Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is explaining what “defund” the police actually means, saying it’s “asking for the same budget priorities that White communities have already created for themselves: schooling > police, etc.”
“Defund” means that Black & Brown communities are asking for the same budget priorities that White communities have already created for themselves: schooling > police,etc.
People asked in other ways, but were always told “No, how do you pay for it?”
So they found the line item.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 9, 2020
Except, she has her facts totally wrong. New York City has $34.2 billion budgeted for schools in 2020-21. . .
The DOE’s fiscal 2020-21 budget of $34.2 billion includes $27.5 billion in operating funds and another $6.7 billion in education related pensions and debt service funds.
. . .while the NYPD budget is $6 billion:
The NYPD’s budget is $6,000,000,000
That’s more than the city spends on health, homelessness, youth development and workforce development combined.
— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) June 7, 2020
She went on to say it’s not the job of the activists to pick “poll-tested slogans” or care about “electoral feasibility”:
Lots of DC insiders are criticizing frontline activists over political feasibility and saying they need a new slogan.
But poll-tested slogans and electoral feasibility is not the activists’ job. Their job is to organize support and transform public opinion, which they are doing.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 9, 2020
There are “pitchers” and there are “catchers,” you see:
Our job as policymakers is to take the public’s mandate and find + create pockets to advance as much progress as possible.
Progress takes a team of different roles. You don’t criticize a pitcher for not being a catcher.
We can respond in ways that don’t undercut impt work
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 9, 2020
Yeah, but the pitchers and catchers both want to win and they work together on that. In AOC’s example, the pitcher is throwing beanballs at the voters while the catcher is trying to tell the pitcher to win the damn game:
And by the way, the fact that ppl are scrambling to repackage this whole conversation to make it palatable for largely affluent, white suburban “swing” voters again points to how much more electoral & structural power these communities have relative to others
Just for awareness!
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 9, 2020
Dems, listen to this woman at your own peril.
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