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I. INTRODUCTION
The chant of “no justice, no peace” echoes through Black Lives Matter protests. It seems especially appropriate for this movement, which has organized in response to police killings of unarmed people of color. Unlike when people gather to protest US involvement in distant wars, many people of color are themselves embattled, fearing for their lives and those of their children and grandchildren. Classical liberal theorists such as John Locke saw the legitimacy of the state as based on its ability to uphold the security of its citizens.1 If the state fails to uphold its end of the contract, then citizens are released from theirs. Revolution might even be justified if the state preys on its citizens. At the very least, police violence seems to call for efforts to hold the state accountable through protests and lawsuits.
There is, however, another means of attempting to change the state. This is reflected in the dialogues, picnics, and town hall meetings that are also occurring between police and communities of color across the United States. These aim not only to give the community a voice in how to improve police-community relations, but also to improve that relationship directly by bringing these groups into contact. Hence the President’s Report on 21st Century Policing recommended that officers meet the community through “positive non-enforcement” activities, and the Department of Justice Community Relations Service has provided support to police departments willing to do so.2
What is rarely examined is how police officers respond to the pressure of activists or to efforts to build relationships between officers and the community. Investigating these questions leads to a troubling conclusion: these two strategies, while both integral to human rights efforts, can undermine each other.
This paradox hides in plain sight in the cry of “no justice, no peace.” Until justice is attained, protestors warn, there can be no peace. But it is precisely “peace,” or at least, the suspension of suspicion, that cultivates relationships in the kind of dialogues that are occurring between some police departments and communities. Conversely, the willingness to attempt to understand the perspective of state officials through dialogue has the potential to weaken the pressure that may have motivated those officials to hold dialogues in the...