Guest Writer and podcaster Mychal Denzel Smith appeared on an episode of Dr. Phil titled “Defunding the Police: A Failure or a Fallacy?”
During the debate on whether to defund police, Smith said, “When I say, ‘Oh, I don’t believe that there’s a need for police,’ what I’m saying is that there has been so little investment in creating the conditions under which police would not be necessary.”
Dr. Phil sets "woke activist" straight on why "defund the police" is bad. pic.twitter.com/v9m2AjCW5c
— AKthirst (@_akthirst) January 9, 2023
Smith continued, “People are the creations of the society in which they live. If you are a society that has such massive inequality. Then you are a society that is based on racial and gendered hierarchies. You are a society that deprives people of the resources they need to live, talking about housing, clean water, food, all of these things that are part of an equitable society, you’re talking about people who will do desperate things in order to survive.”
“You’re not solving anything by arresting those people. You’re not solving anything by shooting and killing those people,” Smith said.
Dr. Phil said, “I agree with you one hundred percent on society’s failures about how that person became a criminal. My point is that we also live in the here and now, and if someone invades my home and has my wife held hostage in the bedroom tonight, I don’t give two *** about where they came from tonight.”
Dr. Phil continued, “What I care about is a solution tonight. That doesn’t mean that we don’t need to solve the problem, so my grandchildren don’t get held hostage in their bedrooms 20 years from now.”
“But when you say we don’t need police because of developmental failures, that doesn’t solve the problems that are occurring tonight, tomorrow night, the next night. Those things have to be dealt with.”
Smith said, “I hear you. That is the fear that continues to drive us toward more policing.”
Dr. Phil responded, “No, that is the reality in which we live.”
Dr. Phil added, “What I’m describing is something that is happening, and we have to have guardrails, we have to have someone to turn to, we have to have someone on the end of 9-1-1.”
