By Michelle Alexander |January 2020
From mass incarceration to mass deportation, our nation remains in deep denial.
Ten years have passed since my book, “The New Jim Crow,” was published. I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery. It has been an astonishing decade. Everything and nothing has changed.…
Contrary to what many people would have us believe, what our nation is experiencing is not an “aberration.” The politics of “Trumpism” and “fake news” are not new; they are as old as the nation itself. The very same playbook has been used over and over in this country by those who seek to preserve racial hierarchy, or to exploit racial resentments and anxieties for political gain, each time with similar results.
… It is tempting to imagine that electing a Democratic president or more Democratic politicians will fix the crises in our justice systems and our democracy. To be clear, removing Trump from office is necessary and urgent; but simply electing more Democrats to office is no guarantee that our nation will break its habit of birthing enormous systems of racial and social control. Indeed, one of the lessons of recent decades is these systems can grow and thrive even when our elected leaders claim to be progressive and espouse the rhetoric of equality, inclusion and civil rights.
TAGS:[Racial Terrorism] [Prison System]
by Kali Holloway | January 2020
NYPD Detective Michael Bergmann filed a report accusing Pedro Barbosa of attempting to run him over with a car. …Security footage later proved that Bergmann had fabricated the whole story, and he eventually pleaded guilty to perjury, making a false statement and official misconduct. Last week—despite unequivocal proof that the then-cop had tried to send an innocent man to prison for more than 10 years—Brooklyn Supreme Court judge Danny Chun dismissed prosecutors’ request for a one-year sentence and instead gave Bergmann a single day in jail, already served, and four years probation. All in all, the case is a sadly typical example of police lies and abuse, and how the criminal justice system is actively complicit in both.
TAGS: [2020’s] [–ing While Black] [policing]
In many or most activist organizations are people who build organizational or individual capacity and power, establishing themselves comfortably among the top ranks in their hierarchy of oppression they strive to become the ally “champions” of the most oppressed. While the exploitation of solidarity and support is nothing new, the commodification and exploitation of allyship is a growing trend in the activism industry.
The Decolonial Atlas is a growing collection of maps which help challenge our relationships with the land, people, and state. For example, above shows that for any beach town in the US, the town itself might be racially diverse, but the actual waterfront property is almost exclusively occupied by white people, a rampant form of racial segregation from rural coastal communities to tourist towns to major cities.
Fundamentally, racism is a spiritual disease akin to an addiction.
Addressing it is a matter of spiritual development as well as the other elements in this Toolkit. Our goal needs to be to allow Spirit to move freely within and between us all, which is impossible if all the permutations of racism, from white supremacy to an unjust “justice” system, white hoarding of leadership and resources, etc., remain intact. See links to a 12 Step program and website devoted to Racists Anonymous.
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