Abolition or Death: Desmond Cole Calls to Abolish Police

Toronto-based activist, Desmond Cole, called for police to be abolished rather than defunded during the Scholar Strike Canada Teach-In on Sept. 9, 2020. 

The two-day strike took place to encourage both scholars and students to take a stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement by stepping out of class to attend these teach-ins. Desmond Cole’s livestream, Abolition or death: Confronting police forces in Canada, identified the capitalist system that prevents us from making any change.

Cole, who is also a journalist, author and activist said that reform and the defunding of police doesn’t solve the underlying problems in the system itself. 

“We must not only abolish the police,” he said, “but we must abolish the capitalist system that makes the police necessary to protect the benefits and the wealth and the power of the ruling class.” 

Keeping focused on the Black Lives Matter movement

Cole explains that asking for the police to be defunded steers the conversation away from the Black Lives Matter movement itself, and instead asks for a greater systemic change.

He said, “We have to talk not about simply defunding, but about abolition because we want the violence to end forever. We don’t want reform. We’re not trying to reform a state of violence. We want it to end.”

Cole said that if things aren’t entirely changed and the lives of police and civilians are not written into the law as equals, then nothing will change in a system designed to allow police to kill Black people with no consequences. 

“If we’re not talking about changing the criminal code in this country to remove the legal right that the police have to kill us, then we are on the wrong path,” said Cole.

“This is not about money. It’s not about a funding consideration or training consideration. It is about our lives.” 

He said that outdated systems need to be replaced with ones that protect all people, and that communities should be provided with specialized programs and services to benefit those who are failed by the system currently in place.

Cole closes by identifying that as “cliche” as it sounds, we have to be the change we want to see in the world.