A police abolitionist’s response to being hit by a car at BLM protest

Submitted to It’s Going Down

On Sunday night, during a march in response to recent police killings of black people, I was hit by an angry driver and carried several hundred feet on the hood of his car. Luckily I was uninjured, but it was clear that he hit me intentionally and that he acted with disregard for my safety and even my life. In response to this incident, some people have been calling for the driver’s arrest and for legal charges to be placed on him. Even though I’m angry at this man who put my life at risk, I don’t agree with the calls for his arrest.

I don’t want him to be arrested because calling for his arrest shows that we need the cops to solve our problems for us. But we don’t. We proved we don’t on Friday night and we proved it again on Sunday. When we can come together and when we have each other, we don’t need the cops. Looking at the video the next morning, I almost cried seeing a whole crowd of people sprinting after the car as it carried me away on the hood. After I jumped off, people I don’t know and will never be able to thank came to help me. When the driver pulled around the corner and stopped, a crowd of people ran up to him. When he jumped out of the car with his fists up, they punched him in the face, smashed in parts of his car and threw a smoke bomb inside of it.

I don’t need the cops and their violence to make this situation better for me because we handled it in the streets. It’s over. The violence of the police, even though it’s neater and more socially acceptable, is far worse than the justice we dished out. As mad as I am, I don’t want to see that dude put in handcuffs, locked in a cage and facing charges that will follow him the rest of his life. I’ve been to jail. I’ve been beat by the cops and I’ve had charges and I don’t wish that on anybody.

We were out there in the streets because we’ve seen this week what the cops are about. They’ll shoot you while you’re lying face down on the ground. They’ll shoot you while you’re reaching for your license with your baby in the back seat. I don’t want their help.

Plus, this whole thing is a distraction. One shitty dude with a temper and low impulse control shouldn’t distract us from all we are capable to doing together. Some have suggested that the focus of the upcoming march on Wednesday night be calling for the driver’s arrest. Hell no. We’ve got goals that are much bigger than that. We’ve got a whole world to build and a whole world of cops and prisons, hate and selfishness and greed to undo. Let’s not settle for less.

Along the way we’re going to come up against reactionary people who either don’t like what we’re doing or don’t understand it. But we have to be able to sort out these conflicts by looking at who has power and who does not. From the rumors I’ve been hearing, the driver of that car worked some shitty job at the university and was fired after what happened Sunday. For the brief moment that he hit me, he had the power of being behind the wheel of a car. And, of course, he’s got the privilege that comes with white skin in this racist society. But he doesn’t have the kind of power that our real enemies have. He’s not a cop with a gun and the right to kill, he’s not a judge with the power to lock someone in a cage for decades, he’s not a politician who changes our lives with the stroke of a pen. He’s not our real enemy. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.

When I was on the hood of that car, gripping on while the car accelerated for what felt like forever, I was scared shitless. But I also felt calm and confident knowing that I was standing up for myself and for the things I believe in and want in this world. And I felt confident because there were a whole bunch of people I don’t even know who had my back. If you want to address what happened that night, bring your anger to the streets on Wednesday. Meet up with people, scheme about where we can take this momentum. Talk about what you love and what you hate. Don’t rely on anybody but yourselves and each other. There is no limit to what we can do together.