ACLU on policing

United States

Anthony D. Romero
Romero is born on July 9, 1965, Bronx, New York City, to Puerto Rican parents, and spends the initial years of his childhood growing up in a public housing project. 

Ford Foundation

• 1955-1974 The board of directors gradually divests itself of its substantial Ford Motor Company stock.
• 1992 Anthony D. Romero becomes a program officer for the Civil Rights and Social Justice Program of the Ford Foundation.
• 1996 He becomes director of the program, managing and facilitating roughly $90 million in grants to civil rights, human rights, and peace projects, launching progressive initiatives in affirmative action, voting rights and redistricting, immigrants' rights, women's rights, reproductive freedom, and LGBT rights.

American Civil Liberties Union
In 2001, he becomes Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union as the first Hispanic and "openly gay" man.
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Anthony D. Romero
ACLU Executive Director
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June 5, 2020

"...Let’s talk about policing the way we too often don’t. The underlying problem with policing isn't just the lack of oversight policies, more training, and better procedures. While radically changing these three areas remains essential for harm reduction, the problem itself is more insidious.

"The core problem is modern policing itself. The original sin of policing in this nation is its attachment to the nation’s first and most devastating sin: chattel slavery. Modern police forces in this country can be traced back to slave patrols used in Charleston, South Carolina. From their inception, police have been tasked with protecting power and privilege by exerting social control over Black people.
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"Built upon Jim Crow-era racist constructs, spurious social science, and sprawling legal codes, law enforcement has sought to control Black and Brown people through racialized targeting and the criminalization of Black people generally. Since inception, police in the U.S. have been empowered to act as an occupying force in low-income communities and communities of color across the country, funded by astronomical sums of taxpayer dollars..."


This brief summary will help younger folks understand how the English language has been manipulated. Prior to the 70s, many words had entirely different meanings. I'm not going to do the research on this other than to say that the soup has been stirred and stirred and is ever-metamorphic. Now we have soup du jour.