By adamg on Sun., 7/5/2020 - 5:46 pm 
Photo via Black Market Nubian.
Black Market Nubian's Kai Grant reports on the painting of the 500-foot-long mural on Washington Street between Palmer and Eustis streets.
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Comments
Honestly... can we stop using
By Rob
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 11:56am
Honestly... can we stop using such a stupid and provocative phrase as "defund the police"?
It's just a zero-context, nonconstructive, hashtag.
"Re-structure the Police"
"Reform the police"
"Reinvent policing and public services"
Any of those would make more sense, and I'm sure people can think of plenty of better ways than those to express it.
Actually, Rob...
By Steve in Somerville
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 12:38pm
There's a rich academic and popular literature supporting the abolition of policing as an institution. The activists who are out there organizing and marching and chanting know very well what words mean, and they are demanding "DEFUND THE POLICE." Instead of telling them your opinion that it's "stupid" (you may disagree with the demand, but it is certainly not "stupid"), perhaps you could refrain from demonstrating your ignorance long enough to read and learn what's being demanded here. It's a vital and necessary step toward a more just (and more safe!) society.
"Reforming" the police has
By ZachAndTired
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 1:45pm
"Reforming" the police has historically been used to funnel more money into police budgets under the guise of better training and equipment. Things have gotten worse due to police reform. That is not what people are asking for, despite your flippant retort. The police as an organization are too powerful and resistant to change to be restructured. That is why an alternative structure is needed, as opposed to trying to fix the current structure. People are literally asking for the police to be defunded. That's obviously not what you want, but please don't put words in other people's mouths.
How have things gotten worse Zach...
By Pete Nice
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 9:41pm
Compared to 1970, or 1980, 1990, 2000, etc?
You're right, Pete. There's
By ZachAndTired
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 10:14am
You're right, Pete. There's been widespread social unrest across the country for the past month and a half because everybody is so thrilled with the job the police are doing.
Ok so you based you statement on emotion.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 10:33am
That's fine, just checking. You could use your exact same line of reasoning to explain why 1938 Germany became what it was....because people were upset (you can add in other examples of emotional revolutions that became oppressive regimes so I'm not Godwinning you here but I think it actually fits). That's a great way to look at things though
Yes, the protesters are the
By ZachAndTired
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 10:46am
Yes, the protesters are the oppressive regime, not the militarized police using chemical weapons and killing people every day. Excellent analysis, you smug dullard.
You have already given your answer.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 10:57am
Which was based on emotion (meaning you don't know). Too late to explain further Zach, you've shown your hand. Have a nice day and don't get oppressed too much today. Maybe a nice cold shower tonight will wash off some of that virtue signaling that you seem to reek of (don't scrub too hard though, you don't want to get rid of too much of your white privilege that you will need to fall back on)
Militarization of Police
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 11:52am
That's a start - when cops think they are here to control the citizenry, rather than be controlled by the citizenry, and have weapons of war to do so, that is a very bad sign that we need to end the mission creep.
That this has happened AFTER and DESPITE a huge drop in crime when the baby boom aged out of prime crime years is a complete travesty and utter waste of resources.
Licking boots isn't the community's job. Deciding how the community spends money according to broadly defined priorities and bringing rogue police departments to heel behind citizen priorities IS our job.
Police very obviously cannot police themselves - it is a bad orchard problem not a bad apple problem. No amount of your blue huffing bullcrap changes the fact that it is impossible to remove bad cops and keep them from getting hired. And no amount of blue bullshit makes a police force arresting, jailing, and murdering people in systematic and often racist ways an effective way out of drug addiction and mental health issues.
We know you are protecting your fat paychecks here, Pete. But this has to end. Communities must bring police under control, and the psychotic racism and psychopathic elements created and abetted through their immunity from responsibility need to be removed by reasserting proper citizen authority.
Compared to 1970, or 1980,
By Scratchie
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 10:41am
Everybody carries an internet-connected camera in their pocket these days.
Yup.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 10:45am
But that doesn't mean anything in itself. If an event (police violence, car crashes, hail storms, people walking with backpacks) happens at different rates in 1970 compared to 2020 but we can photograph 90% of these events in 2020 but only .1% of them in 1970, does that mean it happens more in 2020?
Just stop
By lbb
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 11:03am
You derailed with an irrelevant, intellectually dishonest question about whether police violence is worse now than in the 1970s, knowing full well that this can't be proven one way or the other. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Go find an ivory tower to sit in if you care about the answer to your own question, but do not attempt to derail from a discussion of what we do NOW.
Exactly
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 11:38am
Whether or not police violence is worse/better is irrelevant.
What is relevant: it is unacceptable and untenable NOW.
So you want to cut the police reforms that led to it?
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 1:01pm
That’s what I’m talking about. Police violence has been studied insanely in the 1970s and 1980s. It led to all sorts of reforms in training, community policing, harm reduction, procedural justice and anti biased training. Guess what happened? Arrests go down, police violence rates go down, rates of people shot by the police decreases, etc. if you want to cut police departments back to 1970 levels of uneducated good squad policing be my guest. You aren’t going to get the results you think your going to get, although you might “feel†safer. Fear of crime and victimization rates don’t always correlate with actual crime rates because of the emotive and cognitive component involved with the former. Yet many are using their emotional reactions to cell phone footage to illogical budget changes.
I’m not saying there aren’t still problems in policing, but when things have been studied and improved over a period of time, cutting those reforms aren’t going to do any good.
How much energy and money do you want to focus on the ZERO people killed by the Boston police in the last two years that didn't shoot at officers? In the last five years it was ONE person (who had a knife?) 10 Million? 100 Million? Maybe 250 million dollars?
Apples to wankel rotary engines
By lbb
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 2:03pm
Where in this discussion has anyone spoken of "cutting those reforms"? How about we examine just how effective (or not) they've been?
I don't mind focusing some energy and money on ensuring that it doesn't happen in the future, particularly with cops like Pepper Jack on the force.
That looks like a two lane
By Anon 2
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 12:08pm
That looks like a two lane street. The entire point of paint on the street is to help direct traffic and inform you of what is going on in the road. I have a concern that something like this could cause trouble in that regard. How about putting it in on a Oneway street or someplace else where the lines may not matter?
Maybe I am off base here. I am not familiar with the street. I would hope that the city takes that into account anytime they give permission to write on the street like this (once you do it once everyone will line up.)
If you can't maintain your
By brianjdamico
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 1:20pm
If you can't maintain your lane on a straight stretch of a road for 500 feet, feel free to turn in your license.
Brian, Brian, Brian
By Scratchie
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 2:11pm
All Road Markings Matter.
It is a legitimate question
By Anon 2
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 4:43pm
It is a legitimate question and concern. Just because it is BLM does not mean it gets a free pass. This is why people roll their eyes so much at these things because when people ask serious questions they are treated like they are themselves doing something wrong. The snarky one liner is a lazy way out.
Oh I see, so we just don't
By Anon 2
Tue, 07/07/2020 - 8:37am
Oh I see, so we just don't need ANY urban road markings anywhere in the city.
Why not just make the entire Downtown coordinator a giant rainbow road?
I am not for or against this sort of marking but my question is legitimate and will become even more relevant as more and more people in other communities look to emulate this with BLM and other causes. Even if they have to write the protocols around this exact mural it is still something worth having on paper.
Here you go vet them.
By anon
Mon, 07/06/2020 - 4:40pm
Here you go vet them.
https://blacklivesmatter.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter
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