Obama recently suggested that progressive social movements lose their audience with snappy slogans like “defund the police”. But what if the problem isn’t the slogan, but the epistemic framework we use to understand that slogan? Epistemic frameworks, like fancy Instagram filters, shape (and distort) how we see the world. Our epistemic framework is colored by an understanding of the police as good guys tasked with getting bad guys off the street.

This means we hear reasonable statements like ‘defund the police’ as ‘defund the good guys’. We need an epistemic framework that allows us to see the police for what they are – not as uniform-clad heroes, but complex human beings, capable of flaws and subject to criticism. Changing our social landscape doesn’t require better slogans, but better frameworks for understanding.