Trump's attorney general unveils plan to help boost the same law enforcement racism as before

On Thursday, Trump’s U.S. Attorney General William Barr took time away from trying to directly undermine our Constitution to announce work on undermining our Constitution at the local—and more directly racist—level. Barr went to Detroit, Michigan, to announce the Department of Justice’s plan to throw money into law enforcement in Detroit, Albuquerque, Baltimore, Cleveland, Kansas City, Memphis, and Milwaukee. Called “Operation Relentless Pursuit,” the $71 million in federal funding, Barr told the press, will be used to “intensify federal law enforcement resources” in these cities with higher rates of violent crime than the rest of the country.

Of course, even Barr had to admit that across the nation, violent crime rates have fallen, saying “while nationwide violent crime rates are down, many cities continue to see levels of extraordinary violence.” This is an old conservative line of politics that stretches all the way back to Roman governor of Judaea Pontius Pilate. The Trump administration has worked hard to destroy the kind of law enforcement reforms our country needs to fix some of our more glaring and violent white supremacist structures.

First, under the historically racist Jeff Sessions, the Trump administration pulled back on funding and “review” reform agreements between the Obama-era DOJ and many of the country’s law enforcement agencies. Now, the DOJ is putting resources into the same fundamentally racist and anti-low income policing policies that have perpetrated the kind of civil rights injustices we see daily.

But don’t you worry: William Barr and Donald Trump love the troops! Or, I mean, the police. Or I mean, whoever it is that has the state’s guns.

As Barr pandered, “I feel there is too much anti-law enforcement rhetoric, and not sufficient respect for police officers and law enforcement officers and the job they do.” Having respect for law enforcement and recognizing how difficult a job it is they do, does not exclude having human rights standards above those of a low rent dictatorship. To this end, the Trump administration has had to manufacture statistics that give a more dire view of violence in the U.S. while trying to downplay the rise in hate crimes since Trump took office.

Criminal justice activists and leaders have long been critical of Trump’s attorney general picks (first Sessions and now Barr), and the two men’s bigoted and myopic stances on police violence, civil rights, and justice. Not discussed by Barr was the fact that there is more evidence showing that less guns mean less violent crime, not more law enforcement and prison. But Barr and Trump aren’t really interested in getting rid of violent crime, are they?

from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/2PFKhHC