Since the historic uprisings sparked by the murder of George Floyd, growing calls to defund the police have upended mainstream political discourse in the United States. Outrage at appalling evidence of rampant police brutality and an entrenched culture of impunity have moved to the very center of public debate what were until recently dismissed as radical demands. This dramatic shift has, among other things, opened up space for discussion of the history of policing and the prison-industrial complex more broadly. In particular, abolitionists have urged examination of the deep roots of our contemporary situation. As the organizer and educator Mariame Kaba argued in an editorial published in The New York Times, “There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people.”1 That a statement like this would appear in the paper of record reflects a paradigm shift in popular understandings of the history of the criminal legal system.

中文翻译：

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合格的豁免：国家权力、私刑和种族暴力的历史

自从乔治·弗洛伊德（George Floyd）被谋杀引发历史性起义以来，越来越多的要求撤资警察的呼声已经颠覆了美国的主流政治话语。对猖獗的警察暴行和根深蒂固的有罪不罚文化的骇人听闻的证据的愤怒已经转移到公共辩论的中心，直到最近才被视为激进的要求。除其他外，这一戏剧性转变为更广泛地讨论警务历史和监狱工业综合体开辟了空间。特别是，废奴主义者敦促检查我们当代局势的深层根源。正如组织者和教育家 Mariame Kaba 在发表于纽约时报, “在美国历史上，没有一个时代警察不是针对黑人的暴力力量。”1像这样的陈述会出现在记录文件中，反映了大众对刑事法律制度历史的理解发生了范式转变。