Today's #BlackLivesMatter Digest kicks off with coverage of #UnitedWeFight, this weekend's events and protests surrounding the one year anniversary of Michael Brown's death.
Events have been going on across the country, including the cities of St. Louis, MO and Charlotte, NC:
Later this morning (early afternoon EST), there will be a national moment of silence:
Though the demands of Ferguson Action aren't new, they haven't been covered in a #BLM digest yet, so I'd like to include them here to help build awareness of what #BLM activists across the country are protesting for:
NATIONAL DEMANDS
1. The De-militarization of Local Law Enforcement across the country
Strict limits on the transfer and use of military equipment to local law enforcement and the adoption of the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014. The federal government should discontinue the supply of military weaponry and equipment to local law enforcement and immediately demilitarize local law enforcement, including eliminating the use of military technology and equipment.
2. A Comprehensive Review of systemic abuses by local police departments, including the publication of data relating to racially biased policing, and the development of best practices.
A comprehensive review by the Department of Justice into systematic abuses by police departments and the development of specific use of force standards and accompanying recommendations for police training, community involvement and oversight strategies and standards for independent investigatory/disciplinary mechanisms when excessive force is used. These standards must include a Department of Justice review trigger when continued excessive use of force occurs.
A comprehensive federal review of police departments’ data collection practices and the development of a new comprehensive data collection system that allows for annual reporting of data on the rates of stops, frisks, searches, summonses and arrests by race, age, and gender. These standards must also include a DOJ review trigger when departments continue discriminatory policing practices.
3. Repurposing of law enforcement funds to support community based alternatives to incarceration and the conditioning of DOJ funding on the ending of discriminatory policing and the adoption of DOJ best practices
The repurposing of Department of Justice funds to create grants that support and implement community oversight mechanisms and community based alternatives to law enforcement and incarceration—including community boards/commissions, restorative justice practices, amnesty programs to clear open warrants, and know-your-rights-education conducted by community members.
The development of a DOJ policy to withhold funds from local police departments who engage in discriminatory policing practices and condition federal grant funds on the adoption of recommended DOJ trainings, community involvement and oversight strategies, use of force standards and standards for independent investigatory/disciplinary mechanisms.
4. A Congressional Hearing investigating the criminalization of communities of color, racial profiling, police abuses and torture by law enforcement
Congressional hearings investigating the criminalization of communities of color and systemic law enforcement discriminatory profiling and other abuses especially at the local level—including an examination of systemic structures and institutional practices and the elevation of the experiences and voices of those most impacted. Congressional hearings will allow for a continuation of the national discussion about police abuse and it’s underlying causes.
5. Support the Passage of the End Racial Profiling Act
Support for the passage of the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) which in law would prohibit the use of profiling on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin or religion by law enforcement agencies.
6. The Obama Administration develops, legislates and enacts a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice
The development and enactment of a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice by the Obama Administration. The National Plan of Action for Racial Justice should be a comprehensive plan that address persistent and ongoing forms of racial discrimination and disparities that exist in nearly every sphere of life including: criminal justice, employment, housing, education, health, land/property, voting, poverty and immigration. The Plan would set concrete targets for achieving racial equality and reducing racial disparities and create new tools for holding government accountable to meeting targets.
Ebony interviewed DeRay McKesson, who has become one of the most visible leaders of the new civil rights movement:
EBONY: What has changed in this country since August 9th , what has shifted in people?
DM: “I think that there’s a national focus on this issue in ways that there wasn’t before and I think that protests, we’ve never said protests are the answer, but protests create space for the answer. Protest is disruption. Protest is confrontation. Protest is the end of silence and what protest does is it creates space for the other work to happen. And I think that, that space is there. We’ve exposed the problem. Now we’re in the phase where people are like something has to change. People who would otherwise have never focused on this, who would never be in places like this are now like interested in it… I also believe that there is truth in storytelling, right. Like, Black people have always faced these issues as a race and the race would manifest in two ways, either like our stories are never told or our stories are told by everybody but us. And in this moment, we actually become our own storytellers. And we’re our own storytellers in the midst of this radical community building.
EBONY: What do you think the conversation will be around police violence, say, 3 years from now?
DM: In 3 years, I’m hopeful that there will be deep structural change. Like laws and systems. I think about the worker in 3 buckets: policy, politics and culture. I think that in 3 years I’m hopeful that there will be strong policy and politics: there will be new people in power who will understand the urgency of the work, that we will have new laws and policies that frame the way the work has to be done.
Al Jazeera has an
excellent article up from a Black Panther cub:
What I remember most viscerally is the fear.
It had been almost four hours, and I couldn't get the handcuffs off. The lights in the underground subway station were flickering, and I had an almost phobic fear of the dark. The white cop who had cuffed me to the gate inside the subway station was gone, and I didn't know when he was coming back. He did return, sometime later, letting me go with a lecture and a hefty fine I had no way of paying. I had peed on myself. I was 11 years old.
It wasn't the first time I had been illegally detained by a police officer. In fact, in the US, arbitrary detention is one of the most common ways for police officers to initiate contact with black people of all ages. The overbroad nature of the law, and the subjectivity of those who enforce it, supports judgment calls by police, despite the fact that they consistently choose to be more brutal than is necessary in the act of subduing the black body.
I think of that night often, especially these days, when the photograph of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old child gunned down by police in Cleveland, Ohio, stares back at me. I think that, no matter how young we are, we are perceived to be something other than children.
Anti-Media did
a nice writeup of the #SafetyIs hashtag that was covered in the previous digest:
Every year, law enforcement agencies hold a propaganda event called National Night Out to reinforce the belief that we need police. Some communities feel that police do more harm than good and that the presence of police makes them feel the polar opposite of “safe.”
Strong communities make police obsolete, but National Night Out promotes the idea that neighbors should “watch” one another—as if all people are criminals who need to be watched. Instead of loving our neighbors, the event suggests we should fear them.
Content Note: Beginning this week, #BLM digests will post semi-weekly, on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings.