In this episode we have a conversation about defunding the police:

• what it means, what it doesn’t mean, and how the phrase raises different emotions in people depending on their personal experiences with the police and racism.
• How decades of consistent and pervasive defunding of community programming, healthcare, and education has harmed communities. We focus on the effects for children with disabilities.
• School Resource officers and police brutality in the schools that specifically targets black and brown children and children with disabilities.
• How policy runs on narratives, not statistics. We discuss and challenge narratives about “bad neighborhoods” and “bad children” that are steeped in anti-black racism, anti-indigeneity, and ableism and have fueled bad policy for decades.

For more information about this topic:

Defunding the police:

Democracy NOW!: “Defund the Police: Linda Sarsour & Mychal Denzel Smith on What Meaningful Change Would Look Like”

USA Today “What does ‘defund the police’ mean and why some say ‘reform’ is not enough”

Black Lives Matter

Los Angeles Times “Eliminate school police, L.A. teachers union leaders say”

Reading Towward Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness by the Abusable Past.

Resources for teaching and talking about racism:

EdJustice: “Black Lives Matter at School – Resources”

Watson, Dyan, Jesse Hagopian, and Wayne Au. Teaching for Black Lives. , 2018. Print.

The Black Lives Matter Syllabus

The School to Prison Pipeline:

Bullies in Blue: The Problem with School Policing [infographic] by the ACLU

Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health is Harming Students by the ACLU

** The image above was drawn by Akim, a 10 year African American boy expressing his feelings in this current moment of police brutality, racism, and Covid-19.