#abolitionist

Sojourner Truth

I was having a conversation with my dad a while back, and the subject of the police came up because my then girlfriend's abusive ex was squatting at her house and neither of us wanted to call the police. He knows I'm an abolitionist, its probably my single most vocal belief. And he says, "I know you've had bad experiences with cops but they're not all bad."

And thats when it occurs to me that he hasn't just disagreed with me during our past conversations on the matter, he literally was not listening. Or, he wasn't equipped to listen. I'll explain later on.

When I was arrested, I was not treated particularly bad by the police, and I've never claimed to have been. I was white, and I was in the closet. From the back of the van they loaded me into after cuffing me, I saw first hand how much worse they treated the black man they arrested on the way to taking me to jail, not even allowing him the dignity of stepping inside his home to dress.

When a liberal hears someone say ACAB, they think they're hearing someone say, in addition to being a police officer, every police officer is a bad person. They're all corrupt, they all beat their partners, etc. And thats closer to the truth than not, genuinely, but its still not what we have ever been saying.

Its not the fault of the acronym, that would be a goofy claim. But a more accurate one could be ACIAKOHT: A Cop Is A Kind Of Human Trafficker.

One of the main things a cop gets paid to do is traffick human beings to do forced labor. When they do this to trans women, this forced labor is sexual, it is sexual slavery, something that the vast majority of people I love will risk in every single interaction they are ever made to have with a police officer. Its a matter of policy, its called V-Coding, google it. Even in cases where no forced labor occurs, they are committing kidnapping.

Delivered on July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass’ landmark speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", directly confronted the vast chasm between America’s founding ideals and its brutal reality. Speaking to a predominantly white audience, Douglass praised the Founding Fathers for their revolutionary vision but boldly asserted that the blessings of liberty were not shared by all, declaring,

"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn".

He forcefully argued that to millions of enslaved Black Americans, the holiday was an annual, painful reminder of the country's gross injustice and moral hypocrisy. Yet, rather than discarding the nation's framework, Douglass labeled the U.S. Constitution a "glorious liberty document" and demanded that America fulfill the explicit promises of its founding text.

As the United States reaches its milestone 250th anniversary (Semiquincentennial), Douglass’ words carry an unsettling and profound resonance. The address remains highly relevant because it provides a blueprint for honest civic self-reflection, proving that true patriotism requires acknowledging systemic shortcomings rather than ignoring them.

Harriet made this closing plea during a suffrage meeting; in the late 19th century she recognized that freedom isn’t freedom until everyone can celebrate that freedom with equal footings, so even though she spent most of her life helping enslaved people find freedom from their bondage, she moved on to other causes that needed that perseverance and tenacity. This quote is directly related to the unrecognized, harrowing work that women performed on the battlefield.

Harriet should serve as a reminder to all of us that there will always be more to do.

- Photo Credit: National Women’s History Museum

When something especially heinous that the police have done makes national news, there is reliably a wave of calls from well-meaning liberals to reform the police or to that they need more training.

This is an evergreen reminder that we know that doesn't work, they just use it as an excuse to ask for more funding that they put towards brutalizing, humiliating, and murdering people. We need a solution that is not policing here in the United States.

Please see the below list of articles as a jumping off point.