Photo Credit: Chad Davis/Flickr
This article was originally published on Word In Black.
Overview:
Equal Justice USA and other grassroots organizations working to end violence and incarceration in Black communities depended on federal grants to do their work. Now that they have been canceled, the White House likely will use an increase in crime to justify more spending on law enforcement, continuing to fuel the dysfunction of a broken system.
Five years ago, Jamila Hodge had recently quit her job as a federal prosecutor, a career path she’d chosen in the belief she could make a difference in the nation’s “faulty” criminal justice system. The murder of George Floyd seemed to validate her decision to leave the courts — and the cops she worked with — behind.
“I was at home,” she says. “It was the height of COVID, and I was caring for my mom who was sick, on top of remote work and school … I think we all were at home, which is why we were forced to watch.”
Then something remarkable happened. People across the country, and around the world, took to the streets, demanding change. White people read books on racism. Corporations pledged to invest millions of dollars in racial equity programs. Floyd’s killers were brought to justice. Like others who doubted that the system could ever change, Hodge dared to have hope.
“It’s almost unbelievable,” she tells Word In Black in a recent one-on-one interview. “Just five years ago, the entire country was at this moment of reckoning with racial justice, particularly the violence of policing and the criminal justice system on black communities — and was primed to do something about it.”
Then, reality set in.
Jamila Hodge, CEO, Equal Justice USA (Credit Equal Justice USA).
As the years passed, the nation lost interest in change. Corporations reneged on their pledges, white people stopped self-educating, Donald Trump returned to the White House, and Black people continued to die at the hands of police. Hodge, now CEO of the nonprofit Equal Justice USA, worries that the regression, which Trump is fomenting through a blizzard of executive orders, means bad things ahead for Black communities: a spike in crime, followed by police crackdowns.
“I think this anniversary of George Floyd’s murder is an important point in time that helps us see just how far we have rolled back in just this very short five-year window,” she says. “His murder galvanized so much change that pulled us off this precipice. Now, to have come so far back is pretty significant.”
Hodge discussed that, and more, in a conversation about policing in America after Floyd. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Word In Black: What would you say have been the biggest missed opportunities of the so-called “racial reckoning”?
Jamila Hodge: One of the things that came out of it was this shifted focus on, “If police are not the answer, then what are the answers when we’re talking about violence and crime and harm? Why are police being sent in when someone is in a mental health crisis? Why are police being sent in when the issue is [someone’s] substance use disorder?”
We saw some piloting of different [first] responder models, models that didn’t rely on police. We saw $50 billion pledged by corporations. I remember the New York Times bestseller list that summer that talked about all the books that people were [buying], trying to educate themselves.
The administration is going to say, ‘See these communities? This is why we’re paying more money into policing.’ And they’re never going to acknowledge [they] took away the solutions that were working.” – Jamila Hodge, CEO, Equal Justice USA
[Now] we are literally at a point in time where the words diversity, equity and inclusion have become bad words that are not allowed in federally funded grants or activities, and to go to that type of swing is head-spinning.
WIB: You’re describing a significant boomerang.
JH: I think what we’re seeing is a return to — and almost a doubling down on — criminalization of certain categories of people. The country elected someone who was convicted of a felony with no problem. But now [the Trump administration] has turned the Department of Justice into this weapon to seek political revenge, to go after specific groups.
We all know George Floyd was not the first unarmed person to be killed at the hands of police, and in fact, every year since his death, the number of people killed by police has gone up.
But I think our response as a community, as a country, and even globally, was less on needing to punish the officers and more on finally questioning the system that allows it.
WIB: You talked about how DEI is no longer allowed. What kind of impact is that having on grassroots solutions we saw after Floyd’s murder?
JH: We saw money being geared toward policy changes that didn’t rely on men with guns and badges. And we saw significant federal dollars being invested in communities. Among the many rollbacks we’re seeing — one that we feel personally at my organization — was the taking back a month ago of more than $800 million of federal funds that had been granted to folks doing this important work. This was money that had already been allocated by Congress.
These cuts have defunded frontline violence intervention workers, such as mentorships and “safe passage” programs that help kids get to and from school. These are all community-led and are not tied to the police at all. And we have data showing these efforts have been working. In some cities, there’s been as much as a 70% decrease in violent crime.
For example, Newark, New Jersey, is seeing a 60-year low in homicide rates. There are many cities showing similar results by using programs that are not just more humane, but they actually solve the problem of crime.
WIB: You’ve mentioned publicly that you believe the defunding of grassroots initiatives are going to result in an increase in crime this summer. Why do you believe that?
JH: We know trauma and exposure to violence drives violence. So the administration is going to say, “See these communities? This is why we’re paying more money into policing.” And they’re never going to acknowledge you took away the solutions that were working. And that’s why these numbers will go up.
WIB: What do you think are the motives behind the sea change we’re experiencing? Why, in your opinion, didn’t the “racial reckoning” last?
JH: One of the factors driving a lot of the policy rollbacks and defunding of social services that matter to so many people is philosophies rooted in dehumanization. Specifically, dehumanization of Black people, which comes from our legacy of slavery, is something we’ve never fully reckoned with. The issue continues to rear its ugly head and is used to justify the kinds of policies that we’re seeing in the executive orders this administration is releasing almost daily.
And I don’t know what shows this more than what happened when George Floyd was murdered. When you can keep your hand in your pocket while kneeling on the neck of a man as he pleads for his life for such an extended period of time, you don’t see him as a human being. You don’t see his dignity and worth. This is emblematic of how power systems — institutional systems — in our country operate. It’s this foundation that allows us to continue rolling out the kinds of [anti-Black] policies we have as a nation.
WIB: How do we counteract that, five years later? How do we move forward?
JH: So we have to continue to remind people that George Floyd was a father, that he was a brother, that he was a son. While we honor the cause that came out of his tragic murder, it’s critically important to remind people of his personhood and to see the humanity and dignity and worth in every person, particularly in Black people.
That’s going to be one of the key ways to get the heart change that’s necessary to create the policy changes that we need.
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