Six months ago, after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, the city moved to defund the department. That was the headline in June, but the story in the months since has been more complicated. Debates over what
defundmeans, a cop slowdown, conflict over who does the job of police in the meantime, packed city budget meetings all are part of a power struggle that, far from a failure, is an indication of what it really looks like to take on the work of reimagining the budget as a moral document, a statement about whose life is valued. 2020 is not the year we fully defunded the police, but the undoubtedly imperfect process of inventing a world without police has begun.