Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Summary, part 4

Communities Building Resistance and Alternatives

Abolition

“Recognizing policing as a set of practices used by the state to enforce law and maintain social control and cultural hegemony through the use of force reveals the need for incremental changes that lead toward the erosion of policing power rather than its reinforcement” (p. 83).

Police reform is meant to create safer neighborhoods and assumes that “documentation, training or oversight” may protect people from police violence. Many organizations have come up with versions of reform that address general discrimination, legal accountability, and relearning combat training for unarmed personnel. Various forms of police reform have been implemented to try and improve policing in the US such as scanners, tasers, SWAT teams, gang injunctions, and technological advancements such as data tracking like CompStat.

Specialization of policing 

 The best way to reduce and eventually end police violence is to lessen people’s interactions with them and at some point completely remove police from society (p. 85). This means the abolition of police in favor of reallocating the budget given to police. In light of removing police, communities would step into the role of protecting each other. Alternatives to the police exist and can be created (ex. mental health officers),

Case Study: Jens Rushing

Rushing was an EMT in Texas and describes his experience with police intervention: Rushing answered a call for a man experiencing a mental health crisis. Police accompanied Rushing (usual protocol), who wanted to cuff the man in crisis with his hands behind his back. Doing that puts the man at risk for positional asphyxia, which people can die from. Rushing wanted to treat the man as a patient while police approached them as a person committing a crime.  

Police can create unstable situations worse. Especially in instances of a mental health crisis, police often approach the situation with less care and more violent responses and often use verbal and physical abuse to “de-escalate.”

Knowledge Sharing and Activism

“[It’s about] inserting ourselves into spaces where we are not normally present or welcome, and, if we are present, we are silenced in a variety of ways” (p. 91).

In August 2014, activists in Ferguson, MO, held the longest protest against police violence in the history of the U.S., demonstrating since August 10th of that year. Ferguson protesters inspired many protests by other organizers, like Justice for Trayvon Martin.

Current activism consists of diverse tactics from direct action to civil disobedience. This movement is looking for a full transformation of the system that produces and creates police violence: “This is not your grandparents’ civil rights movement” (p. 92).

Indigenous Allyship

Essayist Kelly Hayes examines the intersections of struggle and disconnect between Black and Indigenous communities: “Both of our communities live in the shadow of genocide and historical trauma, and many of us believe that neither of our communities can be free without the liberation of the other” (p. 94).

Indigenous people have taken on supportive roles in the Black Lives Matter Movement. They are fully aware of the consequences of police violence since Indigenous people are killed at a higher rate by police than any other racial group. Indigenous people are easily ignored in the public sphere since they often live in more rural areas and on reservations. 

New praxis can be made at the intersection of Black and Indigenous movements. Hayes talks about her experience learning about her Indigenous identity and the history of erasure and activism. In their essay, Hayes explores some of the most impactful activist movements made for Indigenous Americans including the AIM (American Indian Movement) in 1973 where Black activists showed up, even though they were barred from entering by the police.

AIM was not the end of Black and Indigenous allyship. Hayes shares an example of these community intersections in Chicago between Black and indigenous activism. 

Rad Ed Project

The Rad Ed Project is based on action camps. Activists are taught skills ranging from facilitation of protests to blockade work. Because of the monetary and time constraints of traveling, these camps didn’t have many people of color participate. Weekend-long sessions are held, as well as a series of shorter skill-sharing sessions, that would allow participants (particularly youth of color) to pick up skills. 

One result of this project was a rally in support of the reparations ordinance for survivors of police torture in Chicago. During the rally, organizers made land acknowledgments to the stolen land they protested on and recognized Native Americans are victims of state violence as well. 

This was an example in Hayes' opinion of a starting point for Black and Indigenous communities to intersect their struggles and recognize each other: “if we’re going to help one another, we have to be honest about the history and the future” (p. 101).

Resistance

Dominique Franklin Jr. (also known as Damo)

Damo was a 23-year-old Black man killed by police in Chicago, IL, in May 2014. After Damo’s death, his friends, family, and activists came together to address police violence. 

In 1951, a group of Black activists took a petition to the United Nations: We Charge Genocide, which cited over 150 police killings of Black people in the United States. A group of young organizers from Chicago decided to create a new reiteration of the We Charge Genocide petition, with Damos’s story at the center. The report covered police violence towards Chicago youth of color. The organizers traveled to Geneva to present the report. Although they are not the first activists to plead a case to the UN. 

There is a legacy of organizers taking their struggles to the United Nations. William L. Patterson was harassed when he tried to deliver the original We Charge Genocide petition to the UN in the 1950s. Paul Robeson has been erased from history books for speaking openly to the world about the genocide of Black people in the US.  

While the trip to the UN wouldn’t result in immediate change, it was meant to bring the personal narratives of young people of color into an official and recognized space.

Transformative Justice and Community-Building

The phrase, “Don’t call the cops!” conjures an audience of privileged, college-educated, upper-class, mostly white people who aren’t aware of the impact that calling the police has on communities of color. Because of that, we have also created a culture now that judges people for calling the police without recognizing the complexity of policing in this country. 

Essayist Ejeris Dixon said, “When people who’ve experienced life-threatening injuries or people witnessing violence decide to call an ambulance, we must acknowledge that we have yet to build an alternative” (p. 116). If we are going to create a supportive community, we must on one hand avoid judgment of those who call the police, while also providing reliable alternatives.   

In the demands against police/state violence, we have to include strategies to create community safety and reduce harm. See our guide on alternatives to calling the police here.

Sometimes we think we have the skills to address harm because of our strong political analysis or strong desire but there is a difference between having skills and learning, and being experts and practicing. It is important to be deliberate and vigilant about where we are in our journeys.