Towns Don't Need Tanks: Our Communities Are Not War Zones

On Aug. 9, 2014, local police fatally shot an unarmed African American 18-year-old named Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. In the days that followed, there were massive protests in Ferguson, and heavily armed SWAT teams roamed the streets in response. Our communities are not war zones.

Yet the police, armed to the teeth, treat us like the enemy, especially if we're black, young, poor, or homeless. Tanks are rolling through our towns. What will it take for police to start protecting communities of color, not waging war on them?

The Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice are funneling billions of dollars to state and local law enforcement agencies every year to help them purchase military weaponry and equipment.

With our country’s long history of aggressive policing in communities of color, it shouldn’t surprise us that these wartime tools and tactics are hitting poor and black neighborhoods hardest. To start undoing the damage, the feds need to stop funding this war.

Good policing is about trust, which has been severely eroded through the use of excessive force and police brutality. If police forces across America continue to militarize and treat communities of color as the enemy, they will increasingly be seen as an occupying army.

Stopping the funding and incentivizing of police militarization is a crucial first step to ending this war.

Help TakePart and ACLU tell the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice: Stop funding the siege on communities of color.

Photo Caption: Demonstrators protest the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri August 23, 2014. Demonstrators in Ferguson gathered in intense heat on Saturday to mark two weeks since a white police officer shot dead an unarmed black teenager, while supporters of the officer said in a separate rally miles away the shooting was justified.