This movement is not anarchy. It could push America to be a better nation.
LARGE CROWDS are gathering again this weekend to protest the May 25 killing of George Floyd under a policeman’s knee in Minneapolis. Many Americans are looking on with admiration at the passion of the multigenerational, multiracial protests across the country, persisting even as the nation reels from a pandemic and economic shock. Many also are asking: What do the protesters want?
That is, could positive change come from all this anguish and anger? What should we all want?
The most immediate goal is that the criminal justice system treat Mr. Floyd’s death as the crime that it was. It’s a measure of how far we have to go that this cannot be taken for granted. Uniformed perpetrators of brutality, especially against African Americans, are rarely held to account. The goal, very simply, is justice. Not vengeance but justice.
But “justice for George Floyd” is about much more than Derek Chauvin and the other three former police officers who have been charged. It is a way of saying: No more George Floyds. It means rewriting laws and procedures to turn police officers from “warriors” into “guardians,” as a task force appointed by then-President Barack Obama laid out. Hiring, training, equipping, residency rules, transparency, disciplining — all can be transformed. Money now spent on military equipment that can encourage police to treat communities like occupied territory could be redirected to the communities themselves. Such reforms have been talked about for years, and some departments have made real progress. But too few. Fair and impartial policing must become the norm across the nation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-movement-is-not-anarchy-it-could-push-america-to-be-a-better-nation/2020/06/05/e2ec40aa-a72a-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html
