wow!

When was the last time a bully motivated you to shift your attitude or behavior through threats or other aggressive measures?  I didn’t think so.

Dismantling the Minneapolis police department,  as their City Counsel vowed to do a few days ago?   I thought I didn’t hear right.  Even reducing police department funding, as many other large US cities are all of a sudden discussing, seems radical for here.  I would have said “interesting,” if I had heard something like that about Norway, which has, proportionately, one of the lowest prison populations in the world, because their approach to criminal justice is reformative, not punitive.  But here!  That is an amazing shift towards constructive social change.  

With one of the worst racial inequalities in the country, the idea to reform Minneapolis’s social fabric by shifting funding from police to community development is nothing short of radical, a nonviolent approach in nonviolent communication speak.  Granted, it’ll take time to develop the logistics (here an outline of what alternate policing might look like), and this idea will not sit well with many conservatives.

But the increasingly aggressive, authoritarian and weaponized approach to policing in this country has not made things better.  Authoritarian behavior results in anger, distrust, defiance, and ultimately resignation, a result of a punitive criminal justice system with its disproportionately large prison population compared to other Western countries.  “An eye for an eye” does not work, only a compassionate approach ultimately does because it builds people up instead of taking them down (see an earlier post, “drop the hammer,” on this).  It’s the difference between a glass half full or a glass half empty, or seeing the best in people instead of the worst.  

We are witnessing something big.  When the time is ripe things can get unstuck, and stuff beyond our wildest dreams is possible.