Mind the use of "terrorism".

In the aftermath of the violence that occurred on Wednesday, January 6, at the U.S. Capitol, news media, politicians, and observers worldwide are labeling those who participated “domestic terrorists.” At first glance, this seems to be a fair assessment: if white nationalists are engaging in the same kind of violence as other groups, we call “terrorists” have engaged in (attacking government buildings, breaking laws, endangering citizens, damaging property, etc.) then they too, should be labeled “terrorists.” Progressive politicians like Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) have referred to the incident as a “domestic terrorist attack” to ensure the gravity of this violence is not downplayed, as it often is when perpetrators are white (Huffington Post).

It's Friday! Welcome back to the ARD. Last week, we encouraged everyone to call the events at the Capitol for what they are, and encouraged the use of terms like "terrorists" and "white supremacists". Today, Shivani joins us to share why referring to terrorism, although well-intentioned, can have a negative impact on communities of color. I'm grateful to have learned more about this over the past week. The web version of that article now includes this one for clarification. I hope it illuminates something for you, too!

And thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider making a monthly or annual subscription on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza).

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

If you’ve been using the term “domestic terrorism” or “terrorists” to describe what happened at Capitol on January 5, 2021, consider using the terms: white violence or insurrectionists instead.
Read articles in Just Security, The Brennan Center, and Human Rights Watch to learn more about why this language is harmful to marginalized communities.
Follow communications directors in this space like Lea Kayali and human rights attorneys like Diala Shamas to learn more about the role language plays in these acts of white violence.

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By Shivani Persad (she/her)

However, by including white supremacist violence under this label, we are effectively expanding the definition of terrorism — and although the intention is good, it harms the most marginalized communities. Black and Muslim communities have been increasingly stigmatized and harmed by the counterterrorism policies resulting from such expansion. The government already has a number of laws under which they can prosecute people that are perceived threats (Time Magazine).

After Wednesday’s insurrection President-Elect Joe Biden “plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism” (Wall Street Journal). Human rights attorney Diala Shamas tweeted, “predictably, Biden falls for it. I'll say it again: history shows that legislation going after "domestic terrorism" will primarily be used to target Black organizers, Muslim communities, immigrant communities.”

Shamas and Tarek Z. Ismail argue that “expanding whom we call terrorists supposes that more law enforcement means more justice or fairness. That is ahistoric” (Washington Post). They cite the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, implemented after the Oklahoma City bombing, as an example of a “counterterrorism” policy with negative results. This attack was carried out by two white men who were labeled “domestic terrorists.” Instead of preventing domestic terrorism, the AEDPA broadened law enforcement’s reach and allowed legal residents to be deported or jailed for minor offenses (The Atlantic).

Journalist Aarti Shahani, whose father was unjustly incarcerated and whose uncle was deported because of this law, writes, “legal residents accused of “terrorism” were deported without hearing the testimony against them, or who had offered it” (The Atlantic). This is just one example of how the U.S. government takes threats of “domestic terrorism” perpetrated by white attackers and weaponizes it against communities of color.

“The entire framework of terrorism is really problematic,” Lea Kayali, a Palestinian community organizer and digital communications professional for the ACLU, tells me. “It’s understandable that people want to describe the feeling of being terrorized [on January 6]. There’s no question that the people out there were clearly trying to terrorize as part of their mission.” But she cautions us away from the terrorism framework because the definition of terrorism is malleable and vague. “Vague language doesn’t invite good policy. When you create policy on vague definitions it invites law enforcement discretion. It actually provides ammunition to systems of policing and law enforcement” (For more on such policies’ effects on American Muslims, check out this article in Al Jazeera.)

In fact, a leak exposed that in 2017 the FBI had created a new “domestic terrorism” category called “Black identity extremism” (The Intercept). This new category was said to pose a growing threat of premeditated violence against law enforcement and resulted in numerous investigations (Foreign Policy). In 2018, the FBI admitted to using its most advanced aircraft to surveil and monitor Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore and this year at BLM protests in Washington, D.C (Brennan Center).

Kayali notes that even outside of policy discussions, the term is a bad linguistic choice: “It serves to obfuscate the root causes of that violence.” By calling them “domestic terrorists” and not including the terms “white supremacy” or “white violence” in the description of these events, Kayali says we are effectively “navigating around the obstacles of white supremacy that are foundational to violence in this country.”

So, when we’re discussing the events at the Capitol, remember that the word terrorism holds a kind of power that goes beyond the dictionary definition. The word terrorism is attached to a framework that was created to criminalize Black and brown existence. Post 9/11, the term “terrorism” is inextricably tied to the entire counterterrorism industry, which has harmed marginalized communities, and which some research suggests has not deterred violent extremism at all (Brennan Center). For many, the word “terrorism” will never serve a movement that seeks to shrink the power of this counterterrorism industry and protect Black, Brown, and Indigenous people’s rights. Instead, we should be focussing on dismantling this counterterrorism framework of harmful policies and, rather, address the root of the problem: white supremacy.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Although well-intentioned, calling the white supremacists who took part in the attack on the Capitol “domestic terrorists” is actually harmful to marginalized communities because of the counterterrorism policies that result from that kind of language.
Counterterrorism policies often hurt communities of color by expanding law enforcement’s reach, allowing them to target, surveil, investigate, and prosecute these marginalized communities more easily.
In 2017 the FBI created a new “domestic terrorism” category called “Black identity extremism.” It has admitted to surveilling Black Lives Matter protests (Brennan Center).
In the words of Palestinian community organizer Lea Kayali, “Language is essential to manifesting the world that we’re trying to build and create together, words matter.”

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Nicole Cardoza 9/9/21 Nicole Cardoza 9/9/21

Shut 'em down.

These past few weeks mark fifty years since two historical moments in prison abolition occurred. To honor them, dozens of organizers have banded together under Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS) to rally “National Shut ‘em Down Demonstrations” on August 21 and September 9 to fight for the end of the prison-industrial complex (JLS).

TAKE ACTION

Donate to Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS), a national Black-led collective of imprisoned people fighting for prisoners' human rights by providing legal education, resources, and assistance to other prisoners.
Watch a video on what really happened during the Attica Prison Rebellion.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

The first date, August 21, represents the date that radical theorist and organizer George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards at San Quentin State Prison in California while attempting to lead a prison uprising. News of his death rallied organizers in prisons across the country, including those in Attica Correctional Facility in New York.

Although the Attica Prison rebellion itself was unplanned, prisoners had already been fighting to change the horrific conditions of the facilities. Prisoners were granted only one shower a week and one roll of toilet paper a month. They were also paid “slave wages,” with one prisoner noting that he made thirty cents a day doing laundry (Project NIA). A group of prisoners had banded together and wrote a list of demands — demands that weren’t ever met.

But things escalated after an altercation occurred in the yards on September 8, 1971. Because of it, two prisoners were escorted by guards to the “box,” a segregated part of Housing Block Z, where officers were known to inflict torture and brutality. Prisoners were outraged, especially because one of the prisoners wasn’t involved in the altercation. The next day, the 1,300 prisoners joined together and took control of the facilities (Project NIA). They took 39 people hostage and made demands for their release, including better living conditions, better food, religious freedom, more frequent showers, and ending mail censorship. State officials refused to comply (NV Database).

After four days, the New York state governor approved a raid to retake the facilities by force. Hundreds of state troopers, aided by the National Guard, stormed the facilities. They dropped tear gas and fired indiscriminately. In the end, 29 prisoners and ten hostages were killed. The state and federal governments worked quickly to cover their tracks, blaming and persecuting prisoners for the deaths of the hostages that they didn’t commit. A commission dedicated to investigating the truth behind the uprising stated that “with the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War” (Project NIA).

Despite these protests and the public outrage that followed, conditions in state and federal prisons are far from tolerable. And since then, incarceration rates have skyrocketed. In 1970, there were 48,498 people in federal and state prisons in the U.S (Project NIA). Today, fifty years later, there are about 1.8 million people (Vera). Because of overcrowding, poor healthcare and lack of access to hygienic materials, more than 661,000 incarcerated people and staff have been infected with coronavirus as of April 2021. At least 2,990 have died (EJI). As a result, there have been at least 106 rebellions held in prisons across the country regarding these inhumane conditions, many of which have largely gone unnoticed. In order for us to change these conditions, we must dismantle our nation’s false sense of comfort with the horrors of our criminal justice system. And that takes us listening – and supporting – the voices of those most impacted.

Key Takeaways

Today marks 50 years since the Attica Prison Rebellion, one of the bloodiest prison rebellions in our nation’s history.
Organizers across the country have planned demonstrations to rally against the brutalities of the prison-industrial complex.
Despite historical attempts to create change, state and federal prisons still place millions of people in horrific conditions.

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Nicole Cardoza 9/1/21 Nicole Cardoza 9/1/21

Repeal habitual offender statutes.

A petition to free Tameka Drummer has reached almost 300,000 signatures (Change). The Mississippi mother is serving a life sentence. Her crime? Possession of marijuana, stemming from a 2008 incident where her car was searched by police after she was pulled over for a missing license plate. Today, recreational cannabis is legal in nineteen states and the District of Columbia. Medical marijuana is legal in 37 states (Insider). “Tameka has been in prison since she was 34 years old.” She is now 46. “Her youngest child was 4 when she was arrested. In April, her child turned 16.” Unless this petition is successful, Drummer will live out her life in prison because of one time she had marijuana due to two prior convictions on her record and Mississippi’s harsh habitual offender laws (Filter Mag).

TAKE ACTION

Sign the petition to free Tameka Drummer, who was sentenced to life for marijuana possession under Mississippi habitual offender statutes.
Donate to FAMM, an organization working to reform habitual offender statutes in Mississippi.

GET EDUCATED

By Nia Norris (she/her)

Habitual offender laws, often known as “three strikes” laws, appeared in more than half of states during the 1990s. Under these laws, people convicted of two serious crimes face penalties ranging from a quarter century of incarceration to life in prison upon conviction of a third offense, no matter how minor (Equal Justice Initiative). In 2010, a Texas man named Larry Dayries was sentenced to 70 years in prison for stealing a sandwich under Texas’s habitual offender statute. The Whole Foods security guard who reported him posted on Facebook after Dayries’ sentencing: “Don’t mess with Whole Foods… 70 years is what you get when you fuck with us” (Texas Observer).

A group of current and former prosecutors gave another example of how habitual offender laws can work: “An 18-year old high school senior pushes a classmate down to steal his Michael Jordan $150 sneakers -- Strike One; he gets out of jail and shoplifts a jacket from the Bon Marche, pushing aside the clerk as he runs out of the store -- Strike Two; he gets out of jail, straightens out, and nine years later gets in a fight in a bar and intentionally hits someone, breaking his nose -- criminal behavior, to be sure, but hardly the crime of the century, yet it is Strike Three. He is sent to prison for the rest of his life" (ACLU).

Currently in Mississippi, more than half of the incarcerated women who are serving life sentences were convicted for drugs or another nonviolent crime. There are currently over 2,600 individuals serving life sentences under Mississippis’s habitual offender laws (Clarion Ledger). 75 percent of individuals who are sentenced under these laws are Black, although only 38 percent of the population of Mississippi is Black (The Appeal).

Drummer is not the only individual in Mississippi who is serving a life sentence for possession of marijuana, either. In May, the Mississippi Court of Appeals upheld Allen Russell’s 2019 life sentence for possession. The judge explicitly stated that Russell was not being sentenced for the possession, but for habitual offender (Associated Press).

Nationwide, the ACLU has found about a dozen state-level life sentences for marijuana possession, the majority of whom are Black (ACLU), though primarily white men and retailers profit from the legal cannabis industry. Acreage Holdings, one of the most successful cannabis companies, reported revenue of $12.9 million in the first quarter of 2019 (USA Today), while 54 individuals were sentenced by federal judges to life sentences for marijuana between 1996 and 2014 (Prison Insight).

Some state laws are finally changing. California had a similar reputation for excessively harsh sentences through habitual offender legislation and their “three strikes” law, but in 2012 passed Proposition 36 which changed the law to apply the “three strikes” law only in cases where the only in cases where the crime was “serious and violent” (Ballotpedia). Since Proposition 36, over 1000 incarcerated individuals in California have been released from prison. It is also important to note that the recidivism rate of individuals who were “propped out” under California law is significant lower than the state or national average (NAACP).

Missouri also changed their habitual offenders statute and allowed individuals sentenced to more than 30 years in prison to apply for parole after serving 20. Last year, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Bernette Johnson said that Louisiana's habitual offender law was “largely designed to re-enslave African Americans.” Under a new law, 3,000 incarcerated people in Louisiana might receive parole (The Advocate).

Habitual offender statutes contribute to mass incarceration and must be revised. Allowing white-owned cannabis companies to reap record profits while individuals are still serving life sentences for cannabis is institutional racism that must be addressed.

Key Takeaways

Habitual offender statutes have contributed to the mass incarceration of Black Americans in the United States since their passage during the 1990s.
Mississippi has some of the toughest habitual offender statutes in the United States and has upheld these even recently.
White-owned cannabis companies are raking in millions of dollars while Black Americans continue to serve life sentences for marijuana possession.

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Nicole Cardoza 8/30/21 Nicole Cardoza 8/30/21

Support unfairly targeted activists.

Last Friday, Shamar Betts received four years in federal prison for “inciting a riot” after George Floyd’s murder. He owes $1.5 million in restitution (News-Gazette). Black Lives Matter protests drew “aggressive federal prosecutions for crimes not usually in the purview of U.S. attorney’s offices.” Prosecutors demanded harsh sentences in an apparent effort to suppress anti-racist protestors who Attorney General Barr characterized as “domestic terrorists” (The Intercept).

TAKE ACTION

Support the Civil Liberties Defense Center’s crucial work defending activists from unjust prosecutions.
Sign this petition to support the release of still-incarcerated Ferguson protestor Joshua Williams.
Consider: who decides which types of protest and organizations are legitimate? How can we contribute to the movement for racial justice in the way we think is appropriate and effective without turning in those who might disagree? How might powerful institutions benefit from dividing “good” and “bad” protesters?

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

While charges began under Trump, “the Justice Department under Biden has continued many of these civil disorder and arson prosecutions.” “We’re not seeing a big change in the Biden administration with regard to the prosecutions of Black Lives Matter activists as compared with the previous administration,” said Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. In the wake of January 6th, Democrats introduced a bill creating “domestic terrorism offices” in the FBI, Justice Department, and Homeland Security. Activists fear that they would eventually be used to target racial justice movements (The Intercept).

Biden promised to sign the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but his administration sought harsh punishments for those arrested protesting the man’s death (NYTimes). How can the government reconcile with movements it represses?

Our piece on COINTELPRO explored how counterinsurgency efforts during the civil rights movement surveilled, imprisoned, and assassinated activists ranging from Muhammad Ali to Dr. Kin. Through COINTELPRO, the FBI worked with Chicago police to assassinate a sleeping Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter Black Panther Party (Huff Post). Had he not been executed at the age of 21, today would be his 73rd birthday. According to the ACLU’s Nusrat Choudhury, “The FBI appears to be engaged in a modern-day version of COINTELPRO” (FAIR).

One side of counterinsurgency is repressing parts of a social movement through disruption and draconian punishments. The other side of counterinsurgency is fostering those parts of a movement easiest to contain. Both serve to divert movements of the most directly affected seeking change of an unjust system.

“Counterinsurgency theory places a heavy emphasis on shaping the social environment,” writes policing scholar Kristian Williams. “Police-led partnerships [sometimes use] progressive nonprofits to channel and control political opposition.” After protests against the murder of Oscar Grant, nonprofits collaborating with the police took the lead in pushing protestors off the street at marches and denouncing not the violence of police but unruly protester behavior (Interface). And while they were setting up Hampton’s assassination, the FBI fostered relationships with “cooperative” Black moderates “as a counterinsurgency measure against the militant Negro community” (FBI, pg. 35).

Last year, “the media played a crucial role pushing narratives about ‘outside agitators.’ From MSNBC host Joy Reid to progressive representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, these mysterious agitators were all of a sudden showing up everywhere that confrontational protests occurred” (Teen Vogue). Some held up Dr. King’s legacy to protect “peaceful protests” from “outside agitators,” though King himself wrote, “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea” (University of Texas).

Political elites wish “to be able to present which protest is good or bad” to neutralize protests, said Lilith Sinclair, an Afro-Indigenous nonbinary organizer (OPB). That doesn’t mean we always agree with what everyone at a protest might say or do. It doesn’t mean everyone in the fight for justice is virtuous, that we should all set fire to fast food restaurants, or must applaud when it happens. It doesn’t mean police infiltration isn't a risk or that social movements can’t have good-faith debates about what is and is not appropriate. But when the police and government feel threatened by a movement for change, sowing division is a key tactic. We shouldn’t do that work for them.

If you want to stand in solidarity with racial justice movements, interrogate your instincts about policing which forms of protest are appropriate. If someone breaks a Target window after a police murder, ask yourself if you identify more with the store manager or with a young person of color who believes that this is the only way a racist system will hear them. The most boisterous protests of last year did not, unlike the police, murder anyone in cold blood or lock anyone in cages for decades. If we come together, despite our differences, we can resist counterinsurgency.

Key Takeaways

The Trump and Biden administrations have sought exceptionally harsh punishments against Black Lives Matter protesters.
Some protesters and organizations have taken to denouncing “bad” protesters, not police repression, as the chief problem facing the movement.
Supporting “good protesters” while persecuting “bad protesters” is a counterinsurgency strategy the government uses to disrupt social movements while maintaining its legitimacy and power.

RELATED ISSUES

7/6/2020 | Abolish qualified immunity.

6/30/2020 | Boycott as a form of protest.

6/22/2020 | Talk about our right to protest.

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Nicole Cardoza 7/30/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/30/21

Advocate for Black mental health.

Over the past few weeks, prominent Black female athletes have unabashedly prioritized their mental health above expectations from competitions and fans. Naomi Osaka, the 23-year-old tennis star who is the world’s highest-paid female athlete, withdrew from the French Open after being fined for declining interviews to protect her mental wellbeing (NYTimes). Sha’Carri Richardson, a sprinter, was suspended from the USA Track & Field team for smoking cannabis while processing the grief of her biological mother’s death (The Cut). And Monday, Simone Biles withdrew from the U.S. Olympics individual all-around competition to focus on her mental health (CNN). These courageous moments only highlight how frequently the mental health of Black people – particularly Black women – is overlooked and disregarded.

TAKE ACTION

Donate to BEAM, a non-profit organization committed to the mental health of Black communities.
Advocate for culturally-responsive mental health resources for you and your colleagues where you work.
Consider: How can you use your voice to advocate for prioritizing our collective mental and physical health?

GET EDUCATED

By Ebony Bellamy (she/her)

Compared to white people, Black people have a higher risk of developing mental health disorders because of the historical, economic, social, and political influences they’ve been systemically exposed to for decades (Columbia University). This race-based exclusion makes their community more likely to experience poverty, homelessness, incarceration, and substance abuse (Mental Health America). And these factors are known to be damaging to a person’s psychological and physical health.

Approximately 46 million individuals identify as Black or African American in the U.S., and of those people, over 16% reported having a mental illness within the past year (Mental Health America). That’s over 7 million people. These numbers have drastically increased since the video of George Floyd’s death was released. Within a week, the Census Bureau reported that “anxiety and depression among African Americans shot to higher rates than experienced by any other racial or ethnic group, with 41% screening positive for at least one of those symptoms” (Washington Post). The number of Black people showing clinical signs for anxiety or depression jumped from 36% to 41%, which means approximately 1.4 million more people started struggling with their mental health (Washington Post).

Yet in 2018, it was reported that 58.2% of Black people between the ages of 18 and 25 and 50.1% of Black adults between the ages of 26 and 49 with a severe mental illness did not receive treatment (SAMHSA). There is a “lack of trust in the medical system due to historical abuses of Black people in the guise of health care, less access to adequate insurance, financial burden, and history with discrimination in the mental health system” (Columbia University). These factors have caused Black people to feel reluctant about seeking psychiatric help when dealing with a mental illness.

In the United States, during the 1800s and 1900s, scientific racism was used as a way to justify slavery and the mistreatment of enslaved people (Counseling Today). During this time, prominent physicians and psychologists were known to discover “new” mental illnesses that only affected enslaved people. Prime examples of this were “drapetomania,” a treatable mental illness that caused Black enslaved people to flee captivity, and “dysaethesia aethiopica,” an alleged mental illness that was the proposed cause of laziness, ‘rascality’ and ‘disrespect for the master’s property’” (Counseling Today). And to treat these “illnesses,” whipping and other forms of physical abuse were recommended.

The mislabeling of mental illnesses for Black people continued well after slavery was abolished. In the 1960s “schizophrenia was described as a ‘protest psychosis’ in which Black men developed ‘hostile and aggressive feelings’ and ‘delusional anti-whiteness’ after listening to or aligning with activist groups such as Black Power, the Black Panthers or the Nation of Islam” (Counseling Today). And today, Black adults are more likely than white people with similar symptoms to be diagnosed with schizophrenia (Mental Health America). Black men, in particular, are overdiagnosed with schizophrenia. They are four times more likely than white men to be diagnosed with it and are underdiagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and mood disorders (Counseling Today).

This overdiagnosis of schizophrenia caused people to believe the Black psyche was “unwell, immoral, and inherently criminal” (Counseling Today). White society even used this belief to justify police brutality during the civil rights movement, the creation of Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration in prisons and psychiatric hospitals (Counseling Today). Unfortunately, this old belief has negatively impacted the way people view Black mental health today.

Black adults with mental health illnesses, specifically those that involve psychosis, are more likely to be placed in jail or prison than people of other races (Mental Health America). In 2016, it was reported that the imprisonment rate for Black men was six times greater than that of white men. The imprisonment rate for Black women was nearly double that of white women (Bureau of Justice). Due to this tremendous incarceration rate, “there are more than three times as many people with serious mental illnesses in jails and prisons than in hospitals” (Counseling Today).

Rather than receiving treatment for mental illness, Black adults are punished and incarcerated for their mental health struggles. This wouldn’t need to happen if access to affordable health insurance was made available sooner. Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was introduced in March 2010, “nearly one in three Hispanic Americans and one in five Black Americans were uninsured, compared to about one in eight white Americans” (Brookings Institution). Although the ACA has helped communities of color gain health insurance, there are still 30 million people in America without insurance, and half of those are people of color (Brookings Institution).

“There's a strong relationship between socioeconomic status and health such that people at the lower end, people in poverty tend to have poorer health and tend to have fewer resources ... for dealing with the stressors of life.”

Diane R. Brown, Professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and author, for HuffPost

Despite more Black adults having access to affordable health insurance, they’re still hesitant to seek help due to a lack of representation in the mental health field. Approximately 60 percent of psychologists are white, while less than two percent of American Psychological Association members are Black (American Psychological Association).

This lack of diversity among providers makes individuals doubt that therapists or psychologists will be culturally competent to treat their mental health struggles (Mental Health America). Researchers recognize that a therapist’s lack of cultural responsiveness, cultural mistrust, and potential negative views from a therapist can significantly impact the level of care and service the Black community receives for their mental health (Columbia University).

To combat this, providers have been practicing cultural responsiveness. Being culturally responsive is when a provider recognizes and understands the role culture plays in their and their patient’s life and use that understanding to adapt a treatment plan that meets their patient’s needs within their cultural framework (Columbia University).

Although mental health facilities have spent the last four decades increasing cultural awareness and cultural competency training (Counseling Today), there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure Black adults receive access to mental health services and receive adequate care. We can start by understanding how someone’s race and ancestral history impacts their mental health.

Key Takeaways

Black people have a higher risk of developing mental health disorders due to the historical, economic, social, and political influences they’ve been systemically exposed to.
Over 7 million Black adults deal with a severe mental illness.
Black people are less likely to seek psychiatric help because of a lack of trust, limited access to affordable insurance, and a history of discrimination.
Black adults with mental health illnesses, specifically those that involve psychosis, are more likely to be placed in jail or prison than people of other races.

Nicole Cardoza 7/29/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/29/21

Supporting organizing beyond nonprofits.

In many parts of the country, nonprofits are the only place to gain access to essential products and services. Sometimes, nonprofits fill in gaps in the state safety net. In other times, they work in coordination with governments to deliver necessities. Often, nonprofits organize and advocate for marginalized communities. Many of us donate time or money to these organizations because we’re compelled by the work they do to feed the unhoused, bail people out of jail, or provide vital healthcare services. We depend on nonprofits to advocate on behalf of a righteous cause or uplift the plight of a community. As we do, it’s important to understand the expanding nonprofit sector has limitations as well as strengths.

TAKE ACTION

Look into grassroots frameworks like abolition, bottom-up mutual aid, and freedom of movement across borders.
Understand the limitations of nonprofits, and support other kinds of community organizations.
Look into grassroots frameworks like abolition, bottom-up mutual aid, and freedom of movement across borders.

GET EDUCATED

Nonprofits are tax-exempt organizations. Unlike for-profit companies, they don’t accumulate and distribute profits to their investors or owners. Because of this, they aren’t required to pay income tax. Like for-profit companies, many nonprofits have CEOs, boards of directors, and paid staff, but often depend on grants from charitable foundations or well-off donors to cover operating expenses. Homeowners associations, chambers of commerce, and fire companies are all usually nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations, but the word “nonprofit” commonly invokes 501(c)(3)’s: charitable, service, and community organizing groups (National Council of Nonprofits, IRS).

Back in 2014, I ran an afterschool program for working-class Latinx youth for a nonprofit that provided services from immigration legal support to food distribution. As someone from a working-class immigrant family myself, it was really exciting to be able to support students coming from very similar backgrounds and I was proud to do such crucial community work.

When local police violently arrested presumed gang members with no evidence, my nonprofit’s director coordinated a town hall with the police department. The town hall was an attempt by the police department to quell the residents’ outraged questions and restore the department’s legitimacy in the community. Since many of the people we were working with had been victimized by the police, this was confusing and concerning to me and many of my coworkers.

We later found out that the nonprofit ultimately had no choice but to host the event. Much of its funding came from the city government, which insisted the police be invited to the town hall to “mend relationships” with the community. The organization ultimately had to be accountable not to community members but its funders, despite how the police had discriminated against the community we served.

Many groups have grappled with this tension. INCITE, an intersectional feminist organization, filed to become a nonprofit so they could more easily receive grants from donors and foundations. In 2004, they received a $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation which was later withdrawn when the foundation found out that that INCITE supported Palestinian rights. INCITE learned that “foundations indeed can control your organizing, and on the other hand, there are other ways to resource movements when we think outside the foundation universe” (INCITE).

INCITE ultimately decided to stop being a nonprofit and depend on financial support from their communities instead. As a nonprofit, the professionalization of activism shifted their priorities to reporting to donors instead of organizing to end violence. They found that much of their vision for change had been limited by the strings these donors attached. INCITE decided to abandon their 501(c)3 status and forego funding to focus on organizing against violence on poor, immigrant, women, BIPOC, and queer communities, whether in the U.S. or Palestine (INCITE).

Because government contracts and donor money are major sources of funding for non-profit organizations, they often need to prioritize their relationship to politicians and wealthy donors. In another example, many community-oriented Silicon Valley nonprofits deal with the effects of the housing crisis like homelessness and displacement. Confusingly, many of these same organizations support tech developments projected to make the crisis worse. Many nonprofits endorsed a new Google megacampus, hoping to benefit from generous grants the company was offering in exchange for support (KQED, CNBC). These nonprofits’ public support of a project likely to harm the communities they worked in was crucial to the development’s eventual approval by local government (San Francisco Chronicle).

The nonprofit model resources important and sometimes crucial work, but there are limitations on how much these organizations can demand structural change for a more profoundly just world. Whether it is opposing gentrification, policing, racism, incarceration or any other cause, we should uplift grassroots efforts that empower poor, immigrant, queer, and BIPOC communities with explicitly anti-racist, abolitionist, and anti-oppressive policies and practices. Organizations like INCITE that are committed to movement building are always in need of funds or promotion. A movement needs all of us. We need to support organizing beyond nonprofits.

Key Takeaways

Nonprofits have strengths but also limitations that grassroots organizations do not. Sometimes, these limitations can lead to harm the communities they serve.
Nonprofits should build collective movements to make lasting transformation.
People with direct experience of oppression should determine how resources should be allocated to undo these oppressions.

Nicole Cardoza 7/28/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/28/21

Support equitable historical preservation.

Earlier this month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NHPA) issued more than $3 million in grant funding to preserve forty Black American historic sites across the U.S (Saving Places). This funding is especially significant considering the vast racial disparity in historic sites deemed worth preserving.

TAKE ACTION

Identify a local grassroots organization in your community committed to preserving historical sites. What are they working on now? What have they protected? What have they lost?
Research to find the closest national historic preservation site to your address using this interactive map. What is it, and whose story is being told? Share your findings with a friend.
Learn more about the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, launched by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Earlier this month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NHPA) issued more than $3 million in grant funding to preserve forty Black American historic sites across the U.S (Saving Places). This funding will help everything from capacity building to programming, ensuring these spaces won’t get lost. The sites include the Emmett Till’s funeral home in Chicago, the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh, the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Ohio, and the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center in Denver. You can read a complete list here. This funding is especially significant considering the vast racial disparity in historic sites deemed worth preserving.

Since its founding, the NHPA has identified nearly two million locations worthy of preservation. The work of preservation, as a result, has generated an estimated two million jobs and more than a hundred billion dollars in private investments. However, most of the spaces identified cater to white history, not the stories of people of color. Preservation work by the federal government was started to protect Confederate battlefields, cemeteries, and burial sites after the Civil War (New Yorker). In addition, wealthier white communities disproportionately benefit from these initiatives: the areas tend to be in white neighborhoods, and the majority of the jobs go to white people (EJI). Because one of the criteria for preservation is architectural significance, the process tends to overvalue ornate buildings, not modest structures like slave cabins and tenement houses, or sites that might not have structures, like farms, slave auctions, and burial sites (New Yorker). Related: many of these preservation sites are gatekeeping lands stewarded by Indigenous communities. Learn more in another newsletter.

The civil rights movement of the past decade has accelerated efforts to maintain and preserve historic sites for people of color. Simultaneously, it’s scrutinized the number of Confederate monuments and sites currently under preservation. This is necessary work to both balance the preservation of our nation’s history and reckon with how centering the Confederacy influenced recent racial attacks and dissent. The decision to remove the Robert F. Lee statue in Charlottesville, VA sparked the deadly white nationalist riot in 2017 (Forbes). Dylann Roof named the Confederacy as inspiration for the violence he inflicted in 2015 (AJC). Images of the Confederate flag in the Capitol during the insurrection this January unnerved everyday citizens and historians alike (NYTimes). Preserving our history needs to be not just equitable but aligned with the safety and security our citizens deserve.

Broad and sweeping financial donations often get the credit for preserving historical sites, but in reality, many of the historical landmarks for people of color are preserved because of grassroots organizing by local and everyday people. Without their efforts to protect this land, it’s likely that these sites wouldn’t be here today to receive funding at all. Consider how Preservation Chicago mobilized to gather over thirty thousand signatures to protect the home of Emmett Till’s family for its use as a museum (change.org). Or how local activists have been fighting to preserve one of the nation’s largest slave auction sites from multiple developments in Savannah, GA (Savannah Now). Right now, the Bedford Church African Burial Ground Coalition is trying to protect an enslaved African burial ground from becoming a housing project (PRISM). And the Robert F. Lee statue mentioned above was finally removed earlier this year. But, the conversations were started by Zyahna Bryant, who was just 15-years-old when she started a petition in 2016 (Teen Vogue). In the absence of city, state, or federal support – and often governmental opposition – brave individuals of color have ensured their rich and diverse history won’t be forgotten.

This is especially important when considering the current baseless attack on American history happening in schools and institutions. If children won’t see these stories in their history books, it matters to have them acknowledged physically in their communities. Hopefully, institutional recognition for federal sites isn’t just a trend, but a lasting commitment to our past.

Key Takeaways

The National Trust for Historic Preservation dedicated $3 million to preserve 40 Black historic sites.
It’s often grassroots organizers who preserve historic landmarks for people of color.
As conservatives ban teaching the truth about American history, it’s more important than ever to preserve historic landmarks that highlight our shared past.

Nicole Cardoza 7/27/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/27/21

Reconsider theft.

What has shaped our collective understanding about theft? Who is disproportionately criminalized for stealing? Today’s newsletter compares shoplifting to institutionalized forms of theft.

TAKE ACTION

Encourage leaders to repeal civil forfeiture laws at the state and federal level.
Oppose “tough-on-crime” legislation which penalizes ordinary people instead of those who steal with impunity.
Start conversations around the idea of shoplifting using the information in this post. Consider: what has shaped our perception of theft?

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

After a spate of videos depicting brazen shoplifting from San Francisco stores, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law reintroducing the crime of “organized retail theft.” Under the new law, prosecutors are able to felony charges not only against the shoplifters themselves but anyone claimed to have “knowingly participated” in such thefts in any capacity (Long Beach Post).

Shoplifting isn’t ideal. But shoplifting is already heavily disincentivized, with police waiting outside grocery stores in poor neighborhoods and armed security guards stationed in pharmacies. We should question why so much surveillance and violence is aimed at people stealing diapers or candy bars when the largest sources of theft in this country are barely recognized.

There’s one kind of theft that rakes in billions of dollars each year in the United States. It’s not home burglaries, carjackings, or elaborate bank heists. It goes by an innocuous-sounding, legalistic name: civil forfeiture. And it’s not committed by dastardly criminals evading the law, but by American law enforcement itself.

“Civil forfeiture allows police to seize — and then keep or sell — any property they allege is involved in a crime,” say civil liberties defenders. “Owners need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by the government” (ACLU).

It seems incredulous that your local police department is allowed to take your home or car and sell it for profit without even charging you with a crime. But in 2014, the total value of property lost in burglaries was less than the $4.5 billion of property seized in civil forfeitures by federal law enforcement alone (Washington Post).

Pennsylvania State Police simply take cash from drivers’ cars. In one out of three cases, the driver isn’t even charged with a crime. “Legal experts say the practice is a form of ‘highway robbery,’” one that netted the department over half a million dollars between 2017 and 2020 (Spotlight PA). Police raided one Alabama computer repair shop and seized 130 computers, mostly belonging to customers. Though no criminal charges were ever filed, the police kept the computers (AL). One Indiana man faced a maximum penalty of $10,000 after selling a small amount of drugs to a police officer. But the police also took his Land Rover worth $42,000, though he purchased it with money from a life insurance policy. He took the case to the Supreme Court and won, though the court declined to ban the practice more broadly (MSN).

Street crimes like shoplifting and robbery are also dwarfed by white-collar crimes like embezzlement, stock manipulation, and fraud. According to the FBI, the total cost of all street crime is less than 2% of the cost of white-collar crime (Psychology Today). But the white-collar crimes of the rich are treated much more leniently than the street crimes of everyday people. Paul Manafort was sentenced to four years in prison for cheating the IRS out of millions of dollars. A defendant in a New York court received the same sentence for stealing $100 in quarters (BBC).

When it comes to working-class people and people of color, the American state harshly enforces the rule of law and demands respect for private property. But when the powerful flout the law to rob the poor, stern punishment in defense of high-minded ideals is nowhere to be found.

When politicians demand crackdowns on petty crimes, we might reflect on the wild leniency shown to the most powerful people in our society and the people supposedly there to enforce its laws. The laws of this country favor the rich (Mother Jones). But when the wealthy and powerful violate the rules already tilted in their favor, their punishments are minimal.

Theft from a multinational corporation isn’t like stealing from a neighbor’s pantry. If you steal food from a CVS, their employees often can’t be charged, though businesses steal millions of dollars every year from their own employees through wage theft (Eater). A shoplifted store won’t even see its profits drop, since businesses already buy insurance against theft (Shopify). The consequences of your action would be literally negligible.

Those most marginalized by American society are often those pushed into “survival crimes” like illegal sex work, drug sales, or petty theft to survive (Statesman). Giving such people a criminal record in fact makes it more likely that they will continue to be pushed into such endeavors in the future since they will be cut out of the formal labor market. The clerks and cashiers of pharmacy chains do lose money due to theft. This is not due to shoplifting but the corporate CEOs and investors who don’t pay workers the full value of their labor. We need to denounce punitive measures against marginalized people while the privileged rob and steal with ease.

Key Takeaways

The government of California is cracking down on shoplifting with legislation against “organized retail crime.”
Crimes like theft are dwarfed by both white-collar crimes and civil forfeiture, which allows police to legally steal the possessions of innocent people.
Civil forfeiture is largely legal and white-collar criminals receive lenient punishment while those committing petty theft are overpoliced and criminalized.

Nicole Cardoza 7/26/21 Nicole Cardoza 7/26/21

Record the police.

But if you see police harming or even just detaining another person, staying to record a video could be the difference between life and death. Much police brutality happens because cops think they can get away with it: it is out of the public eye or they know that the victim and witnesses will not be believed. Though the tragic deaths on camera of people like George Floyd show that this is not a silver bullet, the knowledge that they are being filmed can dramatically change police officers’ behavior.

TAKE ACTION

Learn how to copwatch and what rights you have when stopped by the police.
Support copwatching groups like those in Berkeley, L.A., Athens County, Gainesville, San Diego, and New York City or start copwatching patrols in your own community.
Learn how the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense started by copwatching in Oakland, California.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

On the 11th of this month, the Pulitzer Board awarded a special citation alongside its prestigious awards for outstanding journalism. This citation went to Darnella Frazier, the 17-year old outside Minneapolis’s Cup Foods last year who recorded police officers murdering George Floyd. While police were attacking a stranger, she could have turned away. Instead, she took a video that sparked global resistance.

It is appalling that some demand graphic video proof before they acknowledge the existence of police brutality or that others watch and share videos like “digital souvenirs of violence” to consume without thought or responsibility (Anti-Racism Daily). Frazier was not aspiring to become a citizen-journalist the day she had a horrifyingly “traumatic, life-changing experience,” and special citations do not heal trauma or raise the dead (NPR). The goal isn’t to produce more videos of state-sanctioned murder. The goal must be to dismantle a system that enacts such atrocities.

So long as you and the police officer are in public space, and you cannot be construed as obstructing them, filming the police is entirely legal. “Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible is a constitutional right,” according to the ACLU. “And that includes police and other government officials carrying out their duties” (ACLU).

There are groups devoted to filming the police to prevent police brutality – also known as copwatching – all across the nation. If one doesn’t exist in your neighborhood, you can form a copwatch group of your own. These organizations, which are often not nonprofits but instead grassroots collectives, provide training and go on patrols to interrupt police violence by recording.

You also might witness a police interaction while going about your daily life. It’s recommended that you keep your distance, that you have other people with you if possible, and that you keep your camera pointed at the police officers, not the person being detained. You should upload the video as soon as possible so the police can’t delete it off your phone. In the event that the police stop you, you should never answer any questions, as is your constitutional right, and refuse to unlock your phone with them unless they come back with a warrant (The Nation).

It’s best to copwatch with other people and familiarize yourself with your basic legal rights to ensure you’re as safe as possible, ideally as part of an organization. But sometimes we come across situations in less than optimal circumstances. It’s important to reflect that something as simple as stopping and taking your phone out could be the difference between an inconvenience and an atrocity in someone else’s life.

As Portland’s Rosehip Street Medics say in their trainings, “the number one weapon of the police is fear” (Seattle Weekly). In the face of this fear, it takes courage to do something as simple as recording the actions of people who claim to be our public servants. It takes courage to stay and bear witness when a cop tells you to get lost, it takes courage to exercise your Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions, and it is always much easier to walk away. But copwatching is a simple – and legal – act that might stop brutality before it happens. Once we break through this fear, we can keep each other safe.

Key Takeaways

Filming the police, also known as copwatching, can ensure they do not brutalize the people they’ve stopped.
Copwatching is constitutionally protected and therefore legal in all 50 states.
There are copwatching organizations across the country and resources available so people can record the police in as safe a way as possible.

Nicole Cardoza 6/17/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/17/21

End disparities in crack cocaine sentencing.

Racism in drug sentencing has been debated for years. Huge disparities in mandatory minimum sentences meant possession of crack cocaine, associated with Black urban communities, was punished much more harshly than possession of the same amounts of powder cocaine, favorite of celebrities and suburbanites. These sentencing requirements contributed to the mass incarceration of Black Americans, often low-level drug offenders. Though on Monday the Supreme Court had the chance to right this wrong, it instead ruled that low-level drug offenders do not always require new sentencing under the First Step Act of 2018 (New York Times).

Happy Thursday! This week, the Supreme Court ruled that low-level crack cocaine offenders convicted more than a decade ago can’t take advantage of a 2018 federal law to seek reduced prison time. We're diving into the history of the "War on Drugs" and the racial disparities in crack cocaine sentencing.

Thank you for your support! This daily, free, independent newsletter is made possible by your support. If you can, consider making a donation to support our team. You can start a monthly subscription on Patreon or our website, or give one-time using our website, PayPal, or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza).

Have a great day!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Write to your lawmakers in support of legislation of the EQUAL Act, as well as full decriminalization.
Donate to your local syringe exchange program or the National Harm Reduction Coalition.
Donate to organizations such as Drug Policy Alliance that advocate for decriminalization.

GET EDUCATED

By Nia Norris (she/her)

Drug laws have been racist ever since Nixon declared the “War on Drugs” in 1971 (Drug Policy Alliance). In the 1980s, unfounded fears that pregnant people of color who used crack would give birth to a generation of disabled “crack babies” (NPR) incentivized harsher laws like the Sentencing Act of 1984 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which imposed mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. A mandatory minimum means that someone convicted of a certain crime must receive at least a certain sentence, no matter what other extenuating factors may have been present. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act prescribed significantly harsher penalties for crack cocaine, with five grams of crack carrying the same mandatory minimum sentence as 500 grams of powder cocaine (CJPF).

Crack and powder are two delivery mechanisms of the same drug, though one was punished 100 times more harshly than the other. “The primary difference between crack and powdered cocaine, some say, is the public perception of the user and the seller,” said the New York Times. “The white suburbanite [is] usually linked with powdered cocaine, and the young, urban black man connected to crack” (New York Times). The Clinton administration’s 1994 Crime Bill enacted even tougher sentencing laws and incentivized the construction of private prisons (ACLU). In 2000, several organizations which had been advocating for sensible drug policies instead of mass incarceration since the late 1980s came together to form the Drug Policy Alliance (Drug Policy Alliance).

Up until 2010, crack cocaine possession continued to be the only drug that carried a mandatory prison sentence whether it was a small amount for personal use or a large amount for distribution. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 eliminated this mandatory prison sentence and reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 (USSC). The First Step Act of 2018 reduced mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, with some reductions applied retroactively to those already sentenced. However, the law did not eliminate mandatory minimums entirely (CRS Reports). Monday’s Supreme Court ruling held that only people sentenced specifically under a mandatory minimum modified by this law could apply for retroactive relief.

The proposed EQUAL Act would eliminate the disparity in sentencing for crack versus powder cocaine entirely and offer people who are incarcerated for crack offenses to retroactively reduce their sentencing (Vox). Although it would be a step in the right direction, we need to look at full decriminalization if we want to combat the impact that the so-called “War on Drugs” has had on minorities. In November, Oregon became the first state in the country to fully decriminalize drugs. The impact of drug decriminalization would be to reduce the prison population (and the costs associated with it), use law enforcement resources more meaningfully, prioritize health and safety over punishment, reduce the stigma associated with substance use disorders, and make evidence-based harm reduction practices more accessible, including syringe and other safer-usage supply access, supervised use sites, and naloxone (Drug Policy Alliance).

The so-called “war on drugs” has done nothing to reduce drug use and has only served as an avenue to incarcerate Black Americans at higher rates through the use of mandatory minimum sentencing and other sentencing biases (American Progress). Reduction in sentencing is a good first step, but the ultimate goal should be decriminalization in order to treat addiction as a public health crisis instead of a criminal matter.

Key Takeaways

Drug policy has historically been written with racist intentions and fueled by hysteria over the crack crisis. Crack carries a significantly larger (18:1) sentence than powdered cocaine.
Recent legislation to reduce mandatory minimums for crack have continued to treat crack more harshly than powdered cocaine, and efforts to eliminate this disparity entirely have only recently been introduced through the EQUAL Act.
Decriminalization of drugs would reduce the impact of mass incarceration and treat addiction as a public health crisis instead of a criminal offense.

8/27/2020 | Help decriminalize drug possession.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 6/15/21 Nicole Cardoza 6/15/21

End cash bail.

In the U.S., it’s legal to be kidnapped and incarcerated without being convicted of any crime. You haven’t confessed. You aren’t considered dangerous or liable to flee before your court date. You have not been proven guilty so you must, by this country’s legal code, be considered innocent. You are nonetheless told you will be incarcerated indefinitely. Your trial date may be scheduled for a few weeks from now – – or, it may not arrive for years.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back. This time last year, bail funds across the country were receiving unprecedented levels of donations as protests surged in support of racial equity. But how does cash bail work, and why were those donations so urgently needed at that time? Today, Andrew explains the role of cash bail in our criminal justice system and how we must work to abolish cash bail.

Have a great day!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate to bail funds to ensure nobody is incarcerated solely for their inability to pay.
Oppose any expansion of the carceral state like increased police funding, jail construction, or mandatory minimum laws.
Support District Attorneys committed to ending cash bail. Once elected, work to ensure that bail is set for as few people as possible.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

The racial reckoning last summer sparked a resurgence of efforts to address the injustice of cash bail.

In the U.S., it’s legal to be kidnapped and incarcerated without being convicted of any crime. You haven’t confessed. (Read about the injustice of plea deals.) You aren’t considered dangerous or liable to flee before your court date. You have not been proven guilty so you must, by this country’s legal code, be considered innocent. You are nonetheless told you will be incarcerated indefinitely. Your trial date may be scheduled for a few weeks from now – – or, it may not arrive for years.

Your jailers have told you that if you pay a hefty bribe, they will let you walk out the door, free until called for your trial. But perhaps you and your family can’t afford the arbitrary number set for your release. You might consult a bail loan shark (The Appeal), or try to get support from a local bail fund. But otherwise, you wait. And in the process, many lose their job, house, and reputation – all while suffering the physical and emotional toll.

The scenario described above is the reality for 460,000 Americans right now (GQ). It’s the numerical equivalent of a supervillain holding every resident of both Reno and Madison, WI for ransom – except the supervillain is the American government.

“95% of the people in this jail are waiting on a trial,” said a Chicago sheriff. “On any given day we have probably two to three hundred people that, if they came up with $500, they would leave” (CBS News).

In 2010, 16-year old Kalief Browder was stopped by the police for robbery. The police found nothing. The supposed victim then changed his story and accused Browder of stealing a backpack weeks earlier. This was enough for the police to arrest him.

A judge set Browder’s bail at $3,000. He could not pay, so he was sent to Rikers Island. Shortly after arriving, he was sent to solitary confinement for the first of many times. His final stretch in solitary lasted 17 months. After three years the D.A. dropped the charges and at 20, Khalief Browder went home a free man (New Yorker). Rikers, he said, robbed him of his happiness. Two years later, he died by suicide (Vibe).

In 2011, the Supreme Court said California’s jails were “incompatible with the concept of human dignity”; one catatonic man was caged for 24 hours in a pool of his own urine (Human Rights Watch). Incarcerated people in Philadelphia wake up and go to sleep surrounded by mouse feces (Marshall Project). Arizona jails live-streamed video of suspects being strip-searched and using the toilet on the internet (Human Rights Watch). When women report sexual assault in this country’s jails, they are placed in solitary (Truthout). Almost 2,000 people in an Orange County jail contracted COVID after the sheriff refused a court order to reduce the jail population (Time).

A majority of those in jail are awaiting trial. An overwhelming majority of those in pretrial detention are incarcerated just because they can’t pay bail (Prison Policy Initiative).

Incarceration can’t reduce harm when jails and prisons have systematic sexual violence, assault, and abuse. We know they don’t keep us safe since we have hard data that being incarcerated makes people more likely to “reoffend” (Daily Dot). America’s jails and prisons are in flagrant violation of international norms and any reasonable moral code: no human should endure such conditions, including, yes, those convicted of serious and terrible crimes (Medium).

But it is especially appalling that those considered innocent spend months or years in such institutions solely because they lack the money to ransom themselves from the state. There is a movement around the country to end the practice of cash bail. Residents of San Francisco and Philadelphia elected district attorneys who committed to ending it (Huff Post, NBC). Algorithmic “risk assessment tools” in place of cash bail can still import racial biases, and even anti-cash bail D.A.’s like Philly’s Larry Krasner unjustifiably over-incarcerate those awaiting trial (Philadelphia Bail Fund). Ending cash bail is still a necessity.

We should only allow district attorneys who oppose the practice to take office, we need to stand with communities to hold them accountable once they do, and those with financial means should give generously to community bail funds to ensure nobody in this country is locked for poverty alone. We have a responsibility to dismantle a historically large, systematically racist, and monumentally unjust system in any way we can.

Key Takeaways

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are incarcerated solely because they can’t post bail.

American jails are rife with violence, assault, abuse, and inhumane conditions.
Ending cash bail is an important step in ending incarceration, a practice we know does not prevent interpersonal harm.

RELATED ISSUES

1/12/2021 | Abolish the death penalty.

5/27/2021 | Advocate for our right to trial.

10/16/2020 | Abolish the grand jury.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/27/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/27/21

Advocate for our right to trial.

The U.S. positions itself as a just country with a superior legal system where people are always considered innocent until proven guilty and always granted the right to a trial before a jury of their peers. Except this isn’t true at all. Despite the promise of the Sixth Amendment, we do not have an effective right to trial because today, the overwhelming majority of cases will never see a judge.

Happy Thursday! Understanding abolition requires us to consider how our criminal justice system fails to live up to its expectations. Part of that is understanding how our right to trial is often convoluted. Today, Andrew unpacks more.

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible. If you want to support, give $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Read the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s report on “The Trial Penalty” and learn about racism in the criminal justice system.
Follow the Prison Policy Initiative (Instagram), The Marshall Project, and Prison Legal News.
Learn about how even deplorable acts of harm require justice from outside the legal system. (TW: discussion of child sexual abuse throughout).
Support Decarcerate PA (Instagram), the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, the Center for Constitutional Rights, or a local group working to fight prosecution, incarceration, and dependence on the state for addressing harm.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Some think that most criminal cases go to trial and that those who take a plea deal are always guilty. But in reality, only a third to a fourth off felony cases went to trial in the 1960s. Today, the figure is just one in twenty. 90% of the criminal convictions are the result of a plea deal, not a trial (The Outline). Most convictions happen after a defendant gives in to a prosecutor offering them a lighter sentence if they plead guilty or a much heavier sentence should they lose in court.

It’s not hard to imagine an innocent person who may have already spent months in jail deciding to take such a deal rather than risk a trial. This “trial penalty,” says the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, “has virtually eliminated the constitutional right to a fair trial” (NACDL). In the words of Judge Jed S. Rakoff, “Our criminal justice system is almost exclusively a system of plea bargaining, negotiated behind closed doors and with no judicial oversight. The outcome is very largely determined by the prosecutor alone” (The Marshall Project). Only 2% of those facing federal charges go to trial, and that percentage drops every year (Pew). We now have a system where prosecutors use plea deals to simply assign sentences to the disproportionately Black and Brown people kidnapped by the American state.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world (Equal Justice Initiative) and incarcerates a greater number of people than any other country. One out of every four people incarcerated today are locked up in the United States, despite the fact that it has less than 5% of the global population (ACLU). The vast majority of those incarcerated are neither convicted nor sentenced by a judge or jury. The American criminal justice system is exceptional in many ways, but it is hard to imagine that such a system is exceptionally just.

Decrying the drop in cases taken to trial doesn’t mean we should go back in time. American justice wasn’t just when slavery was the law of the land. American justice wasn’t just in the Jim Crow era, when “Black Codes” and the convict leasing system returned thousands of Black people to effective slavery. It wasn’t just in the 1950s and 60s, when civil rights protestors were convicted as criminals (Equal Justice Initiative). It wasn’t just before 1963, when poor defendants had no right to an attorney (Britannica), or before 2003, when gay sex was illegal in more than a dozen states (Britannica). The American justice system has never provided justice for the masses of Black and Brown people, queer and gender non-conforming people, or poor people in general. That today almost nobody receives even the formality of a trial is but the latest egregious chapter in a long, enraging story.

People in every country on Earth, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, are taught that their country’s system is uniquely fair. Many Americans, despite all evidence, believe in the goodness of “our” system. Even after the uprisings of last summer, many seek minor reforms. If only we could modify the local police or change a few sentences of the legal code, the thinking goes, we could have the pure world of Law & Order episodes: intrepid cops who arrest the bad guy, a dashing prosecutor who uncovers incontrovertible proof, and a villain who tearfully confesses it all from the stand. The egregious reality of our court system suggests that we might instead look at limiting its power altogether. This means opposing incarceration, not only for drug or non-violent offenders but for everyone at all times (Prison Policy Initiative). This means opposing cages for people, whether they are in private prisons or prisons and jails run by the state. This means looking for transformation and justice within oppressed communities instead of demanding that prosecutors throw the book at alleged law-breakers (Teen Vogue).

Recognizing the lack of an effective right to a trial is one place to start.

Key Takeaways

Almost none of those charged with a crime go to trial. Instead, defendants are pressured into accepting plea deals.
In most cases, guilt isn’t established by a judge or jury. Instead, prosecutors are free to set sentences for suspects who plead guilty.
This means the right to a trial has effectively been written out of the U.S. criminal justice system.

10/29/2020 | Fight racist death row sentencing.

8/26/2020 | Be an active bystander.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/13/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/13/21

Fight hate beyond hate crimes.

Hate crime charges serve as a sentencing enhancement when someone acts with bias while committing a crime. This bias must be against members of a protected class – such as a specific race, religion, or sexual orientation – and it must be a motivating factor for the crime (Time). It seems reasonable that a crime is more odious if it occurs solely because the victim is a member of an oppressed community.

Happy Thursday! And welcome back to the newsletter. Although it's important we name how racism and discrimination influence violence against marginalized groups, hate crime legislation can disproportionately harm these same communities. Today, Andrew looks at the recent crimes designated as hate crimes and the disparities in sentencing.

Thank you to everyone that gives a little when they can to keep this newsletter going! If you can, consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. This newsletter will continue to be a free resource because of this collective support.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Learn more about what hate crime laws are and how they have actually been used against people of color.
Practice building community safety without policing and the Audre Lorde Project’s (Instagram) safety tips.
Read about why we should respond to anti-Asian violence with abolition, not hate crime legislation.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In March, a white man walked into three Asian massage businesses and murdered eight people, six of them Asian women. All were identifiable as Asian-owned establishments. He entered each intending to take lives and admitted as much to police (NBC News). Immediately after the shooting, a Sheriff’s Deputy gave a press conference about the attack. He denied it was racially motivated, saying “yesterday was a really bad day” for the killer (MSN). It is almost impossible to imagine a police officer offering the same kindness to an Asian woman who shoots down six white people in their workplaces.

Understandably, many demanded that this vile act be labeled a hate crime, a common response after similar atrocities. Such killings were obviously motivated by hate, and we wish to see them acknowledged as such. But there are real reasons to be cautious of the rush to call things hate crimes, because when these practices become policy, they have an adverse impact on vulnerable communities of color.

Except this isn’t how the law is applied. A woman could be prosecuted for hate crimes against men. Queer people could be charged with hate crimes against straight people. In a landmark case, three Black teenagers had years added to their sentence because the courts held that their attack of a white teenager was a hate crime (Vice). Hate crime laws were used to sentence a member of the Black Liberation Army, a successor organization to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, to death for supposed bias against white people (New York Times). According to hate crime laws, an organization fighting for Black liberation and a white supremacist mass shooter are one and the same.

In 2019, Black people accounted for 24% of hate crime convictions though they only make up 13% of the population. While white people make up 60% of the population, they only accounted for 53% of hate crime convictions (FBI). According to the criminal justice system, white people in fact commit disproportionately few hate crimes while Black people commit them at a disproportionately high rate. Since hate crimes are above all a legal category, it is not community members but a white supremacist system that decides when they exist.

We also need to remember that as sentencing enhancements, hate crime provisions increase the time someone is incarcerated or cause them to be legally executed. When we expand the prison system and increase its ability to kill, those who suffer first are not white bigots but rather Black and Brown working-class people.

In the Atlanta example, prosecutors finally decided to charge the shooter with a hate crime as well as domestic terrorism (Yahoo). Domestic terrorism laws are disproportionately used to over-police Black, Brown, and Muslim communities (Emgage Action). Supporting Muslim charities, loaning money to friends for airline tickets, and even going paintballing are all innocuous activities that have led to domestic terrorism charges (Jacobin). When we demand enhanced charges, we’re enabling an apparatus that overwhelmingly targets people of color. When we see racist murders go unpunished or armed white people storm the Capitol, it’s not absurd to think harsher penalties are what’s fair. But legitimizing the punitive system and enhancing its repressive abilities harms communities of color in the least equitable and most horrifying ways imaginable.

When we depend on the state for justice, we strengthen all of its parts: legislators and prisons, courts and police. If the American state, the wealthiest and most powerful one in the world, worked for racial justice, this newsletter would not be necessary. The protests of last summer would not have been necessary. Those protests were against the police and courts and prisons and politicians who enable them. The message of the revolts is that we cannot depend on the American government for racial justice, because the American government itself created and has profited from racial oppression for centuries. If we demand a stronger carceral system for that same system to protect us from hate, we throw all of those lessons aside.

We need to name racial violence without resorting to the language of a racist criminal justice system. We need to forcefully respond to it without depending on institutions that cause incredible harm to communities of color. We can confront racist bigotry without depending on racist institutions. If we support healthy, well-resourced communities that can defend themselves from racist attacks, we can build justice without promoting the forces that have denied it from so many for so long.

We need to fight hate. We can do it beyond appealing to hate crimes.

Key Takeaways

Demanding hate crime charges isn’t the only way we can resist racist violence.
Hate crime charges don’t make us free. They have been leveled against Black activists “biased” against white people and strengthen courts and prisons.
Black people are disproportionately convicted of hate crimes.
When we strengthen courts, police, and prisons, the people most directly affected are working class Black and Brown communities.
We can’t build true community safety by relying on a racist system.

4/13/2021 | Stop over-policing.

1/15/2021 | Mind the use of "terrorism".

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/3/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/3/21

Demand cops off campus.

Today is the first day of a series of actions organized by the Cops Off Campus Coalition, a network of students, educators, staff, and community members passionate about abolishing policing at all levels of education. I chatted with Alecia Harger (she/they), a sophomore at UC Berkeley and representative for both UC Berkeley Cops Off Campus and the transnational Cops Off Campus Coalition. We discussed today’s Day of Refusal, Abolition May, and the significance of getting cops off of campuses.

It's Monday and we're back with another issue of the Anti-Racism Daily! Thank you for being here, and staying committed to this work. I am so inspired by the campaign that the Cops Off Campus Coalition created for Abolition May, and excited to share their work below. Today is the Day of Refusal, and it's still early enough to join in! Learn more in the interview below.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Take the pledge to participate in the Transnational Day of Refusal. You can use this resource of sample messaging to share with students/faculty that might be interested.
Review the various actions you can take to support the Cops Off Campus campaign through the month of May.
Follow the campaign on social media on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Today is the first day of a series of actions organized by the Cops Off Campus Coalition, a network of students, educators, staff, and community members passionate about abolishing policing at all levels of education. I chatted with Alecia Harger (she/they), a sophomore at UC Berkeley and representative for both UC Berkeley Cops Off Campus and the transnational Cops Off Campus Coalition. We discussed today’s Day of Refusal, Abolition May, and the significance of getting cops off of campuses. This is a snippet of our conversation – the full story will be released in an upcoming podcast episode.

Thank you so much for being here. I know you just got out of class, and it's finals week. And you have a pretty big day of action coming up on May 3rd.

Yep. May 3rd, we are having a Transnational Day of Refusal. We are encouraging people to withhold their labor in whatever form that may take, whether that's paid labor, that's compensated by the university, academic labor, like turning in assignments and going to class, or the labor of graduate student instructors who are grading assignments. For one day this month, we’re encouraging everybody to withholds their labor in solidarity with activists and organizers who are trying to get cops off campus. And this is clearly connected to May Day; which was May 1st. It's just the first school day after May Day.

Can you explain May Day for people that might not be familiar?

Yeah. It's a day of solidarity between workers that often takes the form of labor refusals and strikes. In the Bay area, there are always a lot of protests. And I know that across the country, it's often used as the date to bring solidarity across many issues – labor issues, human rights issues, the issues of political prisoners, racial justice, environmental justice, etc. Learn more about May Day, or International Workers’ Day.

Yes, thank you. Refusing labor has been a powerful act of protest across social and political movements throughout history.

Absolutely. And by withholding our labor, we demonstrate how we hold universities up. It is our labor that maintains these universities – our sweat, our blood. They cannot function without the underpaid and exploited labor of graduate students and other underpaid staff.

Talk a little bit more about getting cops off campus. That's something that we had discussed at length here at the Anti-Racism Daily. It's certainly a small, substantial step towards abolition. Can you share a little bit more about how this is affecting your school?

I go to UC Berkeley and the UC schools has its own police department. It is a statewide police department with statewide jurisdiction. There are very few departments with statewide jurisdiction, except for, like, the California Highway Patrol. And on the UC Berkeley campus, there have been several instances of police brutality across the decades – like the fight to liberate People's Park in Berkeley in 1969, which was met with extreme amounts of police violence. We have seen this pattern of violence continue to the present. Our institution of higher education functions as a carceral branch of the state when our campuses are infested with police officers who brutalize and victimize marginalized students and community members.

Yeah. And by centering this directly into the academic environment, it acts as education that safety is correlated with law enforcement, right?

Absolutely. There's a 2019 survey of UC Berkeley students that showed the majority of Black and trans students do not trust the campus police department. And that's not a surprise. When we define safety on our campuses, we're defining safety based on the safety and comfort of privileged students, namely white students. We completely ignore what safety looks like for marginalized people. When we say get cops off campus, we mean re-imagining safety to being inclusive of everyone, and creating a space that's genuinely safe for even the most marginalized and victimized people.

I'd like to hear a bit more about how y'all organized this coalition. Y’all have created such a depth of resources that empower anyone to take action. What has that process been like?

So initially, our transnational coalition was two different groups. One was primarily students and one was primarily faculty. At some point, we decided to merge groups. We all came together under the charge of creating abolition. The coalition has grown organically, and rapidly.

How can parents, family members, or community members support?

I think that we all know college students. Simply spreading this information is incredibly helpful. Additionally, if you live in a town with a college, you are welcome at our actions. You don't just have to be a university student. We want to draw on community members because campus policing affects everyone in a campus community. It does not just affect students. I believe at UC Berkeley, Black and Latinx drivers are more likely to be stopped by UCPD. You don't have to be a student to get stopped by UCPD. These are issues that affect our entire community. And when we say Cops Off Campus, we don't just mean to limit it to institutions of higher education. We mean, we want cops off of high school campuses. We want cops off of elementary school campuses. We want cops off of diversion schools for youth who are considered to be wayward. We want cops out of our hearts and cops out of our minds. So this is not just a fight for college campuses. This is a full on abolitionist fight that just so happens to start in our institutions of higher learning.

Our goal is to see cops off of this earth and that's why that's our social media handle – @copsoffearth – because this abolition does not stop at our campuses. We know that abolition is the only thing that can keep us safe. Everything else just kicks the can down the road, and continues to endanger Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, and queer people. Abolition is the only path to our safety and we know that to be true. That is our goal.

Key Takeaways

This month, the Cops Off Campus Coalition has organized a month-long series of actions to advocate the removal of police from school campuses.
Today, May 3, is the Transnational Day of Refusal, a day for students, teachers and staff to withhold labor from their higher institutions in protest of policing.
This series of action is part of a broader call for abolition, urging institutions to adapt alternative practices that reimagine safety for those most marginalized.

7/2/2020 | Remove police from our public schools.

7/15/2020 | End racial bias in school discipline.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 4/30/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/30/21

Demilitarize local law enforcement.

If you’ve participated or watched protests unfold in cities across the country this past year, you may have noticed that law enforcement looked more like members of our military than neighborhood police. And that’s intentional, as, over the past decades, the U.S. has made it easier for law enforcement to access surplus military equipment for everyday use.

Happy Friday, and welcome back! Last week, Andrew's article on the role that militarism plays to reinforce racism and oppression seemed to resonate with readers. Today looks like one of the many ways our military directly influences our local law enforcement.

TAKE ACTION

Send a tweet to President Biden and White House Officials encouraging the end of the 1033 Program.
Email your Congressperson to get the Breathe Act introduced in Congress, which, in part, calls for the end of the 1033 Program.
Check to see what your local agency received from the Department of Defense. Note: This data is from 2014, but I found it to be interesting nonetheless.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Law enforcement can gain access to military equipment in a few ways: they can buy it outright or apply for grants (The Marshall Project). But a more straightforward way is to request supplies directly from the military through a program called the 1033 Program. Through this, recipients can receive the equipment at no cost, minus the shipping/transportation fees, making it an easy way to snag high-budget items. Some of the qualifying equipment is harmless, like exercise equipment and musical instruments (The Marshall Project).

But it also includes high-grade weapons, machinery, and vehicles designed for combat, not community safety. Equipment has been granted to sheriffs, parks and recreation agencies, and even schools: as of 2014, at least 17 school districts have been given hundreds of weapons, including rifles, shotguns, and grenade launchers (The Marshall Project). It’s also been distributed to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, subjecting the southern border and its community to unnecessary, excessive police militarization.

Since its start in the 90s, over $7.4 billion worth of property has been transferred through the 1033 Program (Visual Capitalist). And according to the Institute for Transparent Policing, one in three local law enforcement agencies currently have military gear through the 1033 Program, ranging from machine guns to armored vehicles to robots (ITP).

Law enforcement often uses this equipment against its civilians during protests and demonstrations. In 2015, the militarized response to the protests of the death of Michael Brown brought this to the forefront: protestors were attacked with sniper rifles, armored vehicles, and tear gas used by law enforcement (ACLU). In 2015, President Obama signed an executive order restricting the militarization of police. But this was rescinded by the Trump administration in 2017 (EJI). Former President Trump publicly approved the use of military-grade weapons by law enforcement, encouraging them “don’t be too nice” to “these thugs.” Since then, over half a billion dollars of surplus military equipment has been obtained by local law enforcement (USA Today).

The protests from last summer only underlined how fatal militarized responses can be for our community (Axios). And just this past month, military-grade equipment was present at protests around Minnesota, both due to the death of Daunte Wright and the close of the Derek Chauvin trial (Vice). All of this is separate from *actual* military presence in cities across the country. Interested in learning more? Listen to this NPR Fresh Air podcast episode with Radley Balko, author of Rise Of The Warrior Cop.

Studies prove that this excessive use of weaponry doesn’t keep cops safe, nor do they deter violence (Nature). In fact, it makes law enforcement more dangerous. Another study found that, when equipped with military equipment, law enforcement would adopt more militaristic habits, like “using military language, creating elite units like SWAT teams, and becoming more likely to jump into high-risk situations” (Washington Post). Civilians are most likely at risk: the increased militarization of a law enforcement agency directly correlates with more civilians killed each year by police. In addition, civilians are more likely to be harmed during situations where military-grade equipment is utilized (NBC News).

Militarization makes every problem — even a car of teenagers driving away from a party — look like a nail that should be hit with an AR-15 hammer.

Ryan Welch and Jack Mewhirter in The Washington Post

Right now, the Black Lives Matter Global Network is calling for the Biden administration to end 1033 during its first 100 days in office (which ends today, April 30). But action needs to be taken, regardless of whether it’s today or tomorrow. The militarization of law enforcement and other state agencies only reinforces the military-industrial complex and makes policing more harmful to our communities.

Key Takeaways

Through the 1033 Program, law enforcement agencies can receive surplus military-grade equipment from the military for their everyday use
The 1033 Program has distributed $7.4 billion worth of military weapons to police forces around the country
Police militarization is proven to increase civilian fatalities and does not increase the effectiveness of law enforcement

11/2/2020 | Make an election safety plan.

7/26/2020 | Pay attention to the Portland protests.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 4/27/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/27/21

Learn how film and television portray policing.

Law and Order. CSI. Hawaii-Five-Oh. American Sniper. TV shows and movies about law enforcement and the police permeate the screens of Americans across the country. Media portrayals about police officers, detectives, judges, crime fighters, and more firmly implemented into the cultural lexicon. Just because they are on TV does not mean that these shows exclusively exist for entertainment. Many shows actively depict criminal justice without showcasing the many ways it harms the lives of communities of color. These shows often work to bolster law enforcement in the eyes of white supremacy while simultaneously reducing compassion for the disproportionately Black victims of its system.

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! Throughout the past few months, we've analyzed how TV and media influence our perception of current events. Today, Tiffany explores how stories of policing and criminal justice shape our thoughts on safety and crime.

Our Earth Week series, "This is our home," is almost over. Subscribe to learn from youth environmental justice leaders addressing the biggest climate threats of our time. thisisourho.me.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Join or donate to Color of Change, a racial justice organization that piloted the landmark research study, Normalizing Injustice, which shows how crime TV shows distort the reality of police systems and race and police brutality.
Watch films such as Fruitvale Station (2013) that portray the realities of police brutality.
The next time you’re watching a show that involves law enforcement, consider: how does the narrative unfolding support or detract from abolition work? What is being reinforced through this narrative? What is being dismantled?

GET EDUCATED

By Tiffany Onyejiaka (she/her)

Hollywood often creates law enforcement and military programming with the direct help of these industries. During the beginning of modern cinema in the 1900s, movies often depicted cops as incompetent fools (Vox). This mirrored general American dissatisfaction with police officers in the early 20th century. Decades of police reform followed earlier policing scandals, and in their wake emerged shows such as 1951’s Dragnet that started the hero cop narrative in pop culture (Vox). A close relationship between the police industry, military industry, and Hollywood has survived long term. The United States Department of Defense has collaborated on Hollywood Military movies for over 100 years (US Dept. of Defense). Shows such as CBS’ Blue Bloods and Netflix’s Mindhunter hire police officers to consult the scripts for their shows (The Hollywood Reporter). These institutions play a direct role in crafting the image of these industrial complexes. This leaves little room for objective depictions of the reality of policing or the military, misrepresenting how police officers mistreat Black people or how the military affects people from the Middle East.

Law enforcement TV shows tend to dramatize the nature of crimes discussed on the shows, often centering on gruesome rape and murder crimes. This does not reflect the reality of crimes in the U.S. The majority of arrests in the U.S. occur for non-violent crimes. Violent crimes have rapidly decreased over the years. According to FBI-reported crime data, the violent crime rate dropped by 40% between 1993 and 2019 (Pew Research). Conversely, since 1993, the rate of American perceiving crime to increase has increased to 78% in 2019 (Pew Research). This perception helps drive Americans to ask for harsher and more stringent policing, even though crime has been steadily decreasing over the past few decades.

Criminal justice programming also depicts most criminals as violent criminals. This distorts the reality that many people are in prison for non-violent and petty crimes. In 2020, 1 in 5 individuals were incarcerated for a drug-related offense. That amounts to about 450,000 people in jail for non-violent drug offenses (Prison Policy Initiative). This could potentially lead to less support for dismantling policing policies and incarceration facilities. Suppose a person thinks every person is in jail because of a violent offense instead of incarcerated for things like smoking marijuana. In that case, they may have less sympathy for human rights violations. This helps obscure the reality that many people get treated brutally by police for minor consequences.

Another insidious aspect of policing shows involves the high representation of Black and Brown actors and actresses as criminals and law enforcement. Representation matters. People of color often tune into shows of people who look like us. Many Black characters on television are depicted as violent criminals. Shows like Orange is The New Black has astonishing diversity but are set in the confines of a jail setting.

When people watch negative portrayals of Black and Brown people in the context of police and military television, they could potentially internalize the racist messaging. A public health study by Rutgers School of Public Health found that negative media portrayals about the criminality of Black men are correlated with higher rates of policing and police brutality (The Philadelphia Tribune). The negative image of Black and Brown folks across TV screens in America can also affect the way Black and Brown viewers, particularly children, view themselves. Despite the diversity of criminals selected, the showrunners are not. Across crime series, 81% of showrunners are white men, 81% of writers are white, and 9% are Black (Color of Change).

We need to have honest conversations about how mainstream media acts as propaganda for policing and military institutions. We also need to promote media that show realistic and nuances presentations of police officers in the States. Cop shows such as Chicago P.D. recently aired episodes dealing with cops dealing with police reform efforts (The Wrap). Denzel Washington recently starred in The Little Things (2021), which offered a look at how police officers and detectives can make serious, sometimes life-threatening errors in the name of solving crime.

For abolition to occur, Americans need to have an honest, objective, and critical view of the state of American policing. If millions of Americans continuously tune into television shows that position cops as heroes who can do no wrong, then this can not happen. Fighting for a fairer justice system will require us to have a serious conversation about the messages from our favorite law enforcement shows.

Key Takeaways

Police institutions and military industries directly work with Hollywood to create TV and movies.
These shows create untrue narratives about the heroics and infallibility of police, which can, in turn, drive police brutality.
Looking critically at media depictions of the police and the media is critical to reform the police and military-industrial complex.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 4/21/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/21/21

Unpack the Derek Chauvin trial.

For the past month, Derek Chauvin has been on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Finally, the verdict is out. Chauvin faced three charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. To convict Chauvin, the prosecution needed to show each charge beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution did not need to prove that Chauvin intended to kill George Floyd to convict him of the charges.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. After a tense month, the Derek Chauvin trial has finally come to an end. For the first time in Minnesota state history, a white police officer has been held accountable for killing a Black man. It shouldn’t have had to take a video recorded by a 17-year-old girl, a summer of national protests, and months of intense pressure by the family and organizers for this trial to occur. Remember that true justice would mean George Floyd is still alive. Brutality like this cannot be reformed. Today, The George Floyd Memorial Foundation joins us to review the details of the trial and its impact. The details below indicate how so many other charges against law enforcement in the past have been dismissed or discredited.

Our Earth Week series, "This is our home," starts tomorrow! Subscribe to learn from youth environmental justice leaders addressing the biggest climate threats of our time. thisisourho.me.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Support The George Floyd Memorial Foundation’s current initiatives by donating to the organization or purchasing a Justice for George “Be the Change” T-Shirt.
Follow @justiceforgeorge on Instagram for updates on the upcoming trial for other officers responsible for the murder of George Floyd.
Learn about The George Floyd Memorial Foundation’s current initiatives, including providing scholarships to diverse youth and internship opportunities to college-aged Black men.

GET EDUCATED

By The George Floyd Family Foundation

For the past month, Derek Chauvin has been on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Finally, the verdict is out.

Chauvin faced three charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. To convict Chauvin, the prosecution needed to show each charge beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution did not need to prove that Chauvin intended to kill George Floyd to convict him of the charges.

Throughout the trial, groundbreaking developments came to light, such as confirmation that Chauvin pinned Floyd down for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, not the well-known 8 minutes and 46 seconds, and confirmation that George Floyd did not attempt to flee the scene before the incident.

Cause of Death Confirmed: The official autopsy for George Floyd declares his death a HOMICIDE, caused by cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression. Drug use and heart disease were "contributing conditions" but "not direct causes" (The New York Times 1). Dr. Martin Tobin, a medical expert testifying in the trial, confirmed, "A healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died” (The New York Times 2).

While the prosecution provided significant evidence proving that George Floyd died from homicide, the defense continued to spread misinformation, blaming George and his health conditions for his death, blatantly ignoring and undermining evidence and witness/expert testimony.

In light of the defense’s strategy to confuse and mislead the jury and the public, let’s review Fact vs. Fiction regarding the trial of Derek Chauvin:

FICTION: George Floyd died from a drug overdose.

FACT: Dr. Martin Tobin, a pulmonologist who took the stand, confirmed that George Floyd could not have died from a drug overdose, telling the jury, “Mr. Floyd appeared to be breathing at a normal rate before he became unconscious… Had he been overdosing on fentanyl, his rate of breathing would have slowed” (The New York Times 2).

FICTION: If George Floyd was able to speak, he must have had enough oxygen.
FACT: Dr. Tobin clarified to the jury that while George Floyd could speak, that does not mean that he had enough oxygen. “During the arrest, a police officer told Mr. Floyd that he seemed to have enough oxygen because he was able to tell officers that he couldn’t breathe. Dr. Tobin said that a person might be taking in enough oxygen to speak, but not enough to survive. They can be alive and talking one moment, and dead just seconds later, he said” (The New York Times 2).

FICTION: George Floyd suffered from “excited delirium.”

FACT: Dr. Bill Smock, an expert witness of the prosecution and Louisville Metro Police Department surgeon, confirmed that George Floyd did not die of excited delirium, “a term used to describe someone who has become aggressive or distressed from a mental illness or drug use (The New York Times 2). Dr. Smock explained to the jury, “The term has been disproportionately applied to Black people and has been used by law enforcement to justify police brutality.”

During the trial, numerous members of law enforcement testified against the actions of Derek Chauvin, confirming his actions were “uncalled for” and not in line with policy or training. Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo even testified that Chauvin violated policy. Use-of-force expert Sgt. Jody Stiger testified that Chauvin used “deadly force” when “no force should have been used” (The New York Times 3). The willingness for active members of law enforcement to come forward and speak out against a fellow officer led some, including Minneapolis Civil Rights Attorney and former NAACP Chapter President Nekima Levy Armstrong, to believe that the “Blue Wall of Silence,” also known as the “‘no snitching’ code for cops,” collapsed during the trial (NowThis News). Others believe this to be an isolated distancing from one cop rather than a systemic shift in norms amongst law enforcement.

In Closing Arguments, the prosecution reminded the jury that George Floyd is “not on trial here,” after weeks of the defense attempting to put George and his past on trial for the scrutiny of the jury and the world (The Hill). In this, we are reminded that George Floyd, his health, and his past are, in fact, not of concern here. What is on trial is Derek Chauvin’s decision to apply deadly force to George Floyd for 9 minutes and 29 seconds.

The Verdict: Derek Chauvin has officially been found guilty for the murder of George Floyd and has been convicted of all three of the charges. Chauvin’s bond has been revoked and he will remain in custody until sentencing in eight weeks. He faces up to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder, up to 25 years for third-degree murder, and up to 10 years for second-degree manslaughter.

While nothing can erase the pain that the Floyd family has incurred as a result of this tragedy, this conviction represents a major milestone in holding this system accountable.

Key Takeaways

Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the murder of George Floyd and was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Derek Chauvin is in custody and will face sentencing in eight weeks.
As confirmed in the official autopsy report, George Floyd died due to cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression from HOMICIDE. Compounding factors include heart disease and drug use, meaning that neither heart disease NOR drug use caused his death.
The three other ex-officers responsible for the murder of George Floyd will go on trial in August 2021.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 4/14/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/14/21

Abolish qualified immunity.

The death has been referred to as an “accidental discharge.” But there is nothing accidental about the death of an unarmed Black man by law enforcement. Our system is designed to maximize interactions between Black and brown people and police officers, which all but ensures that harm will happen. This is enforced through the practice of over-policing, initiatives that have justified increased levels of policing for the sake of the greater good, but often with adverse consequences (Scientific American).

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. Our previous two newsletters both depict the atrocities of our criminal justice system, emphasizing that abolition is the only way forward. Qualified immunity is part of that narrative, too, and garnering more attention this month. Today I thought it would be wise to revisit its history and context in current events.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Encourage your local Congresspeople to sponsor the BREATHE Act, which includes the support of ending qualified immunity in alignment with the Ending Qualified Immunity Act.
Send a letter to your Senators to support the “Ending Qualified Immunity Act”.
Research to see what the latest efforts are to ending qualified immunity in your state.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

The latest series of body camera videos released in conjunction to police brutality have reignited conversations about the role of qualified immunity in holding law enforcement accountable.

Some members of law enforcement act like the law don’t apply to them. And because of qualified immunity, they're kind of right. Qualified immunity means that government officials are shielded from charges that violate constitutional and civil rights – unless the victims can prove that these rights were “clearly established law.” This means that in order to charge the perpetrator, the victim must first find an exact same example of the case that's already been ruled illegal or unconstitutional to establish its legitimacy (USA Today).

Still confused? Here's a TikTok video that demonstrates it more simply. Bless TikTok creators.

Here's a real-life example. In February 2020, the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that a prison guard in Texas who pepper-sprayed an inmate in his locked cell “for no reason” did not violate clearly established law because similar cited cases involved guards who had hit and tased inmates "for no reason,” rather than pepper-spraying them (USA Today). The full report notes that if the victim was punched or hit by a baton "for no reason" the assault would violate clearly established law (PDF).

Another example is the story of Malaika Brooks, a Black woman who was seven months pregnant and pulled over for speeding while dropping her 11-year-old off at school. She refused to sign the speeding ticket (mistakenly thinking it was an acknowledgment of guilt). She was then tased three times, dragged into the street, pressed facedown into the ground, and cuffed (NYTimes). Although the judges saw that her constitutional rights were violated, they dismissed the case, arguing that "no precedent had 'clearly established' that tasing a woman in Ms. Brooks’s circumstances was unconstitutional at the time" (NYTimes).

This creates a paradoxical situation: how can we starting holding law enforcement accountable if their specific violations haven't been held accountable in the past? Justices are allowed to interpret "clearly established law" as specifically as they choose. And what's worse – the more egregious the violation, the more likely it doesn't fit neatly into a previous case. It's no surprise that, according to George F. Will, the Supreme Court, applying its “clearly established law” doctrine, has denied immunity only twice in its past 30 cases (Washington Post). There are dozens and dozens of examples just like the ones above, preventing citizens from holding police accountable for harm.

"
Important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered. Courts then rely on that judicial silence to conclude there’s no equivalent case on the books. No precedent = no clearly established law = no liability. An Escherian Stairwell. Heads defendants win, tails plaintiffs lose.

Judge Don Willett, U.S. Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in The New Republic

So, how did we get here? Qualified immunity is buried in Section 1983 (named for its number in U.S. code, not the year), a provision from the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. After the Civil War, the federal government was focused on re-integrating the South. But they faced violent resistance from the Klan, who waged a war of domestic terrorism by "killing Black Americans and white Republicans, burning down their homes and churches, and intimidating local communities into accepting white-supremacist rule" (The New Republic).

The government had to act, so it passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, granting it more power to intervene against violations of the 14th Amendment (house.gov). Within it, Section 1983 gave private citizens the ability to sue state and local officials who were violating federal constitutional rights – building more personal accountability into the work (The New Republic). Although the Supreme Court removed power granted by the Ku Klux Klan Act after the Reconstruction Act, Section 1983 remained, dormant until 1961.

This was when James Monroe, a Black man, and his family were pulled from their beds late one night and assaulted by thirteen police officers with no warrant (sound familiar)? Monroe was then held for interrogation without being charged a crime, or access to a lawyer, for 10 hours. In the case Monroe v. Pape, the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to hold the police officers accountable, using the terms of Section 1983 as reference. This grounded the provision as a part of holding law enforcement accountable in today's rhetoric (The New Republic).

But a shift in terminology has made this more challenging to execute. In 1982, the Supreme Court revised Section 1983 to ensure that government officials were entitled to “qualified immunity” from such lawsuits unless their actions violated a “clearly established law” (The New Republic).

“

Qualified immunity shields police from accountability, impedes true justice, and undermines the constitutional rights of every person in this country. There can be no justice without healing and accountability, and there can be no true accountability with qualified immunity. It’s past time to end qualified immunity, and that’s exactly what this bill does.

Ayanna Pressley, U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 7th Congressional District, on her website.

A wide range of organizations advocate for ending qualified immunity, including the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Movement for Black Lives and the Institute for Justice. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which recently passed in the House, includes ending qualified immunity for law enforcement (although many Black-led organizations oppose most of the other aspects of this legislation). To bolster it, the bill entitled “Ending Qualified Immunity Act” was re-introduced to the House of Representatives, which would end qualified immunity not just for law enforcement, but all government officials (Congresswoman Pressley). And Some states are also ending laws that act similarly to qualified immunity on the state level (The New Republic). Ending qualified immunity is a necessary step towards abolition.

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12/15/2020 | Repeal stand your ground laws.

9/3/2020 | Support mental health response services.

8/26/2020 | Be an active bystander.

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Nicole Cardoza 4/13/21 Nicole Cardoza 4/13/21

Stop over-policing.

Happy Tuesday, yall. I’m tired of writing emails like these. I want our safety – our survival – to never be up for debate. I don’t know how many more times this needs to happen until we take abolition more seriously. Today's action items center on supporting the family of Daunte Wright and its community, but consider how you can proactively make similar investments for those impacted by the criminal justice system where you live.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate to the verified GoFundMe for the family of Daunte Wright. You can support his son and girlfriend with diapers and other in-kind supplies on this list.
Donate either in-kind or financial support to the Brooklyn Center community, which expects major businesses to be boarded up in advance of protests in the coming days.
Follow the work of Black Visions as they reimagine safety in MN.
Review the community-based alternatives to calling the police in your city to help offset the impact of over-policing.

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By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

On Sunday afternoon, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis (NPR). The shooting sparked tensions in the area as the community anticipates the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial (NYTimes). At a press conference Monday morning, Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon expressed that the police officer fired her gun instead of her Taser. This is a dubious claim, and it’s been used as an excuse before. You can learn more about those cases, and the difference between a Taser and a gun, here.

It’s also important to note that Tasers, too, can be deadly. In 2019, Reuters identified at least 1,081 U.S. deaths following the use of Tasers by law enforcement since they became commonly used in the early 2000s. Many of these are exacerbated by other uses of force like hand strikes or restraint holds. During their investigation, they found that police officers often aren’t trained to use Tasers properly, which increases the propensity for harm (Reuters).

A controversial example of this is “stop and frisk” initiatives, which allow police to stop and detain someone if they have “reasonable belief” that the person is, has been, or is about to be involved in a crime (NYTimes). After taking office in 2002, Mayor Bloomberg dramatically extended this program across NYC. Data indicated that crime decreased because of it, but that was later noted as an indirect correlation after the program was reduced. During that time, Black and Latino people were nine times as likely as white people to be stopped by the police but were no more likely to warrant an arrest (NYTimes). Another study found that only 6% of stops from 2009 to 2012 had resulted in an arrest, and 0.1% in a conviction for a violent crime. The majority of those stops caused undue stress and anxiety in the community. The practice was deemed unconstitutional in 2012 (The Guardian).

Predominantly Black neighborhoods are simultaneously over-policed when it comes to surveillance and social control, and under-policed when it comes to emergency services.

Daanika Gordon, an assistant professor of sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences, for Tufts

A report by the Prison Policy Initiative found that Black residents were more likely to be stopped by police than white or Hispanic residents, both in traffic stops and street stops. And over 1 in 6 of Black respondents stated that they had similar interactions with police multiple times over the course of the year. During these interactions, police were twice as likely to use force against Black or Hispanic residents than white residents (Prison Policy).

And there are countless examples of these stops resulting in death. Philando Castile was murdered in 2016 at a routine traffic stop – and had been stopped at least 46 times before in his lifetime (Reason). Army Lt. Caron Nazario, who identifies as Black and Latino, was recently stopped, pepper-sprayed, and handcuffed during a routine traffic stop. The officers involved illegally pulled their weapons, threatened to murder him, and illegally searched the vehicle (NPR). The death of Sandra Bland was also caused by an unjust traffic stop back in 2015 (Vox).

Over-policing also causes harm by weakening trust – not just between police and civilians, but between each other, too. Over-policing creates a biased perception that certain community members are more likely to harm than others, which is racially bias and skewed. And when people lose faith in the system, they’re less likely to cooperate with it, which in turn, makes policing more ineffective as time goes on (Vox). There’s some beneficial work that can come out of this, like mutual aid and safety networks organized by the community as a more nurturing alternative. But it can also spark violent outrage and retaliation, which serves no one.

We must advocate to divest from policing in our communities. We can also do our part to invest in other community-based services and practice using them instead of calling in law enforcement. It might seem small, but that one less interaction could save someone's life.

RELATED ISSUES

12/15/2020 | Repeal stand your ground laws.

9/3/2020 | Support mental health response services.

8/26/2020 | Be an active bystander.

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Nicole Cardoza 3/23/21 Nicole Cardoza 3/23/21

Rally for marijuana justice.

Last week, five White House staffers were fired because of their past use of drugs, including marijuana (AP). News of this action recirculated conversations on the federal government's stance on decriminalizing marijuana and expunging the records of those with felonies related to drug use and distribution. Despite repeatedly advocating to end marijuana criminalization during their campaign (Teen Vogue), a new video suggests that their stance shifted. A former member of the Biden-Sanders task force stated that the president opted against a pro-legalization stance because they were worried about its impact on the election (More Perfect US).

Happy Tuesday and welcome back! I hope yesterday's newsletter inspired you to find a local publication to support. There, you might have stumbled across news about marijuana laws in legislation in your state. Or, you may have heard about the fired White House staffers. Either way, today we're learning more about the legacy of marijuana enforcement and looking beyond decriminalization towards justice – and accounting for these historical wrongs.

This newsletter is a free resource made possible by our paying subscribers. We'd love you to consider making a monthly recurring donation on our website or Patreon. You can also give one-time on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). Thank you for all your support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Sign the petition to urge the Biden Administration to follow through on their commitment to expunge marijuana records.
Urge your members of Congress to support The SAFE Banking Act, which will allow state-licensed marijuana-related businesses to engage freely in relationships with banks and other financial institutions
There’s pending legislation related to marijuana in nearly every state in the U.S. Find the latest where you live using the map on this site and take action accordingly.
If you use cannabis and cannabis-related products, buy from Black-owned cannabis and CBD companies. Here’s a list of places to start.

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By Kashea McCowan (she/her)

For many years, cannabis, also known as marijuana, has long been classified as an illegal drug. Though the rates of usage between white and non-white communities are grossly similar, people from predominantly black communities are mostly targeted for having possession of it. Today, eleven states and the District of Columbia have fully legalized recreational pot, fifteen states decriminalized it, thirty-three states have authorized medicinal use of it, and nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that marijuana should be legal even if they don’t use it (The Atlantic). Though this is a big leap towards reform, making up for the brutal inequalities of an expensive and racist drug war is a long path to tread.

According to the ACLU's 2013 analysis, “marijuana arrests account for more than half of all drug arrests in the United States. Of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010, eighty-eight percent were simply for having marijuana in their possession. Despite the roughly equal usage rates, Black people are 3.73 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana (American Civil Liberties Union).”

By 2020, the analysis for arrests in the Black population dropped only nine points, making people of color 3.64 times more likely to get arrested. These facts are calculated on a nationwide basis, but it is reported that not only are people of color prone to being arrested for the possession of marijuana in every single state, but in some states, they are up to six, eight, or almost ten times more likely to be arrested compared to the same amount of white people being stopped and/or caught for the same thing. Even in Canada, statistics show that Black and Indigenous people are over-represented amongst those arrested (NORML).

“Politicians across the political divide spent much of the twentieth century using marijuana as a means of dividing America. By painting the drug as a scourge from south of the border . . . marijuana as a drug and the laws that sought to control it played on some of America’s worst tendencies around race, ethnicity, civil disobedience, and otherness,” says John Hudak of his book, Marijuana: A Short History. “. . . U.S. government officials first painted cannabis as an insidious substance flowing across the border like immigrants from Mexico. Next, the government described cannabis as a drug for the inner city and for Blacks while also lying about it leading to murder, rape, and insanity. Next, political opponents of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan designed and enforced laws to target a variety of groups across America (Brookings).”

As a result of the aggressive enforcement of the marijuana possession laws carried out by excessive racial bias, hundreds of thousands of people are thrown into the criminal justice system. This not only deducts billions of dollars out of taxpayers’ pockets, but the personal cost individuals pay for those arrests is significant and can linger for years. The repercussions for being arrested prevent those charged from being eligible for public housing, student financial aid, employment opportunities, child custody determinations, and immigration status (American Civil Liberties Union). Not only do these people get pushed out of society after going to jail but now, the industry that once provided a living for them and their families is legally out of arm's reach because of the marijuana drug charges on their backgrounds. The industry that once financially supported people of color in low-income communities historically, is now being deemed as medicinal when big white corporations, white businesses, and white farmers want to make a profit.

Now that marijuana is being legalized, it is becoming harder for people of color to share in the cannabis boom. Government rules will decide who can profit from growing the crop. At the moment, those rules favor well-connected, corporate growers rather than independent farmers, much less independent farmers of color (The Atlantic). In places where medical marijuana is legal, people are finding that it is extremely difficult to obtain a growers license. In New York, only ten companies own licenses to cultivate and dispense marijuana and licenses can sell well up to tens of millions of dollars. When regulators dictate who grows a cash crop, they can make choices to help spread the wealth. but when it is done “wrong”, these regulators deliberately make it to where a “certain type of person” doesn’t get to partake in it, in this case, the exclusion of BIPOC farmers. But like the tobacco industry, cannabis is made legal so that the rich can get richer, “endowing a designated class of Americans with a way of life that buoyed entire regional economies (The Atlantic).”

When it comes to the War on Drugs, Black and Brown people still face the brunt of it. There are too many people in the BIPOC community that are incarcerated because of charges related to the possession of marijuana. To make matters worse, that same industry portrayed as being destructible for society is now legal in most states. The licensure system for marijuana cultivation should award licenses to a larger number of applicants from communities hit the hardest. Legalization and decriminalization should eliminate future arrests and s expunge past offenses. And, more effective policies should be implemented to create new and lasting ownership opportunities for people of color and those with previous, low-level cannabis convictions, including farming, distribution, and sales. Though efforts are being made toward repair, we still have a long way to go. The history of cannabis policy and the criminal justice system in the U.S. shows that racism is institutionalized and enforced in Black communities. It is now legalization that must institutionalize the means for the recovery of Black and Brown people and the communities they live in (Brookings).

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Black people are nearly four times more likely to get arrested for possession of marijuana than white people.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia have fully legalized recreational pot, fifteen states decriminalized it, and thirty-three states have authorized medicinal use of it.
There needs to be more inclusive policies for marijuana farming.
There should be automatic expungement for people who hold low-level possession of marijuana convictions.

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