On Public Safety

Fact: policing in the United States was founded to protect the property of white men. In the context of policing in the United States, everything that wasn't a white man was property, women and slaves first among them. This is why police looked askance at domestic violence until the Violence Against Women Act in the 1990s (hard to fathom!) And this is why police killing Black people is still not viewed, structurally, as a crime; why it is still accepted. We can and we must reimagine what policing and, more importantly, public safety look like in a world where full humanity is extended to more than just white men. Those of us that consider ourselves trauma care providers are particularly called to join this work of reimagining and recreating because investing some lives with value while divesting that equal value from other lives is trauma to the core. Let's work together to reimagine and recreate a public safety infrastructure that invests all lives with equal value.

-Dave