Very true. And this doesn’t even mention rape and other sexual abuse/violence. If all we focus on is them murdering people, we’re already ignoring forms of violence and harm that are heavily weighted toward non-cis-male demographics, are commonly ignored and erased, and cause enormous amounts of pain and suffering.

While murder is obviously the worst of acute instances of violence in that it is the act which can never be healed from or undone, police do orders of magnitude more violent harm every day if you take a broader look, and we must resist attempts to ignore that.

I do take exception to this being said by someone in the exchange:

And I think that loss is exacerbated by the fact that these are women who are killed by the same institutions that are designed to protect them.

These institutions—especially the police, but the legal system more generally as well—were absolutely never designed to protect women. Or any other people other than capitalists and politicians, for that matter. Any other nominal protection they do is incidental, and should also be scrutinized carefully with a skeptical eye as likely mythological. We really, really, really need to stop saying shit like this. Yesterday. In having a conversation about improving matters, do not propagate the very propaganda that serves directly to make it worse. And push back on it every time you do hear/see it.

Great read, gonna cross-post this over to feminism 😄