BLM: "When we say #DefundThePolice, we mean abolition..."

    Comments

    Police decrease crime

    Data suggests that funding community organizations could decrease crime

    The calls to end policing as we know it contain a sort of trap. The best evidence we have makes clear that police are effective in reducing violence, and without designating some group to combat this problem, efforts to weaken them through budget cuts — “defund the police” — are likely to have unanticipated consequences and to destabilize communities. In many cities this is likely to lead to a rise in violence. And research shows that, when violence increases, Americans of all races become more punitive, supporting harsher policing and criminal justice policies. That’s how we got to this point.

    Yet none of this means that the police, which have served as an institution of racialized control throughout our nation’s history, are the only group capable of reducing violence. Community leaders and residents have proved adept at overseeing their neighborhoods, caring for their populations and maintaining safe streets. Studies show that this work lowers crime, sometimes dramatically. What happens if we put those people in charge of containing violence, too

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/12/defund-police-violent-crime/?arc404=true

    Cullors is an abolitionist 

    This does not mean that Cullors is going to dictate public policy

    In the 7:15 minute snippet, Cullors said that local government wanted to build a $3.5 billion on a new prison

    Cullors and others helped caused the bill to fail

    Could that money have been used to aid the local community?


    Aid local community?

    Speaking of which.The state of California spends $81,000.00
    per year per prison inmate and $10,291.00 per public student.

    6,163,001 student total at $10,291.00 per equals $63,423,443,29

    115,000 inmates at $81,000 per equals $12,150,000,000 billion

    Let's invest more on students so they won't become inmates.

    ~TOD~



    cross-link  HOW INFORMED ARE AMERICANS ABOUT RACE AND POLICING?

    Report by The Skeptic Research Center and the Worldview Foundations Research Team, Feb. 20, 2021


    When you first hear the words prison abolition, you might consider Cullors to be insane.

    However, a recent story in NYT makes one wonder about alternatives 

    A young, pregnant woman is convicted of check cashing fraud

    She is sent to jail for a parole violation 

    There is a COVID pandemic 

    Her cellmate was COVID positive 

    She was at risk of catching COVID

    Is prison the only alternative?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/27/health/coronavirus-prisons-danbury.html

     

     


    I have nothing against discussion about all the theories and posts of new articles on topic on this thread, it might be a good place to collect them. Though I might chose to not participate.

    But as far as Cullors and official BLM advocacy everyone can listen to her video and see what she says for herself and her explanation of how it might work. And now there is a tweet that clearly states that the official BLM organization is fully behind that.

    The main point of me posting it is that there is no more beating around the bush: this is what official BLM stands for And no beter interpretation than the horse's mouth! Best to use their message to understand their message rather than intermediaries splaining what they said. The tweet and the recommended video ARE what they are saying.


    Cullors stated her position. 

    It is not going to happen

    Immediately

    However different localities are shifting resources from the police

    Mental health providers to aid in certain 911 call situations are increasing in number

    Police officers are being removed from schools.

    President Obama noted in his recent podcast with Springsteen that the goal of an activist could be to get legislation passed or to "stir sh*t up"

     


    I will just add this clue for those who haven't watched. She mentions Angela Davis as a major mentor, if you don't know Angela, do a quick wikipedia check

    Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ideologically a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and is a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She is the author of over ten books on classfeminismrace, and the US prison system [....].

    This is official BLM: they have decided to not hide their far left extremism anymore. I suspected this long ago when I saw the influence of white leftist anarchists on their program and activities. I am actually pleased that they have stopped hiding it so people know what they are buying into. (I actually bought into Angela Davis as a high school kid, been there, done that, happy to believe in capitalism now a half century later.)


    great reminder that our Founders took policing power extremely seriously, the interpretation of what they put down in the Constitution about it is the rub;

    Can't wait to read it. This is one of the most interesting and irritating part about the Court's 4th Amendment cases. https://t.co/QuEdCpvjd9

    — Annette Gordon-Reed (@agordonreed) March 1, 2021

    Here's just one reminder why



    A bill introduced by Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren comes as the House prepares to vote on major policing reform.


    Biden Feb. 25!!!--

    It's like people aren't paying enough attention to what Biden is doing? Including me.


    NAACP: CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS CALL ON CONGRESS TO PASS GEORGE FLOYD JUSTICE IN POLICING ACT

    FEBRUARY 24, 2021

    -----------------

    Rep. Karen Bass Reintroduces George Floyd Policing Bill in Congress

    CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS URGE CONGRESS TO PASS LEGISLATION.

     ...On Wednesday, she and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, reintroduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021....

    @ Essence.com, Feb. 26

    ------

    So I see that what's going on basically is that they are going to try the same bill over with the new Senate

    AND NO MATTER WHICH WAY IT GOES, THEN BIDEN WILL BE DONE WITH THE TOPIC

    and be able to move on to other stuff.

    Edit to add: the Pressley bill is also a redo, she tried it last session with Justin Amash as a partner, many libertarians like the idea.



    this Noah Smith followup tweet directly addresses the BLM/Cullors delusion of kumbaya anarchy with small communities existing without the need for police, prisons or courts:


    the killer quote from that article for me, with this cavaet that until April it has been a very limited program:

    The office has been limited in its mission by the order’s narrow design: Until a new law goes into effect in April, prosecutors can only pursue cases that result in a death. The victim also has to have been unarmed.

    is this

    Even for prosecutors who are dedicated to investigating cases against police officers, doing so is not easy. Christy E. Lopez, a former Department of Justice lawyer who helped lead the investigation into the police department in Ferguson, Mo., said that public opinion remains on the side of the police.

    “Despite all the protests this summer, the fact is that most Americans are incredibly protective of police, especially in these criminal cases,” said Ms. Lopez, who is now a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. “And so that’s the thing to look at, is are we willing to hold police criminally accountable?”

    Grand jury pools are representative of the majority in most places in this country. They are not likely to nullify the wording of a law in order to indict a police officer of a crime when the crime charge does not seem to fit what happened. Yes, they are prejudiced towards police precisely because police themselves are needed to keep law and order. To charge an officer with a crime, the crime has to be especially clear cut! Otherwise, to go around the law and say "but this wasn't right what he did" is nullifying the law, suggesting rebellion or revolution against the law is the way. It's belongs in civil law, not criminal. Hence so many of police abuse cases end up as lawsuits rather than criminal convictions and/or loss of job, not in criminal conviction.

     


    From a totally different angle (except for my 4th Amendment thing) here's something big picture that I tend to also see in the BLM/Angela Davis-inspired "abolish police, prisons and courts" anarchist-heaven dreaming. Can you even bring up the phrase "tyranny of the majority" in an anarchist local community meeting, isn't that verboten? Who's the judge of whether people who need eyeglasses are now doomed by the majorty? Nobody, cause there's no judges and no courts

    What I said was that people who lived through the Cultural Revolution are sounding the alarms. It's not hard to find such voices out there; I've spoken to several privately but many have said so publicly.

    I also said they may be suffering from confirmation bias. https://t.co/n25COaILhP

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021

    "Genocidal" is of course not a word I or anyone else used -- that's Katz's fabrication.

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021


    What those voices have said is that they recognize similar logic and a similar explosive ideological trajectory -- and they say it based on watching both tendencies manifest themselves in the real world.

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021

    The movements for police and prison abolition and the broader equity agenda adopt the mantle and moral prestige of the Civil Rights Movement, but their goals are fundamentally different -- vastly more radical -- and have little to do with civil rights

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021

    It's one thing for American right-wingers to make glib historical analogies referencing catastrophes happening in a foreign land, it's another for those who lived through it directly or saw its effects on their parents to make those same analogies.

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021

    This doesn't mean that those witnesses are necessarily right -- as I said, there may be an element of confirmation bias for which they have been primed by lived experience. But it does mean we should listen to and consider those judgments.

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021

    What those people recall is being caught up in an ideological cascade in which ostensibly progressive rhetoric favoring the oppressed against their oppressors became a weapon of class enmity wielded by a remorseless faction of the elite against their rivals

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021

    Q: Aren't you just whining about "cancel culture" lol? Is anybody REALLY pushing out doctrines of class enmity in America?"

    A: Yes https://t.co/FXe1smAdve

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 24, 2021


    Here’s an example of someone posting this sentiment publicly https://t.co/S0rrWyF7RM

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 26, 2021

    a libertarian view:

    States need not wait for SCOTUS or Congress to restrict or abolish qualified immunity. They can provide their own civil remedies for police abuse. https://t.co/ldS2nTF19j

    — reason (@reason) February 24, 2021

    Our cops in LA . . .

    They seem to have heard the people and are
    beginning to respond in a positive manner.


    At InstaGram: Building Blue Bridges "See what a change students from South Los Angeles can make."

    CBSNews:

    The LAPD and Building Blue Bridges hosted a march in downtown Los Angeles Saturday in an effort to unite law enforcement and the public. The LAPD and Building Blue Bridges signed a contract commemorating a partnership that reimagined public safety. Chris Holmstrom reports.

     

     

     

    ~TOD~


    Black Lives Matter promoting defundpolice.org website and affiliates:

    includes things like these PDF'S

    An Organizer’s Toolkit for Developing Campaigns to Abolish Policing by Critical Resistance

    and

    What’s Next? Safer and More Just Communities Without Policing

    and

    Reparations-Now-Toolkit-FINAL


    apply those principles here:


    What was Bill Barr's role in the lead up? He's a survivor, but what did he set up before avoiding the trainwreck?

    And then the others *at the top*. So many temporary appointments rather than Congressionally approved.


    Must-read: DoD horrific response

    Use anon tab if needed. Seriously, theres so much malfeasance and high level conspiracy described in one write-up.

    Arrests need to be made. Hearings and wide-soread investigations need to be held.


    Nate Silver:

    Frank Luntz retweets it because he knows it true from all his focus grouping:

    AND in actuality, as we have seen, the official BLM is no longer hiding that they want to abolish police, not just "defund", so who is to say that there was a problem with those peoples' hearing? Maybe the others who were reading the "defund" movement as shifting funds to related services were the clueless ones.


    Historically minority communities have suffered from both under policing and bad policing. BLM is focusing on the latter but they actually go hand in hand. Too few police in a community leads to more crime and more coercive techniques to maintain control. Different segments of the population see one problem as more pressing than the other. Both problems need to be worked on simultaneously but BLM's plan to solve one will make the other much worse. 


    Some communities may shift funds to mental health resources 

    I doubt that many communities are taking BLM up on abolishing the police.

    The ball in the the court of the leadership of police departments to reform behavior.


    I care more the angle about how coverage of big protests by media make people think certain communities are all of one mind on an issue WHEN THEY ARE NOT. It's no different than any other "special interest" who claims to be representing silent members when they actually disapprove. Learned my lesson long ago with "the silent majority" who went to the polls and elected Nixon. Unless you are doing something through the courts--our judicial system is there to protect minority views against tyranny of the majority--you want to reform something or fix a problem, you've got to win over a majority for chrissakes. Otherwise it's just delusional and you end up doing counterproductive things.


    Look, I've cited this before. very few people of any color are shot to death by police compared to other unfair death circumstances like death by physician malpractice and overtreatment and incorrect treatment, and violence from other civilians, not to mention hundreds of thousands lost to Covid. I think I need to put it in caps:

    AND AMONG THAT SMALL NUMBER OF CASUALTIES, FAR MORE WHITE PEOPLE ARE SHOT TO DEATH BY POLICE THAN BLACK:

    People shot to death by U.S. police, by race 2017-2021

    Published by Statista Research Department, Mar 1, 2021 

    Are all black people so stupid that they don't know that? I don't think so. I think activists have so long forced this issue so long and so vehemently that the media always covers every instance of mistreatment of blacks by police while they don't cover any mistreatment of whites by police.

    You read about the black boy arrested walking home from school in a snowstorm. How do you know the same thing hasn't happened to white kids as well. You read about handcuffs being put on black kids at Target because they were misidentified as perps by staff. How do you know that hasn't happened to white kids as well? I've actually seen with my own eyes white kids thrown on the floor and tacked for shoplifting. Nobody called the media, it wasn't a hot story. If I were a reporter, it certainly wouldn't consider it a hot story. But if they are black, it's a hot story. Because it supposedly "proves" systemic racism in policing. EVEN IF THE COPS INVOLVED ARE BLACK!

    It does take a toll, seeing the stories posted on Dagblog day after day after day, this mistreatment by police of black people, that shooting by police of black people. Rare to see white people stories,though. Does that mean it doesn't happen? NOPE.

    Here's what I think is happening and I think the minority votes cited in Nate Silver's article clip know it, and I think a lot of my fellow Bronxites and New Yorkers know it:

    Police are tough on people who live in bad and poor neighborhoods. They also do profile people who look like the people in the bad neighborhoods their area. Many blacks are stuck in bad neighborhoods. It's socio-economic, not racism, and many of the black people who are stuck in poor crime-ridden neighborhoods know it. And many of those who have gotten out of those neighborhoods know it, too. And while they may not say so because it's not politically correct in their culture, they vote for more police and more black police. And don't fall for the shit in the news as representative of what's really going on, nor judge on the basis of a couple of horrible videos taken by civilians of mistreatment that cause a grand hysteria lasting months.

    Because they live it day after day in a crime-ridden neighborhood, or have lived it and recently gotten out. And have been to more than a few funerals in their time, and the victims were not shot by police.


    You repeated post reports of homicides 

    You note the high homicide rates in some Black communities 

    When I look at how crime can be decreased, I repeatedly see that developing trust and the community is important 

    These reports note that police abuse limits that trust.

    Curbing police abuse is a major issue is establishing trust.

    Some states realize this and are making reforms

    Maryland:

    Six of the bills passed unanimously, including measures to provide private mental health counseling to police officers, have the state’s attorney automatically investigate police-involved deaths, block police departments from obtaining military-grade equipment, hand control of the Baltimore City Police Department back to the city and ban some no-knock warrants.

    The other three bills make police disciplinary records publicly available, repeal parts of the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights and update laws on use of force policies. They passed along party lines, with Democrats voting in favor.

    All the bills now head to the House floor where they face an even larger Democratic majority than they did in the Senate.

    https://wamu.org/story/21/03/03/md-senate-approves-police-reform-measures/

    If the reforms decrease police abuse, they will benefit all people. BLM played a role in forcing change. Everyone will benefit.


    above article comes as no surprise to 

    1) those who ran the Trump campaign advertising in August 2020 trying to win over swings

    2) Joe Biden, in Dec.meeting with civil rights leaders: GOP 'beat the living h--- out of us' over 'defund the police'

    [....] Biden’s remarks came during a virtual meeting attended by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and prominent civil rights leaders, including NAACP President Derrick Johnson and Rev. Al Sharpton. During the call, Biden said public calls for police reform should be avoided ahead of the Georgia Senate runoff vote, the outcome of which will determine control of Congress’ upper chamber.

    “I also don’t think we should get too far ahead ourselves on dealing with police reform in that, because they’ve already labeled us as being ‘defund the police’ anything we put forward in terms of the organizational structure to change policing – which I promise you, will occur. Promise you,” Biden said in the leaked audio first obtained by The Intercept.

    “That’s how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we’re talking about defunding the police. We’re not. We’re talking about holding them accountable,” Biden added. “We’re talking about giving them money to do the right things.[....]

    3) Al Sharpton in Sept.

    4) members of Dem. Congress at "family meeting" discussing the loss of House seats post election, including Jim Clyburn

    5) black NYC lawmakers in August who saw the defund police movement as colonialist project by white progressives convincing minorities about their shit against the actual interests of minority communities (well,. okay, maybe those guys didn't care about swing voters, but they still think it's a crock of white far left anarchist crap hurting, not helping, their constituents)


    adding Nate's after comment which I initially missed:

     


    Josh Marshall & Yglesias exchange in Dec.; Yglesias confirming that Minneapolis BLM really were for "abolish" all along and were just hiding it under "defund"

    As we know people mean greatly different things by abolish or defund the police. But it's remarkable the degree to which many people do not realize that actually getting rid of police forces is a shocking and completely unsupportable idea to the vast majority of the country.

    — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 7, 2020

    Yes. And also as I detail in the piece, the specific Minneapolis activist group that channeled outrage about Floyd into “defund” as a mantra is clearly committed to abolitionism.

    — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 7, 2020

    Yglesias' article, which they were discussing, was tweeted here



    I think this means House Dems and Biden are done with the issue, no matter which way it goes in the Senate, they can say they tried. They will move on to other things that have more potential for bipartisan support. Biden's clearly not willing to focus at the national level on something so divisive where even the activists are very divided about what to do and where localities have already flip-flopped, i.e. Minneapolis defunded and then refunded and now is having a hard time hiring.

    If anything, it will come up again in the context of rising urban crime.

    (Or maybe there is already something targeted to police funding in the Stimulus bill?)


    more on the complicated congressional politics being played with the Geo. Floyd bill, here from The House passes a policing overhaul bill named for George Floyd, whose death spurred nationwide protests. @ NYTimes.com, March 4, 2021, 1:14 p.m by Nicholas FandosCatie Edmondson and Karen Zraick

    [...] The House vote was 220 to 212, with two Democrats joining Republicans to vote no. One Republican voted to pass the overhaul, but quickly said it had been a mistake.

    Progressives are plotting to use the opposition as an example of Republican obstruction as they build their case for Senate Democrats to jettison the legislative filibuster, to lower the threshold for Senate passage from 60 to just a simple majority. But Representative Karen Bass, Democrat of California and the bill’s principal author, said in an interview this week that she held out hope she could reach common ground with a cadre of Senate Republicans, led by Tim Scott of South Carolina, who had put together their own more modest proposal last summer.

    “There is tremendous good faith and good will between Senator Scott and me,” Ms. Bass said, though she conceded that there had been a “loss in momentum” in favor of an overhaul since last summer.

    The political shift was evident on Wednesday and may prove too formidable to overcome. After handling Democrats’ proposal gently last summer, Republicans made outright attacking liberal policing proposals a key plank of their 2020 campaigns and emerged convinced it was successful.

    Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, repeated one of those attacks on Thursday, asserting that the bill would “defund the police” by imposing “mountains of new regulations” that would drain departments’ resources. The attack sought to conflate the House Democrats’ effort with calls by progressive activists to shrink or otherwise pull resources from departments — which the lawmakers in Washington who crafted the bill explicitly rejected.

    “Democrats just doubled down as the party of Defunding the Police,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on Twitter.

    [....]

    Law enforcement organizations and police unions have forcefully opposed the measure, and the Trump administration had threatened a veto, arguing it would weaken law enforcement agencies. President Biden supports the bill [....]


    So basically official BLM is totally contra Biden's main message that government under the Democratic party, working with and for all citizens, can work. Because all their main protests have been against how Democratic mayors have been handling policing and the aftermath of any misconduct by their police. And their main message now is that it would be better if local communities handled security and other functions themselves. It's basically an anarchist message, very similar to that pushed by the deadenders at "Occupy Wall Street." That movement too started out big, hitting a nerve, and slowly alienated most of those who started out sympathetic. The majority that believes in civilization just doesn't buy into anarchist dreaming.


    Hopefully, but sadly it's more likely this will be the kiss of death as they get labeled Angela-Davis-style Marxists by some conservative radio host who finds out BLM is supporting:



    Now I just got to point out that stuff like this is not good p.r. for Cullors' beliefs that communities can end up like a loving family and that there is no need for things like courts:


    Shaun King's been a grifter for so long i like it that i can follow him and quickly identify the other grifters and grifter movements. Some kind of shit covered canary in an otherwise good coalmine.


    I don't but he does:

    Gotta respect the consistency of people who are still insisting that “police are not the answer” even after the long awaited white perp finally arrived.

    Hard to see how you wouldn’t see at least a temporary break in consistency for any other flavor of POC...

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) March 18, 2021

    I think they are idiots who almost got Trump re-elected; I thank god that in the midst of all the burning, rioting, looting & threatening of gentrifiers (which no police abuse victim really asked for!) Joe Biden found the bravery to say aloud in public that he wasn't for defunding, but increasing funding.


    Hey, BLM and friends: as far as your protests in NYC, they did not defund them, as a matter of fact, sort of the opposite, it cost us taxpayers a ton of extra money and, while it might have burned them out further while a significant number among them were off duty while sick with Covid, those lucky enough not to get infected took the overtime pay all the way to the bank:

    In the previous fiscal year, the NYPD took home a record $887 million in overtime. Precinct commanders earned more than $50,000 in OT pay on average. The Strategic Response Group — the anti-terror squad used on protesters — led all units in overtime expenditures. https://t.co/ZZzOCL2jy6

    — Jake Offenhartz (@jangelooff) March 18, 2021

    Thanks for the fish.frown


    so there's some brothers here, they are against police, and the court system is working against them; one could make a coalition, just sayin:

    Proud Boys Members Allegedly Warned That Cops Were “The Primary Threat” The Night Before The Capitol Insurrection

    A grand jury indicted four Proud Boys leaders in the latest conspiracy case to come out of the riot investigation.

    by Zoe Tillman @ DailyBeast.com, March 19


    a selection from hashtag #istandwiththemothers, it seems to have developed quite a following:

    certainly doesn't look like any kind of solidarity going on...


    Here we see yet another example of continuing troubles with the solidarity thing and the grifter meme:

     


    an essay on how a potential ally was turned off in NYC:


    Ally or potential valuable capture?

    Methinks they're looking for ownerships, capitulation.

    American ISIS w/o the bloodshed? Similar worldviews.



    Looks like BLM Chicago is even more blatantly radical than BLM national:

    About Us

    Black Lives Matter Chicago is an intersectional vehicle that values Black people and our right to self-determination.

    We fight for justice with families most impacted, while working to create just and equitable systems.

    We work to end state violence and criminalization of Black communities by deconstructing white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy.

    We are 100% volunteer run.

    “It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
    It is our duty to win.
    We must love and protect each other.
    We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
    -Assata Shakur

    “We are not responsible for our oppression, but we are responsible for our liberation.”
    -Frank Chapman

    “Hope is a discipline.”
    -Mariame Kaba

     

    I went over to check their site because I first read this interview with Kaba published today at The Nation. Where she talks not just about dreaming about abolishment of prisons but walking the walk with her "anarchist friends", basically creating a Marxist heaven that has nothing to do with the United States as it exists, indeed she talks about a vision of "deconstructing" all of current western capitalist society. Some things remind me of Pol Pot's vision for Cambodia. Here a couple excerpts, followed by tweet with the link

    Capitalism has deskilled us from things that we should know how to do and that we should not be outsourcing. It’s going to take a lot to change that. This is why I’ve always struggled alongside and respected my anarchist friends. I wonder how we’re going to do things without a government, however that government gets reconstituted. How are we going to be able to distribute resources en masse or do things in common like build roads? I don’t know. We as individuals can do a lot, and we also need spaces where we do things collectively toward survival. We have to do both, and then some more. I’m open to alternate configurations.

    ER: The anarchist example is interesting because you note that when people talk about abolition, listeners often say they can’t imagine a world without prisons. Imagining things without the state is not dissimilar. When you find that you can’t imagine something, how do you push through?

    MK: I’m a constant student. Just because I, Mariame Kaba, can’t imagine something doesn’t mean that thing isn’t valuable or that thing can’t be undone or done. It’s possible to think about statelessness, so I look to others who have spent the time doing the intellectual and practical work that it’s going to take to do something different. It really doesn’t matter if I, as an individual, can’t imagine a thing. It matters that there are people imagining that thing.

    ER: Not “What can I imagine?” but “What can we imagine?”

    MK: What can we imagine and what can we do together? We have to collectively imagine. PIC abolition is a collective project. My personal desires and views are interesting to me, but abolition isn’t Mariame Kaba’s vision of the world. I want to engage with other people, to learn from their ideas to refine my own and to change my mind, which I think more people should be open to. I look forward to doing that: Trying to think together as we work together to bring into fruition the world in which we want to live. Prefiguring that world.

    ER: I hate to ask you about all the people that you’ve ever read, but as you were describing this book as a doorway, I figured it might be helpful to hear who your doorways were.

    MK: Angela Davis is a huge doorway for me. George Jackson is a huge doorway for me. Camara Laye was a huge doorway for me. Malcolm X was a huge doorway for me. Later I was influenced by the writing of Amílcar Cabral, Assata [Shakur], Robin Kelley, Charles Payne, Grace Lee Boggs, Maryse Condé, Mariama Bâ, Audre Lorde, and so many more. They taught me that this isn’t just how the world is. This is constructed. You can deconstruct it and build something different. Encountering Marx was really formative for me. It took two times of reading [his work] in groups for me to understand he was giving us a theory of the world and not just a theory of economics.

    ER: I always think about that Cedric Robinson line in Black Marxism: “to Black radicals of the twentieth century, one of the most compelling features of Marxism was its apparent universalism.”

    MK: Marx gave me an opening. And frankly, I didn’t have a gender analysis until I went to college. I saw myself as a Black person, and maybe a little bit genderless. I’m not sure. Going to college and being exposed to bell hooks, June Jordan, and Alice Walker opened up for me that not only am I a woman, I’m a Black woman. It opened the door. You’re not guaranteed to walk through it, but in my case, when the door opened, I felt pushed out. I was propelled. All my ideas were changed by reading and by meeting people who pushed me to actualize my ideas. The push-pull of that has served me well.

    I interviewed Mariame Kaba for @thenation about collective care, PIC abolition, and more. Read here: https://t.co/dUGGtLb6bR

    — Elias Rodriques (@rodriquese) March 29, 2021

    I can't see anyone sane belonging to the Democratic party going along with this program. Bernie bros. are moderates by comparison.

     


    Here's a good counter to Miz Kaba:


    Hot tip for radical activists in grievance bubbles:


    on that abolish prisons thing; aside from the elephant in the room called handguns, might be better first to agitate for lead paint removal and also maybe stop joking about any proclivity to whooping kids upside the head, keep kids out of playing touch football in school (like white suburban parents are pretty much starting to do), promote alcohol & drug abstinence during pregnancy, stuff like that:

    A huge share of prisoners have brain injuries. They need more help

    It would be best to prevent such injuries in the first place

    @ The Economist, March 27

    A knock on the head can change the course of a whole life. Traumatic brain injuries affect around one in ten people in rich countries. Those who have experienced such injuries are more likely to suffer mental-health problems and loneliness. They are more likely to struggle with addiction to drink or drugs, or to be homeless. They are also more likely to commit crimes, including violent ones, although most do not. Estimates vary, but they consistently show that people in prison are many times more likely to have brain injuries.

    Those whose brains are not “neurotypical” in other ways also make up an extraordinarily large share of the prison population. People with learning difficulties, intellectual disabilities and autism are all over-represented behind bars. In Canada young people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which is the result of exposure to alcohol in the womb and which damages the brain’s frontal lobe, are incarcerated at 19 times the rate of the wider population [....].


    John McWhorter:

    The idea that the cops murder out of racism runs so deep I doubt there can be a productive discussion despite what the data say. But if that idea helps put away Derek Chauvin, in the grand scheme of things, history may progress anyway.
    by @JohnHMcWhorter https://t.co/1kT8wL5032

    — John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter) April 2, 2021

    His argument includes mention of the data I have posted elsewhere and then it goes further to what has already appeared totally logical and rational to me

    [....] The cops kill hundreds and hundreds of people every year. Of them, white people are the majority by a good margin. For every incident we hear of where cops kill a black person, there are multiple others where cops killed a white person and we did not hear about it.

    Black people, however, are killed more than what our proportion of the population would predict in itself. Specifically, black people are killed at a rate two and a half times our representation in the population.

    The good word is that this “proves” that racism is behind the killings of black people. Presumably racist bias, even subconscious, makes cops pull the trigger in tense situations.

    This is an understandable approach, but not truth incarnate, and it leaves something out. Poverty makes you more likely to encounter the cops, partly because cops are sent more to poor communities and partly because poverty can force you or even nudge you into dangerous choices. And just as black people are two and a half times more likely to be killed by cops, black people are also two and a half times more likely to be poor.

    That is not fair. But – it also explains the disproportion. That is: both things are true. It is wrong that more black people are poor, but that fact also explains why black people are two and a half times more likely to die at the hands of the cops.

    That this almost uncanny statistical match-up is no accident is further supported by studies showing that while cops are more likely to rough up and verbally abuse black people, they are not more likely to kill them.

    These facts lead to a conclusion that makes many very uncomfortable: that George Floyd did not die because he was black.

    Many just cannot swallow that. It seems inconceivable that a white cop would snuff out the life of a white guy in the same way. What Chauvin did seems to recapitulate so much about how white people and black people have always interacted in this country.

    But our sense here is impressionistic, and the impressionistic is no more valuable here than it is in whites’ impressions that a black person is “suspicious” or underqualified or angry or is less susceptible to pain.

    And the simple truth is that a white guy named Tony Timpa died under very similar conditions at the hands of the cops a few years before Floyd did.

    * * *

    In my experience, a great many think that to be a good person one simply cannot accept these facts, that they absolutely must be waved away at all costs. However [....]

    People can argue and do argue whether the reasons most blacks are poorer than most whites, which is also a reality. And reasons for the economic difference can reasonably include lasting effects of past systemic racism and current continued racism.

    BUT THAT HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH POLICE!  It especially has little to do with police in large Democratic cities who have been racially integrated for a long time. It gets especially absurd when the cop involved is black.

    McWhorter is a linguist and words matter to him, and he thinks the police abuse problem is not properly labeled as a racist problem! He's right, it's just not.

    Doing so stupidly inserted racial antagonism by those given to it including racists, racialists, and people who feel unfairly mislabeled as either into an argument where it doesn't belong!

    Not a joke: if this movement was to be about police, and lessening abuse by them, to be effective rather than ensnarled in politics of race, it really really should have been named  "Poor Live Matter" or "All Lives Matter". Making it all about race doomed it, especially the main slogan.


    A bit misleading: Take a Knee was partially born from all these incidents where a crime has happened and the cops arrest the nearest black guy, often brutally. Take A Knee failed at the box office - seems it offended our sports and flag and thus troops sensibilities (yes, it was absurd that "The Troops" came to play, but we're a bit retarded about that patriotism thing.

    The "Black Lives Matter" slogan coalesced the outrage for those 3 May 2020 incidents/announcements *worldwide*. Yes it might have expanded to "All Lives Matter" after a few weeks - not before - but still that might have played into Trump's indifference/race stoking and the White Supremacy vs his mythological Antifa ravings - this wasn't happening in a vacuum, as seen with Barr tear gassing protesters so Trump could hold up a Bible. For Black Lives Matter to cut through where Take A Knee it had to keep momentum. A watered down "All Lives Matter" would fade pretty quick, not that juices smashing windows was the way to keep it going (nor BLM org Marxist demands if defund the police). Welcome to complexity. Sure, police abuse is much wider, but sometimes it's time to focus on the specific.

    I still think the movement was a good thing for global race consciousness, much as all the woke speak carries stuff too far. Yes, it can get sidetracked into cancelling TinTin books, but it's also useful in making people more aware of the insult of some basic portrayals and ways of speaking about other cultures, incl some ugly stereotypes, linguistic mimicking, etc. - including for other cultures that don't interact frequently with whichever minority or other.

    I can remember at my 5th birthday party making a comment about a friend's nose - Chinese - set him crying. I hadn't meant to be mean, but it came out badly obviously. As a dumb southerner new to a northern school, i made a dumb "wetback" joke to a lunchroom worker while chatting with him and a cute Latina worker - i was lucky he didn't get angrier than he did, but yes, there's more to insults and abuse, and a bit more awareness and watching the lines and people's feelings should be a good thing.


    I think virtually all times where race is injected into discussion or protest about solving any problem are usually counterproductive in this country at this stage of its development. ESPECIALLY UNDER TRUMP AS PRESIDENT, he just loved it when that happened!

    This is precisely still the reason many poor whites are Trumpie fans!

    They especially don't like inserting race identity politics into talking about something that is a problem that they also experience! I.E., income, housing, jobs...VOTING ACCESS, to name one now.

    They also see that many liberal elites support the racializing of problems that affect more than one color of skin. This infuriates them further.

    Why does anyone even go there? Unless they are a Russian troll or a narcissist president looking to cause chaos and resentment.It's wack! They alienate allies for no good reason, to re-litigate long gone slavery and civil war issues.

    Talk to an immigrant from Nigeria and they go: say what? You don't like living segregated by color of skin and cultural preferences in corruptly run and violent ghettoes, get on the greyhound bus and move somewhere integrated, just like I did on a airplane.

    PP, very few of this country's problems are about race!  I think you're falling for the BIG narrative that distracts.

    We've already had 8 yrs. of  biracial president trying to fix them and now we have a biracial vice-president. The future: people are just not going to buy this shit anymore. It's not 1960.


    I never said most of our problems are about race. This isn't South African apartheid, and things are far improved from my town 1st integrating schools when I was a kid. Nevertheless, there is still a pretty large race and racism problem, and by far the worst segment where this appears is with the black population. I would like to see that situation change by 2050. I point out the challenges coming to sub-Saharan Africa by 2100 as it becomes 1/3 of the global population, but if we can't even bring in the black population to have a healthy, shared economic and social future in this country, how bad is it going to be in Africa? There's not "an app for that", but surely there have to be some obvious improvements. We can spend billions trying to improve batteries to make electric vehicles work to stop global warming - how's our Moonshot on racism, better racial economic integration, full participation, even if it's lumpy like reality and not purely mixed.

    And again i disagree that Obama did much about racism, aside from being symbolic as our first bi-racial CEO. I think much more direct overt action & improvements were taken under LBJ and Clinton, and Obama felt his hands tied, that being overt would be counterproductive, that he had to play the "president for all people" rather than taking on more of the injustices and imbalance. (When unemployment hit the black population especially hard after Bush's 2008 crash, there was no directed help for the black population, or even little for individuals - Obama bargained his way into bailing out corporations and loading the rescue into tax cuts - yum. The mortgage crisis and robo-foreclosures also hit the black sector particularly hard, wiping out much of the home ownership toehold they'd gained in the 90s, which also affected crime and other social issues. Education costs affect all races, but the better access to financial aid for minorities instead of addressing costs foments more division and resentment, including for the younger population )


    You're not getting my frame at all. People with black skin can rise to the level of president and vice-president, they are the preferred hires right now for all kinds of prestigious jobs, they are mayors and police chiefs allover the fucking country, there are more black people on CNN than white lately especially the anchorpersons, they are best-selling authors, they are the top earners in music, they are tax-avoiding billionaire etc.

    Stop signifying by race TOTALLY. Only by class.

    (those successful minority politicians? upper class! of course they aren't of much help, they are of different class, they merely share skin color with the poor of the same skin color.)

    Call them low income or poor inner city and rural people. They all have the same problems.

    WHATEVER the reason there's still higher percentage of those with black skin in that category than the percentage of those with white skin, DOESN'T MATTER ANY MORE, that's for historic reasons we can't do anything about (unless you believe in reparations, and putting value into ancestry, well then you also want a new civil war, I guess.)

    All making things racial instead of economic class does is pit one tribe against another, I remind you of this frigging thread where there's the phenomenon of more minority males voting GOP in 2020 than 2016 because they are sick of being infantilized and being thought of as needing special preference.

     What racial identity politics is doing at this point is time is straight out of the apocryphal Jay Gould quote I can hire half of the working class to kill the other half.

    Victim olympics by race and ethnicity are over soon, I am sure of it now. Biden was right that unity message was what was required. Trump's co-option of it and BLM and woke overkill and incompetence made sure of that. Every day more people realize "WOKE" is basically being directed by elite educated white liberals with foolish minority lackeys and if the Dems continue to be associated with them, they will lose a lot more minority and especially mixed race votes.

    There is zero benefit for everyone involved in continuing to racialize the problems of the working class and poor. And there's a lot more of the latter with this pandemic, especially when all the bills piled up for a year start coming home to roost, that's not going to be rectified easily working 60 hrs. a week at decent pay and so far it's looking like they are still not going to get decent pay. (Not the least of which because a significant number of them have decided they want to be naive capitalists rather than work....)


    Even though there's more representation at various levels, i contend it still matters - that there's more structural racism than should be just left standing, even though I'm not saying structural racism is everywhere, or that its not a level of tolerance (pun?) game, that it will/could ever be 100% shangri-la, etc. I'm also worried that these CNN analyst positions don't much represent the more production-oriented universe, where people produce real goods and services, not just blather on as talking heads or politicians in the highly visible. I don't mean specifically STEM, but the goods economy - construction, supermarkets, auto, tourism, real estate, banking, soda and diapers... what are the opportunities there, what are the skill set gaps, how open and level are those playing fields? Maybe it's better than i imagine, i hope, but I'm skeptical.


    Forty years ago, Mehmood Ansari immigrated from Pakistan to Atlantic City and eventually opened a shop on the boardwalk - City Souvenirs.

    The 66-year-old father worked hard, morning and night, and was “always smiling,” says his son Asif Ansari.

    On Thursday night, tragedy struck inside the store. Mehmood collapsed and died shortly after being robbed by a knife-wielding 12-year-old boy during a confrontation with multiple juveniles who were rampaging through the store, authorities said. While Ansari’s autopsy results are pending, his son said he believes Ansari died from the shock of the incident [....]


    Sometime in the last 18 hrs., official BLM retweeted this incredibly idiotic logical fallacy! surprise

     


    Missed this, their foundation took in $90 million last year

    (In light of that, the accusations from some struggling families of black victims complaining about them using their loved ones names for profit are no surprise)


    I notice that there's a totally different kinda "black lives" messaging trending on Twitter right now

    Nas is set to make $100m profit from his early stage investment in cryptocurrency platform Coinbase when it goes public tomorrow

    His firm, Queensbridge, invested $100-500k back in 2013 when the company was valued at $147m. The company is expected to cross the $100b mark tmrw pic.twitter.com/LEpbs45aKy

    — Black Wealth Renaissance (@BWR_Movement) April 14, 2021

    Nas was an early investor in Coinbase, Robinhood, Lyft & Dropbox. That’s a better track record than 80% of the VCs I see dispensing advice on Twitter.https://t.co/Q5DtZkFB09

    — Dare Obasanjo (@Carnage4Life) April 13, 2021


    Nas is expected to net $100M in profit once Coinbase’s IPO takes place.

    Nas was an early investor in Coinbase, Robinhood, Lyft & Dropbox which have all become very successful businesses.

    Nas’ net worth is currently estimated at $70M. pic.twitter.com/MeTS4kpczc

    — My Mixtapez (@mymixtapez) April 13, 2021

    Nas is expected to make $100M in profit this week once Coinbase goes public.

    Nas was an early investor in Coinbase, Robinhood, Lyft & Dropbox which have all become very successful businesses.

    Nas’ net worth is currently estimated at $70M. pic.twitter.com/l7C3ZiOU0h

    — Saycheese TV (@SaycheeseDGTL) April 13, 2021

    Nas finna be the next black billionaire he invested in Coinbase back in 2013 https://t.co/ZIAFuSIjbb

    — tanjie thee coder (@TanjieTheCoder) April 6, 2021

    Rapper Nas has an investment company that invests in promising tech start ups..Drop box,Lyft & Coinbase are among the success stories & he could make as much as $100M when Coinbase lists tomorrow on the stock market.I'm impressed.

    — Umar Sa'ad Hassan (@Alaye_100) April 13, 2021

    One of my favorite rappers. Also one of the smartest investors. Nas raking in 100 Mil on the @coinbase listing. https://t.co/In6zadTwZ7

    — ANKS (@Bitcoin__Banks) April 12, 2021

    Nas + Coinbase

    IPO prices at $100B+. He invested at $143m~ valuation. Quick math on his theoretical investment size and return (50% dilution)

    - $100k turns into $35m
    - $500k turns into $175m
    - $1m turns into $350m

    Not bad for a 7 year return

    — Brandon Bryant (@wallstreetpaper) April 7, 2021

    there's lots more like that...


    Downtown Minneapolis Sept. 14: nothing left to loot, no one left to abuse, and you don't need cops if you got plywood. Thanks, BLM movement, for showing us a vision of what the glorious future could be like! (Those jurors must be having some fun, amirite? what an awesome gig!)


    see comments, no one was successful:

    he later tweeted this:



    "Living Wage" = 4 houses worth $3.2 million? (Not that she paid cash, i don't think). She's providing housing to a dozen people, some real estate mama?

    Seth Abramson had a few "best selling  books", but i don't think he's buying a villa.

    Anyway, what would Che Guevara do?

    https://nypost.com/2021/04/16/blm-co-founder-patrisse-khan-cullors-defen...


    Birth of Neo-Marxism, everyone a rentier, her manifesto coming out soon? Wonder if she's thought about enticing the crypto crowd...


    If everyone has 4 houses worth $3..2 million everyone is equal. I'm sure she has a plan for that eventually happening so what's the problem?


    not official BLM, but very much a fellow traveler:


     


    MANY THANKS due to Jim Clyburn and others who read the riot act to lefties in the Dem party about using BLM fucking "defund" and "abolish" slogans until the Georgia Senate race was done:


    re: abolishing prisons


    BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Has Funneled Business To Company Run By Father Of Her Only Child, Records Show https://t.co/PalGzKuxzP via @dailycaller

    — Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 9, 2021

    right wing watching every little thing she does, to paraphrase Sting

     


    "every buck you take, every muck you rake..." she don't have to turn on her red light... time to send out an SOS?


    Nobody noticed back at the end of Nov. 2016 when BLM wrote and tweeted a loving ode to Fidel Castro's vision -

    Lessons from Fidel: Black Lives Matter and the Transition of El Comandante https://t.co/CYTcy6ReIa

    — Black Lives Matter (@Blklivesmatter) November 27, 2016

    If they had many more would be wary of labeling protests about George Floyd video with their name.

    They have been and continue to be consistent though

    Black Lives Matter has released a statement on Cuba: pic.twitter.com/NgnT1o1oZE

    — Sabrina Rodríguez (@sabrod123) July 15, 2021

    It's not been their fault if people have misinterpreted their messages.and goals, which are basically anarcho-communist, and used their name as if they didn't have such messages and goals.

    It's just that I wonder: did anybody tell them that the Castro regime and his followers have found police forces and jails and prisons to be very useful tools in maintaining the "people's revolution"?


    No one paid attention in 2016, because BLM is not regarded as being knowledgeable on anything other than police abuse.

    When it comes to police abuse, very few take calls for abolition of police seriously.

    Professor Gates did a PBS series on Blacks in Latin America that discussed racism in Cuba.

    https://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/

    BLM has been criticized for it's praise for Fidel, including by Afro-Cubans.

    “It was surprising to me that Black Lives Matter came out with a statement focusing solely on the U.S. and not talking about why all of those folks are protesting, not coming out in solidarity of Black folks on the ground who are protesting,” said Danielle Clealand, associate professor of Mexican American and Latina/o studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of "The Power of Race in Cuba." 

    The BLM organization involved updated its statement.

    In an email to NBC News, Black Lives Matter officials said their statement was “grounded in our unequivocal support for Cuba,” and vowed to amplify the voices of Afro-Cuban protesters protesting oppression “from all actors, including the United States Embargo.”

    “We unequivocally join in solidarity with the Cuban people against repression and violence from internal and unseen external actors,” officials said in the statement. “We also understand that Anti-Blackness exists within Cuba and is a Global issue. We struggle for and alongside Black people across the diaspora for liberation and self-sovereignty.”

    In its original message, BLM noted that Black and brown people make up a large portion of the Cuban population. The country's 2012 Census reported that Black people made up 9.3 percent of Cuba’s 11.1 million population.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-lives-matter-faces-backlash-statement-cuba-protest-rcna1438
     

    BLM is not the go to source for position papers on Cuba.


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