Mariame Kaba writes in the New York Times, in Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police

Enough. We can’t reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police.

There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations to protect the status quo.

These are some of the same themes covered in the NPR Throughline podcast I linked last week, a history of police forces in the US I had never heard before.

When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.

Honestly this was my reaction to the calls to defund or abolish the police; as I learn more I'm struggling to process what a society with alternate forms of intervention might look like. It seems many of my preconceptions have had cause and effect reversed?

When the streets calm and people suggest once again that we hire more black police officers or create more civilian review boards, I hope that we remember all the times those efforts have failed.

To the few who read this site, especially by email digest... my posts will be even more disjointed and unevenly opinionated for the foreseeable future, for my mind is being modified in real time and this site reflects me and my thinking, such as it is. I wish that I were a better more cogent writer but take me as I am, for it is who I am.

Language is related to power. We do not permit those in power to control our vocabulary.

NINE PERSPECTIVES FOR PRISON ABOLITIONISTS

#prisonpolicy

INSTEAD OF PRISONS: A HANDBOOK FOR ABOLITIONISTS #prisonpolicy

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/instead_of_prisons/index.shtml

To my shame, it took until the events surrounding George Floyd's murder for me to really begin attempting to educate myself on "the rest of the story" of America's history of institutionalized racism and violence. http://monkinetic.blog/2020/06/14/what-i-can-do-give

To my shame, it took until the events surrounding George Floyd's murder for me to really begin attempting to educate myself on "the rest of the story" of America's history of institutionalized racism and violence. I'm trying to focus on 3 things:

• LEARN the facts, outside of what was in my history education ("we win war for independence, we win ww2, happily ever after" - at least that's what I generally walked away with)
• LISTEN to black writers and voices about their American experience
• Focus my own small voice on speaking to my fellow white Americans on our complicity in these atrocities and the system they’ve perpetuated.

I have SOOOO far to go. In the meantime, talking to my wife we decided that something we could do was to donate to support these organizations fighting for racial justice:

• Black Lives Matter Global Network
• National Bail Out
• Know Your Rights Camp
• Black Voters Matter Fund
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• The National Police Accountability Project

If you feel like I do, please consider donating - it's the easiest way to get started - but it's not enough. We're going to have to start acting too.

The "American Police" podcast on Throughline was eye-opening #racism #whiteness #policing

Listening to a long podcast from NPR Throughline: American Police https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869046127/american-police

This week, the origins of American policing and how those origins put violent control of Black Americans at the heart of the system.

Mordecai Martin, a thinker and writer who I follow on Play Vicious, posted this powerful piece on the Jewish response to racial protests and - yes looting - during the 60s and now with the George Floyd protests.

I'm not sure that – being neither Jewish nor black – I have a platform for comment, but Mo's writing speaks to his own Jewish people with real power and love.

As Artist Marcia X on Play Vicious responded:

imagine being this tender and powerful at the same time???

"Do You Know How Divided White And Black Americans Are On Racism?"

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/racism-polls/

Going to keep recommending @sceneonradio's "Seeing White" to white friends/family http://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/

Research continues to show that masks/face coverings DO help prevent community spread of the #covid19 virus. Please, Arizonans: wear masks anytime you are well, most any place.

Population-wide face mask use could push COVID-19 transmission down to controllable levels for national epidemics, and could prevent further waves of the pandemic disease when combined with lockdowns, according to a British study on Wednesday.

Reuters: Widespread mask-wearing could prevent COVID-19 second waves: study

"Our analyses support the immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public," said Richard Stutt, who co-led the study at Cambridge.

He said combining widespread mask use with social distancing and some lockdown measures, could be “an acceptable way of managing the pandemic and re-opening economic activity” before the development of an effective vaccine against COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

Gnarled old man moment: rewired a workstation in my shop so that 4 outlets powering 4 power tools and an overhead light can all be powered on with a switch.

(SORRY, LOST IMAGE)

White supremacy won’t die until White people see it as a White issue they need to solve rather than a Black issue they need to empathize with. -- Dwayne Reed

Dead serious.

What authority does a cop have when off-duty? I had it wrong. http://monkinetic.blog/2020/06/10/is-a-cop-ever-not-a-cop

This story from Slate details how Derk Chauvin (charged with George Floyd's murder) knew Floyd from his work as private security at a club where Floyd also worked security. I didn't know that police officers in some (many? most?) jurisdictions can work off-duty security in their patrol cars:

Chauvin, Santamaria said, had provided off-duty security for nearly two decades and was paid to sit in his police car outside the club and assist with removing patrons when necessary.

Nightclub Co-Worker Says Derek Chauvin and George Floyd Clashed Over Cop’s Treatment of Customers

(SORRY, LOST IMAGE)

This was news to me, naïve suburbanite. Just what kind of authority does a police officer have off-duty?

Does an off-Duty Police Officer Have Authority?

A duly licensed law enforcement officer generally has the authority to enforce the law 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but only after establishing his or her identity as a police officer.

The designation "off-duty" only means the officer is not working a regular shift for the police department, not living as a private citizen with no authority whatsoever. An off-duty police officer can be employed as a private security guard and still have the power to arrest offenders or in many circumstances carry a concealed weapon.

I can't imagine the power-trip this would be to be told that from now on you have permanent, 24-7 permission to deploy violence on your fellow man in the name of law enforcement. This, and backed by a powerful union with the ability to frighten governments, and the emotional support of the entire "boys in blue" fraternity? As they say - hell of a drug. No wonder the force attracts those with power fantasies, and no wonder police forces react with anger when their privileges are challenged by those they enjoy life-and-death power over.

FondLaw -- In St. Louis:

"To clarify, secondary employment allows officers to work security in uniform and carry their department-issued weapons. The officer, while not on duty for the Police Department, still has the same responsibilities and power to affect arrest and the officer operates in the capacity as a St. Louis Police Officer. St. Louis Police Officers work secondary for securities companies, business establishments, sporting events, etc."

I believe it is morally wrong to employ police officers in the trappings of their office for private business. In doing so the private establishment accrues by association all the power and authority of law enforcement to their purposes and policies.

Way to go, Arizona #covid19 (SORRY, LOST IMAGE)

Started listening @SceneOnRadio's "Seeing White" podcast series, which shines a light on whiteness, blackness, the concept of race.

http://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/

Reading lots of interesting ideas in the last few days. But many of them are covered by white authors - "I felt like X as a white person, just imagine how an African-American would feel..."

Instead, let's just listen when they tell us.

Poetry #blacklivesmatter https://twitter.com/Vanessa_Kisuule/status/1270011146544783361?s=20