones kneeling and putting out flags on their house, but are they talking to their friends? Are they really going to be down for you when itcounts?

We also want to claim our victories. We won alot of policing reforms. We restored voting rights for everyone whos incarcerated in D.C. currently and formerly. Were trying to decriminalize drugs and decriminalize street vending. Were having hearings on getting rid of mandatory minimums. None of that would have been possible without the movementwithout youall.

Washington, D.C., Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George greets constituents after being sworn into office Jan. 2, 2021. George, a democratic socialist, defeated an establishment-backed candidate in the June 2020 primary by running on a "defund the police" platform, among other issues. Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

SOMERVILLE, MASS.

In the Boston suburb of Somerville, Defund Somerville Police Department won a7.7% police budget cut in July 2020. In November 2021, Defund SPD organizer Willie Burnley Jr. won acity council seat, along with two other democraticsocialists.

In the Boston suburb of Somerville, Defund Somerville Police Department won a7.7% police budget cut in July 2020. In November 2021, Defund SPD organizer Willie Burnley Jr. won acity council seat, along with two other democraticsocialists.

Willie Burnley Jr.: Somerville is about four square miles, with about 80,000 peopleone of the densest places in the country. Its 75% white, but you have alot of white people here saying, Oh, Ilove our diversity. [laughter] Massachusetts is pretty pro-police, so those dynamics all play into thisconversation.

In the midst of 2020s national reckoning with police violence, our city government was saying, We know our budgets are going to get impacted by Covid, so what were going to do is massively cut housing. The Office of Housing Stability, which helps people stay in their homes and not be displaced, was going to get cut by12%.

They were barely going to touch the police departmentmaybe a3% cut. This flew in the face of the national conversation. So we got organized. We did phone banks, emails, biking and car caravans to the mayors house. Defund SPD organized six hours of public testimony to the city council; 148 people spoke, saying, No, we should cut the police by at least 10%. That number came from asurvey where the average actually was 60%but we didnt think we were quite ready for that demand as an organization that was about two weeks old. We got 7.7%, which was $1.3 million. The money actually went where we wanted it to go: healthcare, housing, rental assistance, food, services, the things that make our community stronger andsafer.

In the midst of that battle, we had alot of pushback. All these people, including the police chiefs, said, This isnt Ferguson, this isnt New York. We are different and were better. We heard this from June to December 2020. What they didnt tell us was that, in October 2020, the local president of the police union handcuffed aman and pepper-sprayed him in theface.

We also saw continual gatekeeping around what communities of color and working-class people need and who is representative of them. So we had abunch of white people saying, You guys arent representative of my people over here who are people of color. Youre gentrifiers, youre rich people, you werent born here. In fact, Defund SPDs steering committee is majority people of color and almost all renters. They are far more representative of those communities, often, than the people who have the power to decide thesethings.

WHERE THE BLACK VOTERSARE

Makia Green: What Im wondering is, how do we make sure that folks are not gaslighting us about where Black folks are? We get this in D.C. and Isaw it when Iwent to Minneapolis. Maybe its not the tagline defund, but we know Black people deserve and want healthcare, public safety, to hold our homesand were told Black people dont support thesethings.

Kandace Montgomery: In places like Minnesota with such ahuge white population and also asignificant Black population, tokenization happens very easily. Particular Black people are sort of courted for positions of quasi power. Often, those people dont work in their actual communitys interests. And theres also an old guard that sticks to amore moderatepolitic.

Minneapolis really has to move past an idea that Black people are amonolith and that Black people cant disagree. So that the conversation isnt as narrow as, the Black community didnt get behindthis.

Were also facing things like voter suppression and alack of authentic engagement with Black community members, especially from the traditional electoral apparatus, and alot of skepticism because of inaction from council. What Ifeel really committed to is we need to have astronger vision that people can tangibly and physically resonatewith.

Robin Wonsley Worlobah: Iwonder, what would the conditions have been if we had double the Black folks to push back against the Black old guard? The public safety debate that was held in October revealed very clearly that the opposition, that included the Black old guard, did not possess astrong plan for public safety transformation. In fact, after the forum, Queen Minister JaNa Bates [co-chair of the Yes 4Minneapolis coalition for Question 2] had members of the Black old guard churches coming up to her being like, Bruh, Ive been liedto.

Makia Green: Ireally think we need to push back on the way they use the stories of our community loved ones who are grieving as chess pieces to get more funding. They use Black death to line the pockets of our oppressors. One thing we say in D.C. is, Theres acop on every block in my neighborhood, but our kids are still gettingshot.

When crime is up, police need more money so they can solve it. When crime is down, police need more money to keep crime down. When crime stays the same, police need more money to keep up morale. When officers quit during ahuge movementin D.C., record numbers left the forceits, The angry kids yelled at them so they left. Is it possible that people leave this job all the time because its avery unsafe job, and youre putting people in aplace where they have to police their own community and they dont believe in itanymore?

Willie Burnley Jr.: Iresonate so deeply with that. In Somerville, the police unions were able to say, Violence is up, shootings are up, and turn that into, I guess we need more cops. Obviously, what theyre doing isnt working. So either theyre incompetent or we need to find another route. Which isit?

Youthful abolitionists and Black Lives Matter supporters mark the anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2021, outside of Los Angeles police headquarters. Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images

THE DEMOCRATS

Willie Burnley Jr.: Ihave some tension around how much time we should spend trying to respond to accusations like, Democrats lost nationally because Cori Bush doesnt like the police, or, We have to stop saying defund the police as aparty. The Democrats have never run on defund the police; it should be obvious to anyone paying attention that theyve never lost anywhere because of defund. Iran on it, and Idid notlose.

Robin Wonsley Worlobah: Anytime the Democrats lose for not delivering change, they blame the leftists, they blame Bernie Sanders, they blame the Squad. In Ohio, they brought aBlack woman corporate establishment candidate to go up against NinaTurner.

Its their way to deflect, in hopes that they can finally win over suburban voters. This is why we see the party constantly move to the political Right and adopting conservative platforms and messaging. It all demonstrates that the party is not interested in making transformativechange.

Joe Biden can, right now, with the stroke of the pen, eliminate trillions and trillions of dollars of debt for millions of students, and he refuses. Instead he does other maneuvers, like authorizing student debt payment pauses, to placate those who own capital. Thats the reason the Democratic Party is about to lose heavily in the midterms. Theyre not beholden to the people. Working-class people spend so much time phone banking for the Democratic Party and door knocking to get nothing. But working-class people are starting to see beyond the misinformation fog. People are becoming more and more disengaged and more frustrated with the DemocraticParty.

After several decades of failing to reform or take over the Democratic Party, you would think that we would learn that this strategy simply doesnt work. Iran as an Independent as atestament to say, DSA, hows this partnership with the Democratic Party looking for yall? My sis Kshama Sawant in Seattle is the reason why the Fight for 15 spread nationally. It wasnt through the Democratic Party. Even under full Democratic control at the federal level, we still cant get $15. And we should be talking about $25.

So as Black working-class organizers and leftists, we should think about building independent political power, instead of constantly routing all of our talent, art, labor and brilliance into aparty that we end up having to fight more than actually get somethingfrom.

A forward-looking graffiti wall in New York City in fall 2020 supports defunding the police while reading, "We'll be patience," prophetic of organizers' longview approach to the movement for abolition. Joan Slatkin/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

2022 ANDBEYOND

Willie Burnley Jr.: In Somerville, the city is considering building anew public safety building to house the fire department and abunch of police half of the building would just be for their vehicles. The building would cost $100 million. Thats more than athird of our overall budget. So wed need to borrowmoney.

To the point Robin was making earlier, Defund SPD is in the midst of acommunity conversation about what public safety means, how we build it, how we invest in it. If we want to have anew fancy building, OK, lets do that, but why do we need police in there? Lets remove the police. Lets put in acommunity center. Lets put in municipal ambulances. In Somerville, police arent often responding to violent crime; people need an ambulance, they need help for amental health crisis or acrisis of addiction. Nine times out of 10, they dont need aperson with agun.

That council vote needs asupermajority because the measure is bond-funded. We have, now, four DSA candidates on our council, and if we vote as abloc, we can just kill this thing outright. So we can engage in anegotiation.

Andrew R. Hairston: 2022 has notes of optimism and hope for me. Running for justice of the peace in Travis County, Texas, as amember of the Democratic Party but also as ademocratic socialist and abolitionist, Im trying to be deeply explicit in my values: This is for Black people, for queer people, for folks who have been pushed to themargins.

Kandace Montgomery: Iam still wrestling with the question of where to go in 2022, to be honest. Im really trying to assess and evaluate the data we have from the last 18 months, to create more of an arc of strategy that wins some concrete things along the way toward alarger vision. Well also be building relationships with new council members and getting an understanding of their priorities and opportunitiesespecially voices like Robins, who are more ready and primed for amuch more radicalapproach.

We have awhole bunch of new contacts and people. We need to go out and sit down with those folks. We need one-on-ones everyday.

In terms of the midterms, Ithink we really need to figure out when is the right time to be going for aDepartment of Public Safety and, like Robin said, put alittle bit more meat to the definition of what that is. Ithink Robin might have abetter sense of thattiming.

Robin Wonsley Worlobah: Theres an opening now to organize the 60,000 people who voted for Question 2to build apublic pressure campaign for the mayor to create the new Department of Public Safety. He said in September 2021 that he supported one and could do it without aballot initiative. My office released an op-ed in December 2021 encouraging him to moveforward.

Kandace Montgomery: The other thing Ill say is that none of us went into 2020 and were like, Next year, were going to try and abolish the police. All the organizers on this call know thats amultiyear campaign arc, baby, that we tried to pull off in 18 months. The rupturings of uprisings create political opportunities. We all saw the political opportunity and went for it. Idont necessarily regret that. But Ido know, from my organizer brain and all the mentors who have trained me up, that Ithink its going to take multiple years of political educationand building up some of the models that people can rely on instead of the policeto actually fortify abase of Black folks who are able to more critically think through oppositional messages and are ready to take astep toward this kind of transformativechange.

Thats areal tension: You have to take the political opportunities when they come, but we also have to move at the speed of trust and understanding withincommunity.

Willie Burnley Jr.: Off election year, we need to be having these conversations in areally robust way, of, I am your neighbor. When you are unsafe, Iam unsafe. Therefore, Iam not going to abandonyou.

Mutual aid is the first way we establish trust. Its hard to talk to someone about Marx or Frantz Fanon if theyre hungry. We have to meet people where they are. Parts of our community are dealing with deep poverty and alack of resources. Once people have stability, they can become more open toconversations.

But we have to be very honestly strategic about the messengers and how were reaching out. The impression in Somerville of Boston DSA is that it is almost entirely white (although there are alot of BIPOC folks). So how do we engage our people in public housing who are overwhelmingly Black and Latino? We have to be very mindful of who is doing that conversation and how we are engaging. Is it, knock on the door, Hey, have you heard aboutabolition?

Or is it, How can we help to make sure your needs are being met? And then amore gradual introduction to the work ofabolition.

We have to build those informal networks, that so many of our ancestors have done, in order to give working-class people enough support to be able to start moving to the front lines. Those people can actually become our leaders in this movement and can reach out to more people, and thats how we get past generationalbarriers.

Makia Green: Im just grateful to still be putting forth candidates that would support adivest/ invest campaign, regardless of what the Democratic elite leaders think and regardless of our wins andlosses.

A lot of us are in the Black radical tradition, and we know that this movement has alongevity before and past 2020. We have been experimenting and trying and building, and thats why were the largest movement in the countryshistory.

At some point, there may be anew tagline beyond defund the police, but it will be in the same tradition. And itll be about meeting the needs of Black people at that currenttime.

This roundtable was edited for length andclarity.

Originally posted here:

What's Next for the Defund Movement? - In These Times