In a new essay for Medium, Colin Kaepernick called for the end of America's policing system. Kaepernick stated that the "central intent of policing is to surveil, terrorize, capture, and kill marginalized populations, specifically Black folks" before referencing the various incidents in which Blacks have been assaulted or killed by police throughout the years.
"The ever-present threat of premature death at the hands, knees, chokeholds, tasers, and guns of law enforcement has only further engrained its anti-Black foundation into the institutions of policing," Kaepernick wrote. "In order to eradicate anti-Blackness, we must also abolish the police. The abolition of one without the other is impossible."
Citing his research and experiences, the former NFL quarterback said that because the policing system is rooted in white supremacy and anti-Blackness, the only way to stop it is to abolish the entire policing and prison system.
The 32-year-old also took aim at reforms and their effectiveness. In a section of the essay titled, "F*** reform," Kaepernick wrote that past and present reforms have only reformed, reshaped, and rebranded institutional white supremacy, oppression, and death.
"I wanted to reform what I saw," Kaepernick wrote. "Yet, the reforms often proposed — use-of-force policies, body cameras, more training, and police accountability — were the same recycled police reforms consistently proposed in the past. And in both the past and the present, these reforms have done nothing to stop the actions that force us to #SayTheirNames.
Similarly, suggested prison reforms — new jail construction to address crowding and dehumanizing living conditions and technological monitoring that essentially creates open-air prisons — have not and cannot eliminate the harm of the carceral state. The thread that ties all of these reforms together is the increased investment of capital into the carceral state."
Kaepernick said that abolishment is the only way to secure a future without anti-Black institutions and wants to see the funding invested into the needs of the people.
"By abolishing policing and prisons, not only can we eliminate white supremacist establishments, but we can create space for budgets to be reinvested directly into communities to address mental health needs, homelessness and houselessness, access to education, and job creation as well as community-based methods of accountability," Kaepernick wrote. "This is a future that centers the needs of the people, a future that will make us safer, healthier, and truly free."
Source: Medium
