Observations from participating in the listening sessions for the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing
On Friday Jan. 30, 2015 I had a very rare opportunity to testify before the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The experience was quite intimidating, but overall I survived, frizzy hair and all. While I received some great feedback from attendees and panelists, I had some general reflections that I wanted to capture that are listed below.
1. Refreshing to see institutional challengers (I.E Constance Rice, Jose Lopez, Tracey Meares etc) serve within the task force.
2. Subject matter "experts" are important, but communities who are disproportionately affected by these decisions and policies are not present, which is unacceptable.
3. Greater inclusion of youth voices and young adult voices are necessary and also noticeably absent. (At least per the first day of panels and testimonials).
4. While policing best practices are important, there was an overrepresentation of police voices on the panels which presents bias.
5. Policy recommendations are somewhat important but a cultural shift in policing will need to occur in order to transform communities role and relationship with law enforcement.
Overall, I am grateful to have had an opportunity to testify on mass demonstrations but the systemic change must have a grassroots origin to truly be impactful.
Before recess ends.
*The DoJ spelled my name in a hybrid version of all of the other ways I've seen it.
Special Thanks to Herschel for my awkward photos.