By Chase Wheaton

A few weeks ago, President Obama made headlines and bolstered Republicans’ political arsenal when he referred to “Defund the police” as a “snappy slogan” during a Snapchat interview. While this doesn’t come as a major surprise given Obama’s relatively moderate stance regarding police and criminal justice reform, it serves as a massive disappointment to the Progressive wing of the Democratic party, and more importantly, to the communities that have been ravaged by police violence for many years, as the fight for meaningful criminal justice reform carries on. Not only do these comments by President Obama do irreparable damage to the movement for defunding the police, but they also show how much establishment politicians are disconnected from the community members whom they’re elected to serve and represent.

With all due respect to President Obama, “Defund the police” is not a “snappy slogan”. It is a policy proposal. It is a demand for structural and systemic change. It is a cry for help. The phrase, “Defund the police” arose during the George Floyd protests this summer from those most disproportionately affected by police violence – the Black community and other people of color – and during a state of crisis. 

The world had just witnessed the video-recorded murder of a nonviolent Black man by a white police officer, a tragic reality that the Black community was unfortunately already too familiar with. From this devastation came months and months of protests against police violence, marches for the Black Lives Matter movement, and demands for criminal justice and police reform. These demands, which included “Defund the police”, were created by everyday community members and organizers in the face of constantly overlooked police violence – not by PR companies and career politicians who operate in the realm of campaigns and public perception. In fact, I’d argue that it is the job of President Obama and other politicians to do the work of grappling with public perception and of worrying about how palatable a phrase may be to the general public, not those who are making these cries for help. After all, as Stephen Macaulay wrote in the center column, “When someone [in this case, an armed police officer] is pointing a gun at you [in this case, someone from the Black community], you’re not worried about nuanced phrasing”, you’re worried about doing anything you can “to keep [yourself] from being permanently perforated”. 

The purpose of protesting is to disrupt the culture of our society, challenge the status quo, and make people uncomfortable. As such, the movement to defund police has succeeded. The phrase “Defund the police” has received unparalleled attention from the mainstream media, has led to countless conversations about police violence and criminal justice reform in households across the country, and has already led to several significant changes in funding for police departments around the country. That’s a lot more than can be said of the criminal justice reform (or lack thereof) that was achieved during President Obama’s administration. Ultimately, President Obama’s remarks delegitimize and invalidate these movements, and I hope that he and other politicians remember that their role is to help facilitate and create meaningful and positive change for the most marginalized members of our society, not to stand in the way of progress and act as the gatekeeper to a more just and equitable world.