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BLACK HISTORY February 22, 2017 Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com. MONTH Page 11 O PINION The End of an Alliance for Police Reform White House ridicules accountability by e bony s laughter -J ohnson In July 2016, then-Attorney Gener- al Loretta Lynch com- mitted the Department of Justice to investi- gating the shooting of Alton Sterling, a black man who was murdered by police outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge. The move represented the deepening of a tangible (if ten- uous) relationship between the Department of Justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, which gained national promi- nence in 2014 after the police shooting of Eric Garner. Until this year, civil rights advocates and critics of police violence had allies in both the Department of Justice and the White House — one of whom was President Obama himself. At a minimum, these allies were sympathetic to the fight for racial justice. Not infre- quently, they were willing to expend their institutional resources to secure it. The fruits of this relationship in- cluded a series of damning reports on police misconduct from Ferguson, Missouri to Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Baltimore. In the age of Trump, that alliance has come to an end. In the false dichoto- my between holding police accountable and advo- cating for communities of col- or, Trump has made it clear that his administration will come down on the side of the police. Under Trump, the official White House website now rid- icules the movement for police accountability as an effort to “to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, or the violent disrupter.” In the Trump administration’s version of the world, protesters are disorderly agitators whose demands for justice only interfere with the work of good men and women in blue. If law enforcement has found a new friend in Trump, it’s consistently had one in Jeff Sessions, the Alabama senator 11830 Kerr Pkwy. 97035 Noon-7pm, or by appointment: 503-830-7616 just confirmed as attorney gen- eral — during Black History Month, no less. As a senator, Sessions pub- lished an opinion on consent decrees, which are agreements local departments make with Washington to reform polic- ing practices that violate their citizens’ rights. Sessions called those deals “dangerous.” In 2015, Sessions participat- ed in a Senate hearing provoc- atively titled “The War on Police,” during which he lam- basted the Obama administra- tion’s aggressive investigations into police misconduct. He called those actions evidence of “an agenda that’s been a troubling issue for a number of years.” During his confirmation hearings, Sessions again reit- erated his disdain for consent decrees, claiming that they “undermine respect for our po- lice officers” and testifying that he might be interested in doing away with them altogether. Nor has Sessions ever both- ered to hide his disdain for civil rights activists. At the same 2015 hearing, Sessions chastised, “I do think it’s a real problem when we have Black Lives Matter making state- ments that are really radical, that are absolutely false.” Trump’s censure of the movement has been even more provocative. After lamenting the murders of Philando Cas- tile and Alton Sterling as “ter- rible” in the summer of 2016, Trump quickly changed his tune. He condemned police re- form advocates for “dividing the country” and blamed them for the murders of two police officers in Baton Rouge. Candidate Trump went so far as to claim that he’d charge his attorney general with leading an investigation into the Black Lives Matter movement — an assignment that Sessions, by the looks of things, would en- thusiastically accept. There will be more police shootings of black men in the future. There will be more pro- tests that call for justice for these victims. But with a De- partment of Justice led by Jeff Sessions, people who want jus- tice will be on their own. Ebony Slaughter-Johnson is a freelance writer whose work covers history, race, and the criminalization of poverty. Dis- tributed by OtherWords.org.