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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?
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By Andrew Lee (he/him)
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).
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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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)
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Question private security forces.
Citizen is a privately-owned “public safety” app that reports neighborhood crime to residents. It has 5 million active users, more App Store downloads than Twitter (Forbes), and is backed by venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital, which is also investing in heavyweights like Cisco, Instagram, and YouTube (Sequoia). It’s a rebrand of an app called Vigilante, which actually encouraged users to go after suspected criminals (Tech Crunch). After the Pacific Palisades fire last month, Citizen sent the full name and photo of a suspected arsonist to 860,000 users. Citizen put a $30,000 bounty on this man, who was unhoused (Oaklandside), and, as in its days as Vigilante, encouraged its users to “get out there and bring this guy to justice” (Vox). As it turns out, he was innocent.
It's Friday and we're back with another Anti-Racism Daily. Our nation's history of policing isn't just seen in law enforcement, but privatized security, too. The Citizen app is purportedly releasing their own private security system that users can deploy at will. Andrew shares more in today's newsletter.
Thank you for keeping this independent platform going. In honor of our one year anniversary, become a monthly subscriber on our website or Patreon this week and we'll send you some swag! You can also give one-time on Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), PayPal or our website.
– Nicole
TAKE ACTION
#DeleteCitizen and encourage others to do the same.
Follow and support efforts to disrupt white supremacist vigilantism.
Engage with efforts to disarm and regulate private security. Invest instead in community-led public safety initiatives.
GET EDUCATED
By Andrew Lee (he/him)
Citizen is a privately-owned “public safety” app that reports neighborhood crime to residents. It has 5 million active users, more App Store downloads than Twitter (Forbes), and is backed by venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital, which is also investing in heavyweights like Cisco, Instagram, and YouTube (Sequoia). It’s a rebrand of an app called Vigilante, which actually encouraged users to go after suspected criminals (Tech Crunch). After the Pacific Palisades fire last month, Citizen sent the full name and photo of a suspected arsonist to 860,000 users. Citizen put a $30,000 bounty on this man, who was unhoused (Oaklandside), and, as in its days as Vigilante, encouraged its users to “get out there and bring this guy to justice” (Vox). As it turns out, he was innocent.
Days later, the news broke that a black Citizen SUV was prowling Los Angeles. Citizen said the vehicle, connected to a local “subscription law enforcement” firm, is part of a “pilot project.” It seems Citizen plans to augment its surveillance and vigilantism network with private police (Vice). Many have expressed concerns that this could lead to harassment and violence based on racial profiling.
The past year has thrown light on two pillars of American white supremacy. On one hand, the police commit atrocities against Black and Brown people with few consequences. On the other, neo-Nazis and militant nativists commit “lone wolf” attacks in an attempt to provoke a race war. (For why we don’t refer to such zealots as terrorists, see this previous article.)
Citizen exemplifies a third pillar: the vigilantes, civic groups, and private companies that enforce white supremacy. Unlike the police or National Guard, they aren’t an arm of the state. And unlike neo-Nazi mass shooters, they aren’t right-wing revolutionaries seeking to replace the political order with something even worse. This third pillar is composed of organizations that operate, with the tacit or official support of the authorities, to maintain the current economic, political, and racial order. That is, they are private enforcers of what supporters of a deeply unequal society might deem “public order.”
In the past, the government empowered citizens to kill Indigenous people and kidnap people who escaped from slavery. The 20th century Ku Klux Klan recruited white Protestants who felt threatened by immigration and the Bolshevik revolution (Britannica). Though the Klan wasn’t the government, “in Muncie, Indiana—the ‘Middletown’ that sociologists Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd studied as the embodiment of 1920s America—the mayor was a loyal Klansman, as were the president of the local school board and the secretary of the YMCA.” “Sundown town” legislation that barred people of color after dark was enforced not only by local police but also by the threat of lynchings from local residents (The Atlantic). Last year, New Mexican law enforcement saw an ally in the New Mexico Civil Guard, a militia organization that shot an antifascist counterprotester (History News Network).
In 1892, thousands of Southern and Eastern European immigrant mill workers went on strike. The owners, Carnegie Steel, brought in 300 heavily-armed private soldiers from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who murdered 7 striking workers as they attempted to clear the mill (Britannica). At this time, the Pinkertons were larger than the U.S. Army (History).
In the present day, private security firm G4S was paid $1.7 million to run Guantánamo Bay. Israeli government-contracted G4S to run prisons in the occupied West Bank where children are kept in solitary confinement (Guardian); in Australia, an Aboriginal elder was “cooked to death” in a G4S prison van (Guardian). A G4S subsidiary was acquired by another security firm, Allied Universal, making it the third-largest employer in North America (Yahoo).
Section 8 residents are patrolled by private security with automatic rifles and mauled by their guard dogs (Chicago Reporter). Though not law enforcement, campus police are able to harass and abuse non-students residing close to campus. In one case, University of Chicago police stopped, stripped, and beat a man with a malfunctioning car horn (Leagle). See the interview with Alecia from the Cops Off Campus coalition. Mall security killed a Black man in Detroit who died crying out “I can’t breathe” (Huff Post). Private security stabbed a man in the chest after confronting him for theft (Fox 5). When Luis Quintero tried to explain a parking dispute to an Allied Universal security officer at a Texas mall, she pulled a gun with her finger on the trigger (ABC 13).
When fighting for racial justice, we need to keep violent non-state actors like vigilantes and security firms front and center. Citizen is both: a massive business that both inspires vigilantism and aspires to become privatized law enforcement. As Hari Ziyad wrote in a piece on abolition, “Safety is not a universally recognized phenomenon, as much as it is pretended to be. The meaning of safety depends on what exactly you find worthy of protection” (Salon).
Key Takeaways
The app Citizen has 5 million users. It has encouraged vigilantism and unjustified arrest and is taking steps to become private law enforcement.
Private security firms have committed numerous killings and abuses with little oversight.
White vigilante groups have long collaborated with law enforcement to enact racist laws and commit extrajudicial murders.
We need to interrogate “public safety” in a racist, classist society.
RELATED ISSUES
3/1/2021 | Support unaccompanied minors.
2/15/2021 | Advocate for Black immigrants.
12/9/2020 | Amplify mental health resources for immigrants.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Do not circulate graphic videos of police brutality.
But race is a social construct, and social constructs have social histories. Our The first place generating criticism is in financial commitments. Companies in the U.S. pledged a collective $50 billion to various racial initiatives (Financial Times), an unprecedented response to social issues (Washington Post). But, research indicates that only $250 million has actually been spent or committed to a specific initiative (Financial Times). William Cunningham, the chief executive of Creative Investment Research, who published the study, notes that until those funds are actually spent, there’s no reason they couldn’t be retracted or allocated to another initiative. Another survey found that tech companies that made commitments have 20% fewer Black employees on average than those that didn’t (Bloomberg), adding more skepticism to some organizations’ intentions.
Happy Tuesday and welcome back to the newsletter. This was never meant to be a newsletter that lasted a year. I was in a lot of pain when I started this project. It felt like the whole world woke up to the violence that white supremacy has wielded for generations. I pledged to send one email each day because we know that this work isn't solved with one action. This world won't change from reactions, but a collective, persistent investment today, tomorrow, and the day after, too. Today is a reflection on the ongoing conversations on the role of graphic videos in public discourse.
Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible, particularly the ones that have been here since the start. We won't stop until we're all free. 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
Join the George Floyd Remembrance Virtual Day of Action by participating in any of the action items listed on the campaign page.
Donate to Yes 4 Minneapolis, a Black-led campaign to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.
Use the resources created by the Witness Media Lab when considering posting or sharing videos of police brutality.
If you feel resourced, reflect on what you’ve learned – and unlearned – about the fight for racial equity over the past year. How can you continue to advocate for change? Use this article for guidance on identifying your role in your community.
GET EDUCATED
By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
One year ago, George Floyd was murdered by a member of the Minneapolis Police Department. A video of his death, recorded by then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, generated tens of millions of views in the following days and has been shared repeatedly across this past year, reigniting the everlasting fight for racial equity (NowThis). It’s undeniable that the video, and the conversation that sparked from it, fundamentally shifted society. It’s also re-ignited discussions on the role of violent videos available for public consumption, particularly regarding their impact on communities of color.
Note: this is different than advocating for the release of bodycam videos to the public. Bodycam footage, designed to hold police officers accountable while on the job, should never be withheld from a victim’s family and community.
But violence against Black people has also been used as a commodity, bartered and sold throughout time. I can’t help but think about how, just decades ago, lynchings were treated as a public attraction. Crowds would gather to partake in festivities surrounding the unjust killing, posing for photographs and taking home pieces of the person’s corpse as “souvenirs.” Postcards would be created and distributed as lasting memories. Learn more in a previous newsletter. Videos taken by police bodycams and shared widely have a similar feeling; digital souvenirs of violence protected by social and political norms.
But user-generated videos, like the one recorded by Frazier, have a different intent. Although still difficult to watch, they’re the recordings of what an everyday person was forced to bear witness to, individuals rendered helpless in the face of violence. Recording a conflict can be a form of bystander intervention when other options are limited. And social movements across time have been sparked by marginalized communities leveraging whatever channel they can to ensure their voices are heard. In this case, user-generated videos are journalism, a testament to the stories that define generations.
Author and professor Allissa Richardson, who advocates for citizen journalism and encourages everyone to consider their role in documenting the world around them, refers to it as sousveillance. This is the opposite of surveillance, created by body cameras, security cameras, and other public, often state-sanctioned forms of recordings. Sousveillance is people capturing stories with their own devices (usually smartphones) that will likely counter or disprove the facts presented by those with more power and privilege (Nieman Lab).
It’s no surprise that journalism leaders are calling for Darnella Frazier to receive the Pulitzer Prizes in Public Service for the video she recorded that changed the world, undoubtedly exemplifying content that “roots out corruption and contributes to the public good” (Nieman Lab).
Regardless of their intention, though, these assets need to be shared with sensitivity, as they exacerbate the trauma that people of color experience regularly. A study found that 20% of Black people who watch a video are “significantly affected” by it, experiencing lasting effects, including stress, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders, or vicarious PTSD (Yahoo). These only elevate the race-based trauma that people of color experience in their daily lives (PBS). In an article written by Arionne Nettles, Alfiee Breland-Noble, the founder and director of mental health organization AAKOMA Project, notes how Black adolescents deal with vicarious trauma from watching the videos (ZORA).
“
Instead, cellphone videos of vigilante violence and fatal police encounters should be viewed like lynching photographs — with solemn reserve and careful circulation.
Allissa Richardson, assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, 2021 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and author of Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest Journalism, for Nieman Labs.
Leon Ford, who was shot and paralyzed by a police officer during a traffic stop in 2012, also urges us to consider the individuals and families of the victims. “These people have children. These people have cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, who can’t live a normal life...even though I don't watch those videos, I can feel that energy. When I see somebody posting, I scroll past it. It still sticks to me” (Yahoo).
Some will argue that it’s necessary to share because we will never be able to fight for justice without them. But what does it say about us that justice can only be pursued for the most atrocious cases, and only if they were captured on video and circulated broadly enough to create public outcry? Why is justice only justified when the crime is warranted worthy of national attention? Most urgently, when will we take action not to share, but change the social conditions to ensure that these instances never happen again?
That will take us changing our behavior. We must channel immediate outrage into a persistent commitment to long-term change. Media platforms are taking note; more have chosen not to post the videos on their social media feeds and create multiple news articles highlighting the event – one including the video footage, one without. And as individuals, we can do the same. Instead of sharing to elicit strong emotions like shock or disgust, consider sharing the information sans video. More importantly, we recommend sharing proactive ways your community can address policing and public safety issues, like upcoming city council meetings or alternatives to calling the police. It’s action – not awareness – that will prevent these videos in the future.
Key Takeaways
The U.S. has a long history of distributing assets depicting violence on marginalized bodies
The circulation of police violence videos often exacerbate stress, anxiety, vicarious trauma and PTSD in the Black community
We need to evolve beyond sharing for shock and awe and take action for solidarity
RELATED ISSUES
9/3/2020 | Support mental health response services.
8/26/2020 | Be an active bystander.
6/4/2020 | Don't tell Black people how to respond.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
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.
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.
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.
RELATED ISSUES
12/7/2020 | Demand justice for Nickolas Lee.
4/13/2021 | Stop over-policing.
1/15/2021 | Mind the use of "terrorism".
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
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.
RELATED ISSUES
10/19/2020 | Support restorative justice in schools.
7/2/2020 | Remove police from our public schools.
7/15/2020 | End racial bias in school discipline.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
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.
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
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)
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.
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).
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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
RELATED ISSUES
4/23/2021 | Learn how militarism supports racism.
11/2/2020 | Make an election safety plan.
7/26/2020 | Pay attention to the Portland protests.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
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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.
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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)
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.
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.
RELATED ISSUES
4/16/2021 | Unpack superheroes and the American Dream.
3/15/2021 | Address racism in reality TV.
9/15/2020 | End Hollywood whitewashing.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
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Stop over-policing.
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 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.
GET EDUCATED
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).
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).
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).
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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.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
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Understand inequities in child welfare.
Last summer, cities across the country were forced to address the role of law enforcement in creating unsafe spaces for its communities. Now, many are keeping the pressure on to see action. The Black Lives Matter LA chapter is addressing the intersection of law enforcement and child welfare, an often inequitable system harming the most vulnerable families (BLM LA). Today we are learning about the disproportionate representation of Black families in the child welfare system.
Happy Tuesday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. I've been learning more about the topic of child welfare because of how the landscape is shifting through COVID-19.
On one hand, remote learning, social distancing rules and budget cuts have reduced the number of opportunities for other grownups to report potential child welfare situations. Smultaneously, local leaders are advocating for reduced involvement with law enforcement in these cases – as part of efforts to reduce policing and reimagine public safety. I appreciate Nia's overview of the child welfare space and the racial disparities all the more urgent in this tense time. I hope you do, too.
We're in the final stages of bringing on our first full-time staff member, thanks to the support of our community! Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or, you can give one-time on our website, PayPal, or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Sign this petition from Black Lives Matter Los Angeles to remove police presence in child services investigations and #ReimagineChildSafety.
Support organizations that are focused on family reunification, and providing direct support to families such as Children’s Rights and Movement for Family Power.
Consider: How does this disparity affect child welfare resources in my community? How can I escalate an issue in a more equitable way?
Remember: child welfare can be greatly supported when you support housing, education. food and other essential services in your local community. Consider how your local organizations and mutual aid networks help reimagine child safety.
GET EDUCATED
By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
Last summer, cities across the country were forced to address the role of law enforcement in creating unsafe spaces for its communities. Now, many are keeping the pressure on to see action. The Black Lives Matter LA chapter is addressing the intersection of law enforcement and child welfare, an often inequitable system harming the most vulnerable families (BLM LA). Today we are learning about the disproportionate representation of Black families in the child welfare system.
Black children make up 33% of children in foster care, although they comprise only 15% of the total child population (National Conference of State Legislatures). They are also significantly more likely to be removed from their families for the same issues that are overlooked in cases with white children.
Initially, the child welfare system was designed to reunite previously separated families, and it excluded Black families entirely. When the stereotype of the “welfare queen” became prolific in the 1980s, the welfare system became a means of separating Black families and facilitating unnecessary transracial adoptions. Congressional acts passed in the mid-1990s limited funds to support families of origin, but left funds for adoption and foster placement uncapped, incentivizing family separation. Other acts, including the Paired with Inter-Ethnic Adoption Act, facilitated a wave of unnecessary adoptions by parents from another race (Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy).
These policies incentivize American states to adopt a more punitive approach to child welfare, directing more funds to separation than direct support to families (PBS). Funding for adoption and foster care is prioritized over directly funding families in need (PBS). The federal Title IV-E Foster Care Program offers unlimited funding to foster care placements, and limits funds for services to keep families intact (Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems).
Poverty is a predictor in the removal of children from their home, and Black parents are more likely to face poverty. (For more on racism and intergenerational wealth, check out our previous article here.) There are multiple case studies where children of color have been removed from their caregivers due to lack of money only, including a case of a family facing eviction, and a hospitalized mother who did not have someone to watch her kids.
In these instances, appropriate supports like housing assistance and respite care were not offered to the families. Instead, the children were removed from their guardians and placed in foster care. These particular case examples were categorized as “emergency removals without prior judicial authorization”, and this type of removal is particularly susceptible to racial bias (Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems). Poverty also contributes to many neglect cases: a child can be removed for being malnourished, due to the family’s food insecurity. However, it would be much less harmful to fund the family than to place the child with another family (Practice Notes).
Black parents who struggle with substance use disorders are also more likely to have their children removed than white parents with the same issue. Black mothers are 1.5 times more likely to be drug tested (or have their baby drug tested) after birth, although positivity rates are about equal in Black and white mothers (Journal of Women's Health). Additionally, incarceration disproportionately affects Black Americans, putting parents at risk of their children being placed in foster care, and their parental rights being terminated entirely (Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy).
Before the child welfare laws in the late 20th century were passed, Black families were largely barred from participating in child welfare services at all. Black children were deemed to be unwanted by white adoptive parents and were largely cared for by extended family and church networks when their parents could not care for them. The AACWA was the first legislation that included Black children in child welfare services, and supported reunification or establishing permanency efforts for children in foster care (Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy)
Similar acts also facilitated the placement of Indigenous children in the childcare system. Indigenous American children are 2.9 times more likely to be placed in foster care than white children (ABA). The Indian Adoption Act of 1958 effectively allowed the United States Government to remove Indigenous children from their homes and place them in with white families. However, in 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) allowed tribal courts to intervene in child welfare placements, and required the states to place children in homes that were consistent with indigenous culture (APA). However, the ICWA has not been consistent in its implementation and a 2013 ruling allowing a white family to adopt an Indigenous child has put the law in peril (Washington Post).
The American Bar Association recommends that child services workers recognize and understand biases, as well as working directly with families to better understand their situations. They also recommend that child welfare agencies hire more diverse staff (ABA). Recent policies have shifted more towards keeping families together and to offering services to families who are struggling prior to removing children (Child Welfare). One example is community doula programs that are publicly funded to give support to parents who face poverty (DONA). Although it is clear that children should not be with abusive parents, it is still critical to consider the mitigating factors of many child welfare placements. Separating families due to poverty or racial profiling is unaccepable. It’s time to prioritize funding families directly to keep them intact and healthy.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Initially, Black families were excluded from child welfare systems entirely. It wasn’t until child welfare legislation was fully developed in the late 20th century that the focus shifted to families of color.
Later, the welfare system became a means of separating Black families and facilitating unnecessary transracial adoptions.
Black children are separated from their parents at 2.2 times the rate of white children and Native American children are separated from their parents at 2.9 times the rate of white children.
More funding is directed toward foster care and adoption than to directly funding families that are in the child welfare system due to poverty.
RELATED ISSUES
10/2/2020 | Protect early child care providers.
12/9/2020 | Rethink transracial adoption.
10/28/2020 | Unpack the history of social work.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Repeal stand your ground laws.
This past June, William Marcus (Marc) Wilson, a 21-year-old Black student from Sharpsburg, Georgia, was driving with his girlfriend when a truckload of angry white people accosted them, calling them racial slurs and attempting to run them off the road. Terrified, Wilson fired warning shots from a gun he legally carried, one of which struck the car and killed a 17-year-old white woman sitting inside (Washington Post). Wilson fully cooperated with law enforcement and told them he fired his gun, fearing for his life, and surveillance footage demonstrated aggression from the driver. But the next day, Wilson was arrested and charged with one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. He was denied bond in a hearing in August and is scheduled for a bond reconsideration hearing today, Tuesday, December 15, 2020 (Wilson’s lawyers’ website).
Happy Tuesday, everyone. How are you holding up today? Today we're analyzing the racial disparities of the enforcement of stand your ground, a controversial law that doesn't live up to its name. Read Marc Wilson's story and take action, and thanks to JustGeorgia and Tamika Middleton for helping to educate me on this topic.
Our newsletter is free and made possible by generous contributions from our community – no advertising or sponsorships. Join in by making a one-time gift on ourwebsiteorPayPal, orsubscribe for $7/monthon Patreon. You can also Venmo (@nicoleacardoza).
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Join a live, virtual teach-in during the hearing on the case via Zoom today (12/15/2020) at 3:30p EST. If you live in Southeast Georgia, you can attend live.
Spread the word on this case using the hashtags #JusticeForMarcWilson #AllEyesOnStatesboro and #AllEyesOnGeorgia. Sharing assets available on our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
To get more involved, contact JustGeorgia via their website: just-georgia.org
Research the self-defense and/or “stand your ground” laws in your state, and recent examples of its enforcement.
GET EDUCATED
By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
This past June, William Marcus (Marc) Wilson, a 21-year-old Black student from Sharpsburg, Georgia, was driving with his girlfriend when a truckload of angry white people accosted them, calling them racial slurs and attempting to run them off the road. Terrified, Wilson fired warning shots from a gun he legally carried, one of which struck the car and killed a 17-year-old white woman sitting inside (Washington Post). Wilson fully cooperated with law enforcement and told them he fired his gun, fearing for his life, and surveillance footage demonstrated aggression from the driver. But the next day, Wilson was arrested and charged with one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. He was denied bond in a hearing in August and is scheduled for a bond reconsideration hearing today, Tuesday, December 15, 2020 (Wilson’s lawyers’ website).
Technically, Wilson’s actions may have been protected under Georgia’s “stand your ground” law, a law that protects an individual’s right to use reasonable force, including deadly force, in self-defense without fear of criminal prosecution. Most states in the U.S. have some type of law like this but emphasize that civilians have a “duty to retreat” from the situation before responding with force. But at least 25 states allow “no duty to retreat,” and ten, including Georgia, specifically say individuals can “stand your ground,” hence the term (NCSL). These laws are all worded differently state-by-state, and some can be more lenient than others. Unsurprisingly, the NRA has helped push the implementation of “stand your ground” laws in several states (Mother Jones).
Florida is notorious for having an aggressive “stand your ground” law. Unlike other states, the state has to legally prove that the shooter did not act in self-defense, marking them innocent at default. In addition, those established to have “stood their ground” are granted immunity from both criminal prosecution and civil actions (CNN).
It’s no wonder that some of the most controversial stories of “stand your ground” stem from Florida. Markeis McGlockton was shot and killed by Michael Drejka after an argument about a parking spot. Drejka was initially not arrested for the crime until a month later, influenced by surveillance video showing McGlockton backing away from the altercation. Drejka was ultimately charged with manslaughter (Vox). More prominently, stand your ground laws in Florida were hotly contested after the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012, which, in part, made it difficult to argue against self-defense and lead to George Zimmerman’s acquittal (The Atlantic).
But Georgia, too, has had its own share of challenges against these laws. In February 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year old Black man, was out running for a jog when he was shot and killed by two men. Initially, no arrests were made based on the “stand your ground” defense. It took public outcry and released video footage of the altercation for an investigation, and the two suspects now face life sentences without parole (NYTimes).
The handling of these cases – no arrests, perceived innocence until proven guilty – are very different from how Marc Wilson’s case was handled. But according to studies, this is unsurprising: there are clear racial disparities in how “stand your ground” laws are enforced. Defendants are twice as likely to walk free if their victims are non-white. And race is considered a “significant predictor” of whether a “stand your ground” defense will be sufficient. In states with “stand your ground” laws, white people that shot someone who was Black were 11x more likely to be protected than the reverse (Bloomberg).
This notion has been reinforced throughout history beyond the “stand your ground” laws. In 1967, members of the Black Panthers Party protested on the steps of the California statehouse armed with loaded guns, urging Black people to arm themselves. At the time, this was legal due to the state’s open-carry laws. But this demonstration scared politicians, who quickly pass the Mulford Act, a state bill prohibiting the open carry of loaded firearms – and prohibiting loaded firearms in the state Capitol (History). Strict gun regulation laws passed across the U.S. shortly thereafter.
And even before this, the notion of stand your ground was reserved for white, male property owners. Native Americans who wanted to defend their homes from colonization had no legal grounds to do so, and many former Confederate states did not allow Black people to own guns for decades (NPR).
But this polarized time shows that, regardless of our history, more people are compelled to buy guns to protect themselves. Self-defense is the leading reason for individuals to purchase a gun. And the biggest increase of firearm sales in 2020 was from Black men and women, who demonstrated a 58.2% increase in purchases during the first six months of 2020 versus the same period last year (NPR). Bruce Tomlin, a 63-year-old truck driver from New Mexico, was inspired to buy a gun after seeing the video of Ahmaud Arbery being shot, stating that he’d “rather go to trial than go to the cemetery” (NPR).
Generally, I don’t think that we should rely on carceral punishment for anyone’s protection. A more comprehensive re-imagination of our criminal justice system is necessary for an inclusive future. And this case only exacerbates that point. If a law designed to promote self-defense can be used to protect those perpetuating the harm, it merely protects violence. And as we re-imagine criminal justice, it’s up to us to advocate justice wherever necessary.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Marc Wilson was charged with murder and aggravated assault for attempting to defend himself after being accosted while driving.
Stand your ground laws are racially inequitable; defendants of color are less likely to be deemed innocent, and violence against Black people is more likely to be protected.
Throughout history, the law has prioritized the protection of self-defense for white, male property owners.
RELATED ISSUES
12/7/2020 | Demand justice for Nickolas Lee.
11/16/2020 | Understand your local law enforcement.
10/29/2020 | Fight racist death row sentencing.
9/24/2020 | Demand justice for Breonna Taylor.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Keep fighting for Breonna Taylor.
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It's Friday and today's a great day to keep fighting for Breonna Taylor. Were you expecting a different punchline? Then maybe you’ll enjoy today's newsletter on the memeification of Breonna Taylor and what we must do as we fight for justice.
Although it's disheartening to write once again about Breonna Taylor, I also know that all of her killers are still walking free. And because of that, I must use my voice to keep advocating for her – and for all of us that have the privilege to still be here, and benefit from the changes that are coming. How do you choose to use yours?
We'd love your support to keep our reporting growing! Consider giving one-time on our website, (or Venmo @nicoleacardoza), or pledge $5/month on our Patreon. Many thanks to all that have supported so far!
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Sign the Color of Change petition to demand that all police officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor are fired.
Donate to the Louisville Community Bail Fund, and aid the protesters still rallying in Breonna's hometown.
Call Kentucky's local official and the public integrity unit of the Louisville Metro Police Department to demand the officers involved in Breonna's death are fired and charged with her killing. Go to StandWithBre.com and tap the button on your mobile phone and they will call for you!
GET EDUCATED
O Magazine is ending regular print magazine issues in December 2020 to adopt a digital-first approach (Hollywood Reporter). But for the first time in 20 years, Oprah herself isn’t on the cover. Instead, this month’s cover is dedicated to Breonna Taylor, who was murdered 140 days ago by Louisville Metro Police Department officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove after they entered her home with a no-knock warrant while she was sleeping and opened fire (The Cut). Although one of the three officers have been fired, the other two are only on administrative reassignment, and none of the officers face criminal charges (NYTimes). The magazine commissioned 24-year-old digital artist Alexis Franklin to create the cover, and she used a well-known selfie Breonna Taylor took shortly before her death (Washington Post).
You may have seen this photo on the cover because it’s been all over social media – in fact, Breonna Taylor’s name and image have been widely shared through memes, gifs, text-based posts, and more since the protests. Earlier this week, the controversial 'Women Supporting Women' Selfie Challenge dominated timelines when women encouraged others to share a selfie in black-and-white (Elle Magazine). Many people decide to use the moment instead to share photos of Breonna Taylor (The Lily). Echoes of calls for justice are heard in protests on the street, in window signs, and amplified by celebrities. Beyonce penned an open letter to the Kentucky State Attorney General (Beyonce). The WNBA dedicated its entire 2020 season to honoring Taylor and the Say Her Name movement (KPBS).
Breonna was murdered in March 2020, but her story became a key narrative in the Black Lives Matter protests in May, with specific attention towards how little press her story had received. Although Blavity and The Root, two major publications that focus on Black stories, published articles about her story in late March, mainstream news sources didn’t pick up her story until late May (used Google Search results for this one). Although the intense coverage of COVID-19 during this time likely played a factor (Courier Journal), many believe it’s our country’s longstanding tenuous relationship with Black women that minimize police brutality like this (PBS). And until we see more accountability for her death, we can expect that her story will continue to resonate with allies and activists as the anti-racism movement progresses.
But are all these memes and tributes and cover takeovers helping, or hurting? Some believe that these statements don’t do her life and legacy justice. And the statement “arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,” a popular catchphrase, is misleading, according to film and culture pop critic Cate Young (Jezebel). How exactly is the community supposed to achieve that while they’re scrolling through Instagram? The more pertinent actions – like the ones in today’s Take Action section – are shared significantly less.
And what is the creator intending to do when posting a meme like this on social media: raise awareness about the injustice of over-policing Black women, or gain some easy likes? And the memeification of violence against Black women is perpetuating the same systems of discrediting and minimizing that pain (which we touched on briefly in yesterday’s Anti-Racism Daily).
“When she’s diluted down to a glib, cutesy meme it’s a dishonor to her. She was very much a real person, with real thoughts and dreams and dislikes. She leaves behind a world of hurting family, friends, and acquaintances”.
Christine Boyer, writer, for Jezebel
Others believe that these subliminal messaging shift perceptions and encourage action in a time where many people’s newsfeeds have gone back to normal. Allissa Richardson, a journalism professor at USC Annenberg and author, believes that it’s a powerful way Black people can trick the algorithm to hold conversations that advance critical issues that may otherwise go ignored (Washington Post). And when conversations persist, media pays attention, drawing the conversation back into the press cycle. (It has compelled me, too, to write about Breonna Taylor again for the Anti-Racism Daily. Very meta).
The power of media in this movement brings to mind the strength of Emmett Till’s mother for holding an open casket, putting her son’s mutilated body on display for the whole world to see. The photos, which were published in Jet Magazine and circulated broadly from there, forced America to confront the brutality of the racism that may have been easy to overlook (view the photo and corresponding story in Time Magazine). Unlike the memes of Breonna, these images were chosen by the family and approved to share, not user-generated memes with their own branding and hashtags. But for the time, these images achieved something similar to what we’re seeing today: it’s impossible to look away. But we shouldn’t need a meme to draw our attention back to injustices against Black women. It’s our responsibility to share these stories with respect and care, and continue the fight for justice even when we’re not reminded to while scrolling through Instagram.
Like the story of Breonna Taylor, the perpetrators of the murder of Emmett Till walk free. In fact, the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, which was created by family members of Till and other community members, is asking the community to sign a petition to hold Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman that falsely accused Emmett Till of a crime he did not commit, accountable. Learn more about Emmett Till and his story in our Anti-Racism Daily on lynching, and sign the petition here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
It has been 140 days since Breonna Taylor was killed by Louisville Metro Police Department officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove
Oprah joined a long list of celebrities, activists and individuals using their platforms to call for justice
The memeification of Breonna Taylor is helping to keep Breonna’s name in the media – and perpetuate the same systems that harm Black women
We must leverage our platforms to center the needs of other with care and grace
RELATED ISSUES
June 5, 2020 | Breonna Taylor. Say her name. And remember it.
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Pay attention to the Portland protests.
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Pausing our Sunday series on COVID-19 to address the urgent protests rising across the country. It feels important to address the historical context and implications of what’s unfolding on the ground right now. Especially since this newsletter was started as a "work in protest" in response to the death of George Floyd. Get updated on the latest news and its historical context.
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Nicole
TAKE ACTION
1. Support the Black Portland Youth Movement raising funds to support protestors on the ground.
2. U.S. Residents: Get clear on your city's stance on federal agents, and contact your local representatives to discourage egregious intervention by federal agents.
GET EDUCATED
Protests swelled across the country last night in support of Black Lives Matter and against federal policing. Local Portland police called last night’s protests a riot, deploying tear gas (KGW8). An intense protest in Seattle resulted in 45 arrests and 21 wounded officers (Seattle Times). An Austin protestor was shot and killed (Statesman). A police station in Oakland was vandalized (ABC News). Meanwhile, Trump is sending more federal agents to Seattle and D.C. (Business Insider). Although the Trump administration aimed to quell protests by adding police, there are more people on the street in Portland now than ever before (Vox). And this rise in activity nationwide may indicate that there is much more tension to come.
The administration is also planning on sending federal agents to Chicago, Kansas City, Albuquerque, and possibly other major cities, including New York and Philadelphia, to deal with increases in gun violence (The Nation). Chicago, for example, is now on track to have its deadliest year regarding gun deaths since 2016, and local organizers believe the compilation of the protests, COVID-19, increasing unemployment rates, and distrust in police are all contributing factors (NYTimes). Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot initially expressed concern over the presence of “secret, federal agents,” but, after speaking to Trump, invited them to come, pending that they work in conjunction with local law enforcement (Time). This program, called “Operation Legend,” has been criticized as ineffective, and considered more of a publicity stunt that comprehensive change (Washington Post).
The protests in Portland have been fueled by its people still grappling with the city’s dark history of racism. The mid-1800s were a divisive time for the region, as settlers traveled west on the Oregon Trail, dissatisfied with the tensions over slavery on the East Coast. Although some brought freed Black people and liberal views, most were committed to creating an all-white society. Consequently, laws passed to prohibit slavery. Black people were ordered to leave the region. And those that didn’t were to be “severely whipped by not less than twenty or more than thirty-nine stripes” every six months until they left (Oregon Secretary of State). The KKK thrived here, becoming major voices in the local government and ensuring further racial discrimination. In 1923, the state passed the Alien Land Law that banned Japanese land ownership, despite the fact that Japanese Americans already only held less than one percent of Oregon land in 1920 (Oregon Secretary of State).
Although these laws have since been reversed, their lasting impact is still seen in Oregon’s capital. Portland is currently the whitest city in the country (out of the country’s largest 30 cities) with 72% of its population classified as non-Hispanic white (NYTimes). Today the average income level for Black families in Portland is nearly half that of white residents (NYTimes).
“The xenophobia, the racism, the caustic narrative that has been fomented at the national level are also having an impact here and adding to that legacy here in Oregon”.
Dani Ledezma, the interim executive director of the Coalition of Communities of Color, for the NYTimes
Critics note that this historical exclusion of Black people and other people of color has made it difficult for the state population to recognize and act against racial discrimination (University of Oregon). And even now, as the Trump administration plays out a political agenda on the streets of Portland, Black leaders worry that these protests, with overwhelmingly white crowds, may co-opt the conversation around race, leaving the needs of the Black community and other people of color behind (The Guardian).
Before federal agent intervention, protests in Portland were steady, but diminishing in scale. After weeks of protests and political action by citizens, sparked by the death of George Floyd, the City Council passed a budget that cut $15 million from the police budget for the upcoming fiscal year (Oregon Live). The head of the Portland Police Bureau stepped down, and a federal judge enacted a ban against tear gas used by local law enforcement, except when life or safety was at risk (NYTimes).
Some of these federal agents are from the Federal Protective Service, a uniformed security police division of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The agency is designed to provide security at federal properties, and agents have been sent to Portland, Seattle, and D.C., to guard statues, monuments, and federal property as protestors topple them (that we reviewed in a previous newsletter). But the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, a subset of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, was seen in their camouflage uniforms beating and detaining protestors (Business Insider). And their tactics of brutal force, lack of identification, and appearing and dragging people into unmarked vans, is disproportionately targeting immigrant communities and communities of color (NYTimes).
Federal policing is against the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which states that “powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people” (JUSTIA). But the Department of Homeland Security does have the right to assist local law enforcement, and since the Trump administration passed an executive order protecting American monuments, there is legal ground. The DHS authorized this initiative themselves in a document published on July 20 (Lawfare). And if this weekend’s protests are any indication, we can only expect tensions to increase. Learn more about the legality of this intervention in this New Yorker interview with Carrie Cordero, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a CNN contributor.
Beyond the demonstrators on the ground, many people are calling for justice. The Oregon state attorney general sued on behalf of the protestors, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman said the state “lacked standing” because the lawsuit was a “highly unusual one with a particular set of rules’ (Time). But the U.S. District Judge Michael Simon blocked federal agents in Portland from dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, or targeting force against journalists or legal observers at protests, in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Oregon (ACLU).
It’s clearly unsettling that a movement founded in advocating for equitable law enforcement has led to federal agents patrolling cities with little oversight. And protests are a critical component of how a democracy advocates for change. If it weren’t for protests, we wouldn’t have made as much progression the critical issues of race in our time. It’s critical we protect our right to protest in this unprecedented time.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Protests are rising because of the federal agents the Trump administration is sending to major cities
The forefront of this conversation is happening in Portland, a city with a dark history of racism
Federal policing is against the Tenth Amendment
Protests are a key component to change
RELATED ISSUES
June 23 | Defund the police – beyond the slogan.
June 22 | Talk about our right to protest.
June 18 | Take down Confederate symbols.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza