4 - Police Violence, Anti-Police Protest Movements and the Challenge of Decolonialism

Summary

Introduction

A starting point for the chapter involves the theoretical argument that the concepts of the ‘global North’ and ‘South’ are not simply separable geographic terms. I prefer to tie the idea of a ‘Southern perspective’ directly to understanding colonialism and decoloniality and, following Mignolo (2011), consider modernity and coloniality as two sides of the colonial matrix of power. Modernity is celebrated as development and progress and its institutions (including police) are promoted globally. Meanwhile, modernity's effects (dispossession, poverty, inequality) are marked as modernity's absence – its ‘dark side’ where repression rules. Colonialism (as a series of historical events) and coloniality (as relations of power) are global narratives. The idea of a ‘Southern perspective’ only makes sense if it is decoupled from its strictly geographical connotations and in its place ‘the South’ is understood as a relational space where the dispossessed and marginalized dwell. The colonial matrix of power provides a way of understanding the multiple sites of marginalization (including by way of class, race, ethnicity/religion, Indigeneity, gender, sexuality and ableism) through which modern state institutions of repression (police, military and various security forces) routinely and violently enforce social, economic and political boundaries within state borders – indeed endemic police violence against marginalized communities unites the geographic north and south, and what becomes central are questions of power, inequality and exploitation. Further, the colonial matrix of power links these ‘internal’ state strategies with the broader dynamics of global capitalism and imperialism.

Although this chapter focuses primarily on the police, it recognizes, as Neocleous has argued, that police power and what he terms ‘war power’ are intertwined, that police power and military power are not two distinct forces and institutions, and further that the technologies of state violence are shared across the police and military (Neocleous, 2021a: 10– 11). Thus, when we talk of the militarization of police, it is important to recognize this is neither a new nor unique phenomena – it is an ongoing process that reproduces police power (Neocleous, 2021b). It is argued here, selectively joining the insights of Mignolo and Neocleous, that the connections between police, military and war have a history which is intertwined with coloniality: