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Is the Chauvin conviction just a moment, or the start of lasting change?
2021 PRINDBRF 0250
• Practitioner Insights Commentaries
• July 7, 2021
(July 7, 2021) - Dr. Manuel Pastor of the University of Southern California discusses the impact of social justice movements in response to police brutality and what the conviction of Derek Chauvin means for the future of police reform.
With the recent conclusion of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin — sentenced to 22 and half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd after a video of his death seared into public consciousness the frightening reality of racist policing — it is worthwhile to wonder: Is Chauvin's conviction just a short-lived hopeful blip in a long history of injustice, or can Americans leverage this past year of protests and advocacy to ensure a lasting change on police reform and racial equity?
Much of the current discussion in Washington on this topic focuses on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, particularly whether deals can be struck around qualified immunity and other technical (but literally life-and-death) issues.
But history teaches that while the specifics of new policy are important, what really matters is whether social movements are changing the public debate and fortifying the courage of politicians who get just a little braver when political gain outweighs the political loss.
To see why and how movements matter, it is useful to look back nearly three decades ago, when so many in our nation also watched another video, in that case, the beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles police officers.
The crime seemed obvious, and many folks of color felt like the reckoning was about to occur, but unlike in contemporary Minneapolis, a mostly white jury in suburban Simi Valley was determined to ignore the evidence and let police brutality go unpunished.
The result was massive civil unrest. But while the proximate cause was a misguided verdict, the tinder for that match had long been in place.
As with Minneapolis — which has among the nation's worst Black-white income gaps1 — a complex mix of factors were at play. Decades of police abuse had set the stage, but so too had a massive deindustrialization that economically destabilized South Central, the heart of L.A.'s Black community.
The resulting social distress triggered a crack-cocaine epidemic and a clash between militarized gangs and hyper-militarized police. In a region that a scant 30 years prior had seen police mistreatment lead to the Watts Rebellion, another revolt was inevitable.
And it wasn't just African Americans who were feeling the pain and the anger. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Los Angeles absorbed nearly a quarter of all the immigrants entering the U.S. Many migrants from Mexico and Central American countries were like their Black counterparts: struggling financially and frustrated by being relied upon for their labor even as they were painted as scapegoats for the region's and state's economic problems.
Meanwhile, many Korean immigrants were making their economic livelihoods at convenience stores in the mega-neighborhood of South L.A., feeding into simmering resentment about the lack of local Black ownership.
Adding fuel to that fire: Less than two weeks after the Rodney King beating, one such store owner shot and killed a young Black girl named Latasha Harlins because she believed her to be stealing an orange juice. Eight months later, the owner received no jail time — just probation, community service, and some fees.
So when the "not guilty" verdict came down, Black and Brown Angelenos had had it. Los Angeles exploded into five days of looting and violence that rocked the city and the region. Reflecting the economic drivers, half of the people arrested were Latino, mostly for looting.
And reflecting the complex interethnic tensions, Korean shopkeepers armed themselves to protect their stores when they saw that police had abandoned any pretense of trying to control the situation.
The scenes of flames engulfing buildings in those days of rage may be familiar to many — but what is less well known is what rose from those ashes. After the unrest, grassroots organizations for social and economic justice realized three things.
First, that any city with enough anger to burn itself down might also have enough untapped energy to change the system.
Second, it wasn't just bad cops that were a problem but also deep structural features such as economic inequality, inter-group tensions, and uncertain legal status.
And a third fundamental recognition: any real solution was going to take time and require shifting the balance of power between community and the police, labor and business, and traditional ruling elites and emerging communities of color.
So yes, L.A. eventually got police reform — with more still to go — but the City also saw progress on raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing a disengagement of police with immigration authorities, and cleaning up environmentally damaged communities.
Reform in the criminal justice system also occurred: at the state level, such groups fought for Propositions 47 and 57, changing a handful of felonies into misdemeanors, allowing more parole options to those convicted of non-violent felonies, and allowing judges rather than prosecutors to decide if minors should be tried as adults.
Most recently, community-based organizations gave real meaning to the sometimes-vague term "defund the police": they led a 2020 campaign to pass Los Angeles County Measure J, which allocates no less than 10 percent of the unrestricted County budget to community programs and alternatives to incarceration.
Voters also ousted long-time District Attorney, Jackie Lacey, and replaced her with a progressive reformer, George Gascón — an effort led and supported by Black Lives Matter — Los Angeles.
All these policy and political wins are important moments in an arc of change. But what really drove them were a series of movement actors and organizations that were determined, patient, and intersectional.
These included the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which has focused on economic justice; Community Coalition, which build ties between Black and Brown communities in South LA; and California Calls, a statewide effort that pioneered the sort of "integrated voter engagement" that just led to change in Georgia. And it's that task of movement building that needs to be seen and supported today if we want reform to not just be the fodder of talk TV but to actually be taken up, persist, and lead to real change.
Indeed, even this current "moment" is rooted in long-term movements. The widespread reaction to the murder of George Floyd was sparked by the sheer brazenness of Officer Chauvin, egged on by the broken system of policing, but the groundwork for the upswell of protest is due in large part to the tireless work of countless organizers.
In an appropriate twist, the Black Lives Matter Global Network that has driven much of the national momentum was founded by women embedded in California's movement for justice, including Patrisse Cullors who was influenced early by the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, one of the organizations critical to the post-1994 civil unrest organizing.
The lessons learned in Los Angeles about the need to both lift up race and stress multi-racial alliance building have been stamped into this struggle from early on.
The broader Movement for Black Lives (MBL) — which includes BLM but also a number of other groups engaged in racial justice work — rightly centers Black leadership.
But it has also been able to build non-Black support, as reflected in the vibrant marches of Americans of every ethnicity that swept the nation in the spring and summer of 2020.
Another key feature similar to the L.A. story has been the development of policy packages that can make a concrete difference in disadvantaged communities. Slogans and visions can motivate, but Americans like to do something practical.
So unlike the Occupy Wall Street protests — which promised change but left little more than a slogan, "We are the 99 percent" — MBL has both popularized a narrative frame, "Black Lives Matter," and developed strategic and intentional asks.
The most prominent of these is the BREATHE Act.
That proposed piece of legislation, unveiled in July 2020 and supported by key progressive Democrats like Ayana Pressley (D-Massachusetts) and Rashida Talib (D-Michigan), includes significant divestment of federal resources from incarceration and politics, system changes such as the elimination of life sentences and mandatory minimum sentences, and redirection of resources to expanding public housing and promoting community health2.
It's a plan designed to move us closer to a world where policing is obsolete and click-bait controversies about "defund the police" are no longer relevant.
Of course, this more far-reaching alternative has been largely displaced in the public debate by the perhaps more achievable George Floyd Act (although one should never discount the tendency of the GOP to find excuses to maintain the status quo).
Interestingly, one of the Floyd Act's major champions and lead negotiators on the Democratic side is Congress Member Karen Bass.
She is no typical Democrat: she actually came up through L.A.'s progressive movements in the 1990s as the organization she co-founded, Community Coalition, sought to both restrain cops and get rid of nuisance locations, such as liquor stores, that attracted criminal activity.
Despite that decidedly progressive background in community organizing, Congresswoman Bass has seen the George Floyd Act as the most likely vehicle for quick reform and been engaged in continuing dialogue with Senators Cory Booker (D) and Tim Scott (R). Her "realism" has frustrated some who think that the BREATHE Act is superior.
However, it is not surprising that even the most liberal and community-engaged politicians can only move as far as the politics allow — and this should be seen not as a shortcoming of a particular leader but rather as a call for movements to shift the political terrain.
The activists are right to note the limits of the George Floyd Act. For example, organizers are concerned that too much will be given away to lure Republican votes, particularly on systems such as stripping qualified immunity and making it easier to bring cases forward that can better hold individual cops accountable.
Perhaps most significant is a difference in the underlying analysis: the organizers tend to see "bad" policing as not a bug in the system but a feature of social control, and so call for a complex set of changes, including shrinking policing budgets, decoupling policing and military strategies, new responses to mental health, and more.
But this push and pull – in this case, between those clinging to the past, those hoping to take a step forward, and those daring to imagine something completely different — is always part of the story of change.
My prediction is that the middle wins in the short-run — even Mitch McConnell knows that continuing the permission slip for police killings is a bad look — but my long-term money is on the movements that changed Los Angeles, that toppled two Republican Senators in Georgia, and that are slowly shifting the American political debate to recognize the realities of structural racism.
My faith in movements is not just because I've seen how much change can happen when determined organizing and communities put their shoulder to the task. It's also because movement building can also help make sure that we do not stop at police reform.
After all, Black lives matter in interactions with the police, but they also matter when education is subpar, lead is in the water, and job discrimination is rampant.
So we need new policing policy, but we also need a broader justice agenda. As we reflect on the conviction and sentencing of Derek Chauvin, let us not forget the broader mandate of our times: our current reckoning on race is an opportunity to renew hope and pursue action for a more inclusive America.
Notes
1 https://wapo.st/3wcK4NY
2 https://bit.ly/3x8u8NT
Dr. Manuel Pastor is director of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California. Pastor's research has focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities — and the social movements seeking to change those realities. He is the author of "State of Resistance," an examination of why the future of politics, work, immigration, and more may be found in California. His newest books, "South Central Dreams" and "Solidarity Economics," are set to be released this year. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Dr. Manuel Pastor| End of Document | © 2024 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. |