During a remote appearance on the Monday edition of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon , television host John Oliver explained one of the most popular themes emerging from recent protests: defunding the police, per E! Online .
In the two weeks of protests following George Floyd’s death, defunding the police has become one of the most popular causes for demonstrators. However, the lack of context surrounding the phrase has confused some observers, leading supporters of the movement to suggest a common misunderstanding of its meaning — namely, that people associate the phrase with the notion of completely removing law enforcement from the streets. Politicians such as President Donald Trump have used the phrase to attack their rivals.
Not only will Sleepy Joe Biden DEFUND THE POLICE, but he will DEFUND OUR MILITARY! He has no choice, the Dems are controlled by the Radical Left.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020
On Sunday, Oliver dedicated an entire episode of his show, Last Week Tonight — available via YouTube — to the topic. Oliver explained to Fallon that he was unaware of the term until he watched an episode of Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas focused on the topic.
“That was the first time I started realizing what defunding the police actually meant. It wasn’t a punitive thing to do. It was reallocating resources—and that would look different wherever you lived.”
On his own show, Oliver explained that defunding police departments — departments that can sap city budgets — would allow a refunding of public services that have been financially drained by years of austerity. He argued that funding services focusing on issues such as homelessness and mental health would benefit the police, saying it would allow the police to do their jobs instead of serving as a catch-all. He concluded that police are often given responsibilities that they were not properly trained for.
Oliver went on to assure Fallon that defunding the police does not mean “the purge is upon us.” According to Oliver, there would still be police, but they would just serve a more streamlined role in society.
Fallon went on to ask Oliver if he thought that the past fortnight felt different from protests against police brutality in recent years. Oliver agreed and said that a sustained version of this outrage is required for change to occur.
“The key thing is for the outrage to now be matched with action because this machine has been very, very deliberately built to resist change, to kind of absorb outrage and not fundamentally change, so it is going to take sustained, significant effort to get the reforms that are going to be required here for anything to meaningfully change because we’ve just been here before.”
Oliver added that the slow pace of change has allowed the issues of the past to fester and become the problems society faces today. He hoped that the events of the past two weeks manifest into meaningful change.
