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Anarchist author argues police are institutionally racist and urges abolition at Missoula DSA talk
Summary
Christian Williams told a Missoula DSA audience that policing in the U.S. is rooted in slave patrols, that reform has strengthened rather than corrected police power, and that abolition should guide strategy and experiments in community safety.
Christian Williams, an anarchist author and journalist, told a Missoula audience on Oct. 1 that U.S. policing is an institution rooted in slave patrols and that "the racism and violence of the police are not incidental, but are inherent features of the institution." The presentation framed abolition as both a moral imperative and a long-term political project rather than an immediate operational plan.
Williams said the modern police evolved from slave patrols tasked with enforcing slavery and later controlling free Black people and poor whites. "The police developed to control poor people and people of color, and they are still on that job today," he said, arguing that twentieth-century reforms — from professionalization to community policing — have left police…
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