Freedom House: A Critical Counternarrative

Abstract

A critical study of policing invites two overlapping strands of theory: to reconsider accepted hierarchies of knowledge and to challenge presumed truths about the legitimacy of policing. This chapter looks to critical race scholarship to examine two methodologies that can accomplish these meaningful critiques. Firstly, the subversion of expertise requires the recognition of ‘grassroots philosophers’, those who have directly experienced police oppression and can therefore relate theory to reality. Secondly, the generation of counternarratives can construct and reveal a different reality of policing that effectively disputes the status quo. One powerful illustration of the convergence of these methodologies is the history of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, a civilian paramedic service that was created in the late 1960s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to confront the racialised violence and neglect inflicted by police ambulance drivers. By outlining this history and explaining its abolitionist impact, this chapter provides a counternarrative to those who dismiss police abolition as an impractical demand.