Baldwin in Practice: Policing

• In Event: Race and Justice Presents: James Baldwin at 100, Session 1

Abstract

In trying to balance the dialectic of conducting emotionally truthful and rigorous policing scholarship, I take inspiration from Baldwin's words that we “...must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others...”. Elevating the consciousness of others sits perfectly comfortably as a research priority without sacrificing rigor. Baldwin reminds me that police organizations and their agents, despite, or even because of, the entrenched and enduring harmful masculinized culture pervading them, deserve our attentive eye, dialogue, and greater decency and humanity to be expected from them. Using this perspective, my current research involves seeking out police agencies already engaged in compassionate, transformative culture change, which led me to a police force in the UK undertaking multifaceted DEI initiatives rooted in higher-level concepts about intersectionality, 'othering', and systemic racial and gendered disparities. By creating emotional and vulnerable messaging that acknowledges painful truths about institutional behaviors, apologizing and taking accountability for past and present harms, and even partnering with a local poet laureate to explore how stereotyping feels, their approach echoes Baldwin’s call to courageous, humanist, and socially critical dialogics. A surprising locus of humanity perhaps, but one Baldwin challenges us to listen out for.

Author

• Tanyanne J. Ball, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY Graduate Center