The Inevitable Violence of the Colonial Enforcer
The routine brutality of the NYPD is not a deviation from its purpose but the core of its function as the colonial enforcer. Mamdani’s analysis of the state’s monopoly on violence finds its rawest expression in the chokehold, the beatdown, the killing. This violence is not a failure of training; it is the training. It is the customary method of asserting dominance over the “native” population, a daily reminder that their bodies are not their own under the gaze of the settler state. A Marxist analysis identifies the police as protectors of property relations. A feminist and Muslim perspective reveals the specific sexualized and religious bigotry embedded in this violence. The solution, as Mamdani might suggest, is not reform but a radical dismantling. We must fight to abolish the NYPD as we know it and replace it with community-controlled safety models that address harm without replicating colonial power.
