Doubting Defund the Police

We Should Listen to the Voices of Black Americans

Do blacks Americans want more police or not? In order to find out, you should ask them. Not just a few celebrities or intellectuals, but regular citizens living out their regular lives.

In an article praising the work of Thomas Sowell, Jason L. Riley notes that Gallup has done just that. In Minneapolis, which seems to be the hub of “defund the police” sentimentality after the death of George Floyd, one would expect to find an overwhelming desire to have less police. They found the opposite.

Last year, there was a ballot measure put to voters in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, that would have defunded the police. Not only was it defeated, it was most strongly opposed by black residents in high-crime areas

In my mind that seems pretty cut and dry. We can stop the demonstrations, send everybody home, and let the police do their jobs.

One might counter, “Well, that’s just one part of the country; what about the rest?”

And the black residents of Minneapolis are not outliers. They’re typical. In a Gallup poll released in 2020, 81 percent of blacks nationwide said they wanted police presence in their neighborhood to remain the same or to increase.

I imagine it is difficult to get 81% of any segment of the population to agree on anything. So, if the majority of American blacks want more police, I’m more than inclined to believe and support them.

Again, one might argue, “That’s nationwide, including people who live in relatively safe neighborhoods. Look at the inner-city where racism has affected blacks the most.”

Another Gallup poll released a year earlier asked black and Hispanic residents of low-income neighborhoods in particular about policing. Fifty-nine percent of both black and Hispanic respondents said they wanted police to spend more time in their communities.

Granted, 59 percent is not as high as the 81 percent but it is still a majority. How is this still a debate? Black (and Hispanic) people have spoken, and we should hear all their voices.

In a poll from 2015, the year after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, a majority of black respondents said that police treat them fairly, and far more blacks than whites, by a two-to-one margin, said they “want a greater police presence in their local neighborhoods.”

Nor is this a recent phenomenon. In a 1993 Gallup poll, 82 percent of black respondents said the criminal justice system doesn’t treat criminals harshly enough, 75 percent of blacks wanted more cops on the streets, and 68 percent said we ought to build more prisons so that longer sentences can be given. Efforts to defund the police are being pushed by activists and liberal elites who claim to be speaking on behalf of low-income minorities. But they are mostly speaking for themselves. This is something Sowell pointed out a long time ago.

Yes of course there are cases of police malpractice and racism, and those should be taken very seriously. In the meantime, we should listen to black voices and take them seriously. We should assume that the majority of Americans, whatever their race, can speak for themselves and don’t need the influencers and intellectuals to speak for them. Their voices support police presence and are asking for more.