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But people literally mean “defund the police” in the sense of “completely eliminate the existing police force in its entirety and build something else from the scorched earth.”

And for black communities it really is true that no police would be an improvement over the current status quo. That’s literally the main tenant of the protests.

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Then shouldn't they be saying "Reform the police"?

They don't believe the police can be reformed. They believe the system is irreparably and irredeemably rotten to the core and that the only solution is to burn it all down.

This shouldn't be a controversial concept, as it's what many Americans already seem to believe about their own government.

Don’t sell the concept short! Burning it all down is a pretty controversial opinion in its own right. Doubly because you have a majority of people who aren’t generally harmed by the status quo. I would be surprised if it wasn’t a controversial opinion. The amount of empathy currently being shown at the protests is unheard of.

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