Minneapolis Reckoning
«Finalist for the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction, Minneapolis Book Awards»
Challenges to racialized policing, from early reform efforts to BLM protests and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder
The eruption of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence in 2014 spurred a wave of police reform.
Challenges to racialized policing, from early reform efforts to BLM protests and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder
The eruption of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence in 2014 spurred a wave of police reform. One of the places to embrace this reform was Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city long known for its liberal politics. Yet in May 2020, four of its officers murdered George Floyd. Fiery protests followed, making the city a national emblem for the failures of police reform. In response, members of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to “end” the Minneapolis Police Department. In The Minneapolis Reckoning, Michelle Phelps describes how Minneapolis arrived at the brink of police abolition.
Phelps explains that the council’s pledge did not come out of a single moment of rage, but decades of organizing efforts. Yet the politics of transforming policing were more complex than they first appeared. Despite public outrage over police brutality, the council’s initiatives faced stiff opposition, including by Black community leaders who called for more police protection against crime as well as police reform. In 2021, voters ultimately rejected the ballot measure to end the department. Yet change continued on the ground, as state and federal investigations pushed police reform and city leaders and residents began to develop alternative models of safety.
The Minneapolis Reckoning shows how the dualized meaning of the police—as both the promise of state protection and the threat of state violence—creates the complex politics of policing that thwart change. Phelps’s account of the city's struggles over what constitutes real accountability, justice, and safety offers a vivid picture of the possibilities and limits of challenging police power today.
Detaljer
- Forlag
- Princeton University Press
- Innbinding
- Innbundet
- Språk
- Engelsk
- Sider
- 304
- ISBN
- 9780691245980
- Utgivelsesår
- 2024
- Format
- 24 x 16 cm
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«Finalist for the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction, Minneapolis Book Awards»
«It is tempting to look back on the summer of 2020 and lament. For those few heady months, the way forward seems so clear. . . . Michelle Phelps' Minneapolis Reckoning is an account of that long, difficult struggle to transform policing in the City of Lakes. Phelps resists the tremendous appeal of a simple elegy. . . . [and] makes a strong case for the possibilities—and perhaps even necessity—of dwelling in the here-and-now of anti-police activism, where those wishing for a new world must relate to 2020 as a practical resource rather than as a revolutionary reverie."---Daniel Fernandez, Inquest»
«With the rise of mass movements critical of police violence and of the police role in society over the last decade, researchers began looking at policing anew. . . . What [Michelle Phelps] found is the oft documented duality among African Americans of being wary about police but still wanting to have them around to provide safety. Some have referred to this as the dynamic of over- and underpolicing, but Phelps adjusts that to an excess of problematic policing and a deficit of actual security. . . . Throughout [The Minneapolis Reckoning], Phelps provides a detailed explanation of abolitionist demands and organizing."---Alex S. Vitale, American Journal of Sociology»
«The Minneapolis Reckoning is an essential text. . . . By bringing together scholarship on policing, social movements, political institutions and policymaking, social justice, and race, Minneapolis Reckoning offers valuable contributions to each while demonstrating the importance of examining their intersections."---Ryan T. Steel, Punishment & Society»
«At the heart of The Minneapolis Reckoning is a nuanced account of the dynamic contests between political actors, movement actors, voters, and other stakeholders that unfolded in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder."---Daanika Gordon, Law & Social Inquiry»