³ÉÈËXÕ¾

Seattle’s Morning News host Dave Ross says this moment in the civil rights movement is a bit of a throwback for him, as he was in high school in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Ross went to Cornell in 1969 just after the student union had been taken over by armed black students. There were the Vietnam demonstrations going on at the same time, and in 1970 there was the Kent State shootings. He also went to Washington, D.C., for the demonstration that shut down the capital.

“If you had asked me then if would have thought this would be solved 50 years — it’s been 50 years since then — I would have said, yeah, we’d have solved it by now,” Ross said. “And yet here we are.”

Ross asked Edwin Lindo, a critical race theory scholar and lecturer at UW Medicine, and , what is different and why now?

“I think we are in a moment in time that has become a confluence of energy, imagination, and community power that can see a world that is radically different than the one we currently sit in, which, I would argue, is the most difficult part of the work,” Lindo said. “People hear ‘defund the police,’ and a question mark in their mind is, well, and then what?”

In Lindo’s mind, 75% of crime would disappear because 75% of crimes are committed to survive in this society, he said.

UW race theory scholar explains how racism plays a role in public health

“Whether it’s because of poverty, drug addiction, or mental health,” he added. “For the mental health, which I would argue is 25% of crime, we need to provide experts to get folks the support they need because I think we could address those crimes as well. It’s just our carceral system and our policing was never intended to do what it says it does.”

Policing, Lindo explained, is a relatively new innovation.

“It was not something that’s fundamental to the founding of this country, at least for police departments,” he said.

The first police department was chartered in 1838 in Boston, Mass., with the sole purpose to protect the property of ships owned by major corporations.

“But to get to the core of your question around, where do I think we are? I think we’re at an inflection point that will change the course of history,” Lindo said.

The next question, he says, is: Are elected officials willing to show the political will to make the change that people are demanding?

“You can talk to people who were Black Panthers and talk to people who were in the civil rights movement and say, this is what we’ve been waiting for, for a national conversation against racism and police violence,” Lindo said. “But no one ever thought that it would have to take place in the middle of a pandemic on a global scale.”

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.