Profs and Pints Online presents: “On the Abolition of Police,” with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, assistant professor of philosophy at Georgetown University and scholar of activism, anti-colonial thought, and the Black Radical Tradition.

What, exactly, would it mean to abolish the police? It’s a provocative question worth considering in depth as a result of recent events, and Profs and Pints is staging an interactive online talk to enable you to do just that.

The violence inherent in the United States’ system of policing has been exposed by recent clashes between police and protestors and the incidents that triggered the protests: the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and others throughout the country. Social media has been inundated with hundreds of videos chronicling police aggression and brutality. Cities nationwide, particularly in the nation’s capital of Washington D.C., have faced unprecedented militarization of their streets. Police have wielded weapons typically used only by special forces in overseas military campaigns. They even went as far as to use a Lakota helicopter with Red Cross markings in a show of force against protestors—a violation of the Geneva Convention.

In response, political questions that once only circulated amongst fringe activists are being asked within mainstream. Among them: Do we really need policing this well-funded, and this militarized?  Do we need police at all? What would it mean not to have police?

This talk will explore different things that police abolition might mean, and will offer a historical review of the rise of policing in the United States and its connections to slave patrols and strikebreaking.  We’ll examine the evolution of policing from 19th century to the present, and evaluate a range of proposed reforms, including “8Can'tWait,” “8toAbolition”, defunding campaigns, and the demand for community control over police forces.

The speaker, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, previously gave talks about identity politics, civility, and the Green New Deal on the Profs and Pints stage. He teaches ethics and social and political philosophy from a perspective rooted in histories of activism, anti-colonial thought, the Black Radical Tradition, and German transcendentalism.

Profs & Pints Online: On the Abolition of Police