Fight Like Ferguson Forum: Can There Be A Good Cop?

NEW YORK CITY, October 27 — Bringing home the events and the fightback against racist murder by cops in Ferguson, PLP members helped organize a “Fight Like Ferguson” forum at Hunter College today. The event’s purpose was to review the current state of resistance in Ferguson and its dynamics and to discuss concrete methods for linking that resistance to the worldwide struggle against racism.
A three-member panel gave a presentation, followed by questions and discussion. About 30 people from Hunter and other City University colleges attended. PL’ers invited the audience to the 2014 College Conference the following week. Everyone in the audience took CHALLENGE.
The first panelist gave basic information about Ferguson and drew parallels between the violence of police repression and brutality seen there with that of the Israeli state-sanctioned violence seen in Palestine. There was a brief overview of the history of Zionism in the Middle East and its relationship to indigenous and later refugee populations.
Our second panelist had captured live footage of nighttime protests, showing both resistance and police tactics, as well as interviews with members of the Lost Voices collective, a central group of working-class youth involved in organizing and coordinating the protests. After showing 15 minutes of raw footage (to be used in a forthcoming, independently produced documentary) the panelist then discussed  connections between the roles of police repression, mass incarceration, and maintaining capitalist exploitation.
The third panelist focused on what can be done to continue to fight. Beginning with a description of living conditions in Ferguson, he continued with anecdotes of being on the ground there, and the different methods used by the resistance to stay ahead of the police and keep up the pressure on them. He also discussed what can tactically be done by people to broaden the resistance to exploitation and racism in a class society. The event formally ended with a general discussion on the content of the panel discussion.
A common theme seen in all of the discussion boiled down to a controversial question: can there be a good cop? Two Muslim South Asians in the audience, a targeted ethnic group on campus and throughout the city by the NYPD, wondered if it’s only individual cops or all cops who are racist. Members of the audience were largely divided. Some believed it’s possible for individual cops to act ethically; others argued that this can’t be. PLP members in the audience and panel pointed out the ideological foundations of policing, and the role that the state apparatus plays in the consolidation and maintenance of power by the capitalists.
Every cop’s job is to ultimately protect capitalism: private property, profits, businesses. For the bosses, a good cop is one who terrorizes and kills our class. For the workers, a good cop is a dead cop.
Despite some disagreements during the discussion, there was general agreement that we have to continue to make concrete fightbacks against racist oppression. We will be sure to follow up on the members of the audience to plan more struggles on campus. PLP strives to give leadership to these struggles, and direct them to a communist revolution and a bright, communist future.