It is a morally bankrupt form of Class Warfare for Grand Rapids City Officials to receive significant salary increases while so many fight to survive
In the midst of a pandemic, with thousands of families struggling to make ends meet, a serious housing crisis, and the Michigan minimum wage set to increase from an insulting $9.65 to a still insulting $9.87, some Grand Rapids City officials will see a significant increase in their already well compensated salary.
MLive reported that both City Manager Mark Washington and City Attorney Anita Hitchcock will see their salaries increase. The MLive article stated:
If the pay range changes are approved, Washington’s current salary would place him at the fourth step of the pay schedule, with increases to $287,032 and finally $303,196 still ahead.
As for Hitchcock, she would get a bump up to at least the first and lowest level of the new pay range, $169,096. She would then have increases of $176,276, $183,456, $190,636, $197,816 and finally $204,996 ahead.
To add insult to injury, the Fiscal Committee approved the salary increases, with City Commissioners expected to have approved the salary increase at last night’s City Commission meeting.
Such a move by City Officials is unconscionable, especially considering how many people in this community are being subjected to live in poverty.
- Thousands of Grand Rapidians are facing eviction.
- Tens of thousands are experiencing food insecurity.
- BIOPC communities continue to experience significant disinvestment in Grand Rapids.
- Thousands of families are having to chose between paying heating bills or pay health care expenses.
- Grand Rapids is in the midst of a housing crisis.
- The COVID rates in Michigan are the highest in the country and Kent County is one of the worst.
On top of all of this, City Manager Mark Washington and City Attorney Anita Hitchcock were the two primary actors who blocked a proposal in July of 2020 by some City Commissioners, a proposal that would reduce police funding to the 1995 City Charter mandate level. Equally important is the fact that the community groups that were calling for defunding the GRPD, were also demanding that the money cut from the GRPD would go directly to Black and Brown residents in Grand Rapids. We have been hearing over and over again, how the southeast part of Grand Rapids has been deliberately ignored when it comes to investment from the City of Grand Rapids.
It is completely baffling that City officials would agree to these salary increases while so many people can’t find work and businesses are closing at an alarming rate. Maybe we expect too much from City officials or maybe we expect Grand Rapids City Officials to serve the public interest. Whether we feel let down or deceived, the reality is that this announcement that City officials will be receiving a substantial salary increase is not only morally bankrupt, it is class warfare, plain and simple.
GRIID 2022 Winter Class: The Function of Policing in the US and how we can work towards a world Without Police
In this 8-week class, we will explore the history of policing in the United States, its role in maintaining structural racism and how it has been used to suppress social movements.
We will also look at more contemporary dynamics with policing, investigating the notion of community policing, the practice of counter-insurgency by police departments, and the bi-partisan support for increased funding for policing.
Lastly, we will look at the movement to defund the police, using numerous writings from activists coming out of the abolitionist tradition, a discussion about the Movement for Black Lives Defund the Police toolkit and several other recent reports that challenge the dominant narrative that society needs police and that they keep us safe.
This will be a great opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and respond to all those liberal memes, like this one.
This class will take place on Monday evenings, from 6:30 – 8:30pm, beginning on Monday, January 17. The class will be held for 8 consecutive weeks, ending on Monday, March 8.
GRIID is asking for a $25 suggested donation for the class and will be re-directly the funds raised to groups working on defunding the GRPD. However, you will not be turned away if you can’t contribute financially.
If you are interested in signing up, please send an e-mail to jsmith@griid.org. There will be a 15 person limit for the class, which will be conducted virtually.
Once again the Acton Institute sides with White Supremacy, justifying the outcome of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict
On Saturday, Acton Institute researcher, Dan Hugger, post an article entitled, What the Kyle Rittenhouse trial taught America about assumptions, keeping peace.
This Acton Institute post, like so many of their posts, attempts to use fancy academic terminology, a little bit of Old Testament scripture and a quote from their organization’s namesake, all to justify a political system that is rooted in White Supremacy.
The Acton writer early on states:
Lord Acton once wrote that the chief difficulty of the study of history is that “common report and outward seeming are bad copies of the reality, as the initiated know it.”
Using Lord Acton’s cryptic language, the Acton writer makes the claim that journalists, pundits, and public servants gave us the wrong narrative about what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin, both with Jacob Blake and Kyle Rittenhouse. In this process, the Acton writer never provides us with an example of the wrong narrative, but then he proceeds to provide us with the “unbiased narrative,” which included the claim that Kyle Rittenhouse was in Kenosha merely to protect a car dealership from vandalism.
Dan Hugger, then tells us:
The questions of whether Kyle Rittenhouse lawfully possessed the firearm with which he fatally shot two and injured another and if he acted in self-defense has been settled by a jury of his peers in a court of law, which found him not guilty on all counts.
Ah, well, if the jury found Rittenhouse not guilty, then he must not have been guilty……sarcasm dripping.
What is instructive about the Acton Institute article are the following:
- There are no sources to substantiate any of the claims made in this article.
- None of the 3 people that Kyle Rittenhouse are named in the article, making it easier to accept the so-called self defense claim. Their names are Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz.
- There is no acknowledgement of the deep bias from the Judge in the Rittenhouse case.
- There is no acknowledgement that Trump officials provided talking points to reporters & elected officials, talking points that were sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse.
- In contrast to the Acton article’s claim about media bias, here is what the national media watchdog group FAIR had to say about the national news media handled the trial.
Towards the end of the Acton article, Dan Hugger provides us with the main point of the article, which is also rather instructive, when talking about what we should do:
This involves a rejection of violence by citizens and a commitment to maintain law and order by those in political authority.
This is the perfect response from those who want to protect systems of power. The public should reject violence, those in power should maintain law and order. We shouldn’t ever take to the streets, fight the system or use direct action to dismantle the very system that protects power and privilege, while punishing those who resist.
In contrast to the Acton Institute article, here is an excerpt from Margaret Kimberely’s response to the Rittenhouse verdict on Black Agenda Report:
Kyle Rittenhouse is obviously a white supremacist, but so is Joe Biden, who received 90% of the Black vote. White supremacy is a job requirement for the presidency and Barack Obama signed on to that agreement just as much as his predecessors did. Biden was seen as a savior who would rescue the nation from Donald Trump, who is portrayed as the only racist who ever served as president when he was one of just 46 who fit the description. Biden wasn’t particularly concerned about the verdict and his initial bland comment is proof. “Well look, I stand by what the jury has concluded. The jury system works and we have to abide by it.”
Biden’s nonchalant response is in keeping with his political history. After all he is the man who shepherded the 1994 Crime Bill through congress and bragged, “We do everything but hang people for jaywalking in this bill.” Biden is consistent, angrily blurting out in a meeting last year, “If it doesn’t count for y’all to hell with y’all!,” when he was asked for the bare minimum of using executive orders to thwart republicans, the people we are otherwise told to view as mortal enemies.
This is exactly why we should look to those from the Black Radical tradition to gain insight into what the significance of current events are, especially since this tradition always provides a systems critique.
Rep. Meijer votes for $778 Billion US Military Budget, which was passed with overwhelming Bipartisan support
Last week, 3rd Congressional Representative, Peter Meijer, voted to for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022, which passed the House by a vote of 363-70.
The 2022 US Military Budget is $778 billion, which is $25 billion more than what the Biden Administration originally asked for. Now the Senate needs to approve the 2022 US Military Budget, which seems to be but a foregone conclusion.
This makes the 2022 US Military Budget larger than the one in President Trump’s last year, despite the fact that the Biden Administration has formally ended the 20 year US military occupation of Afghanistan. The US Military occupation of Afghanistan cost billions over the past 20 years, which has been part of the larger so-called US War on Terror, which has cost US taxpayers $21 Trillion since September 11, 2001.
Rep. Peter Meijer released the following statement on his vote in favor of the massive US Military Budget:
“For sixty years, the NDAA has received strong bipartisan support, and I’m pleased that tradition continued this year. I was glad to vote in favor of this bill to fully equip our service members and give them a pay increase, enhance military readiness, and generally provide for a strong national defense. This summer’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrated how critically important it is that we strengthen our military and give our men and women in uniform every tool and resource they need to defend our nation and keep us safe. After months of debate and compromise, I was happy to see the House and Senate come to a bipartisan agreement that prioritizes our military and does not include any poison pills, including any ‘red-flag’ provisions. Last night’s passage signals to our adversaries that the U.S. remains ready and equipped to respond to threats at home and abroad. I was proud to support this bill, I hope the Senate does their part to pass it quickly.”
Rep. Meijer claims that the US withdrawn from Afghanistan was botched, yet he says nothing about the disastrous twenty year US occupation of that country, the thousands of Afghani deaths, the several thousand US military personnel that died, nor all the other disastrous consequences of that occupation.
However, Rep. Peter Meijer does accurately use the term bi-partisan support for the 2022 US military budget, and he rightfully acknowledges that this bi-partisan support has existed for sixty years. My own read of the bi-partisan nature of US Militarism and US Imperialism is that it has last longer than 60 years. In fact, one could argue that there has fundamentally been bipartisan support for US militarism throughout the entire history of the United States of America.
This bipartisan support of US Militarism over the past 60 years has translated into the following:
- Bipartisan support for US Wars of Aggression in places like Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq & Afghanistan.
- Bipartisan support for US military aid to other wars/repression by other countries, specifically illegal wars/acts of aggression, based on United Nations rulings, such as Israel, Egypt, Indonesia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Angola, just to name a few.
- Bipartisan support for weapons sales to dozens of countries, with a recent example being Saudi Arabia.
- Bipartisan support for massive taxpayer subsidies to US military contractors, who manufacture the weapons used by the US Military and many other countries because of US weapons sales. According to the National Priorities Project, US Military Contractors have made $3.4 Trillion over the past 10 years.
- Bipartisan support for continuing to spend Trillions on militarism instead of funding housing, health care, education, or investing in the fight against the Climate Crisis.
This Bipartisan support for US militarism is addressed in a recent article by the Feminist and Anti-war group Code Pink, which writes:
Let’s make no mistake about this: Congress’s choice to keep investing in a massive, ineffective and absurdly expensive war machine has nothing to do with “national security” as most people understand it, or “defense” as the dictionary defines it.
U.S. society does face critical threats to our security, including the climate crisis, systemic racism, erosion of voting rights, gun violence, grave inequalities and the corporate hijacking of political power. But one problem we fortunately do not have is the threat of attack or invasion by a rampant global aggressor or, in fact, by any other country at all.
Maintaining a war machine that outspends the 12 or 13 next largest militaries in the world combined actually makes us less safe, as each new administration inherits the delusion that the United States’ overwhelmingly destructive military power can, and therefore should, be used to confront any perceived challenge to U.S. interests anywhere in the world—even when there is clearly no military solution and when many of the underlying problems were caused by past misapplications of U.S. military power in the first place.
I wholeheartedly reject and oppose Rep. Peter Meijer’s vote to keep funding US Militarism, but he is correct when he says that this effort has been Bipartisan for decades.
On Tuesday, the City of Grand Rapids discussed updating the GRPD surveillance policy during the Committee of the Whole meeting. MLive devoted a whole article to it, noting that City Manager Mark Washington is “expected to be approved by City Manager Mark Washington on Jan. 3, 2022.”
The MLive article does provide a decent overview of the updated draft of the City’s surveillance policy, ending with a bullet point list of issues that the updated policy would address. The article also notes that the City of Grand Rapids partnered with the NAACP and the ACLU to refine the policy. Both entities are legitimate entities, but they do not speak for the entire community.
There are numerous things that are problematic about the updated draft of the City’s surveillance policy, issues that the MLive article does not really address.
First, the updated draft of the City’s surveillance policy is not hyperlinked in the article. This is always critical, since any one of us can bring our own interpretations to the table when looking at policy language, and MLive is no exception. Here is a link to the updated draft City Surveillance policy, as was discussed during the Committee of the Whole meeting, specifically pages 4 – 15.
Second, the MLive article says that the changes to the City’s Surveillance policy was driven by the public opposition to the ShotSpotter technology that the GRPD wanted last year. What the MLive article fails to mention, is that there was a well organized campaign to oppose the ShotSpotter technology, from a coalition of groups, who produced a statement (linked here) with several of the groups circulating an online action alert that hundreds responded to and some of the coalition member groups did actions outside the homes of several City Commissioners to pressure them to vote no.
Third, there is mention in the MLive article that when the GRPD wants to use new surveillance technology, the City will have to a public hearing for approval. This is certainly a step in the right direction, but why is there no scheduled public hearing on the adoption of the updated City Surveillance policy itself? Also, why is there no transparency on the existing surveillance practices and technology that the GRPD currently uses? I sent a letter to the City of Grand Rapids about this very issue one month ago, with no response from the City Commissioners, the Mayor or the City Manager.
Lastly, the language of the draft of the City’s Surveillance policy is vague enough, so that the GRPD and the City could justify using surveillance technology whenever they determine. Here is the language:
“Extenuating circumstances” means incidents involving a good faith belief that an imminent danger to individual safety or public health is likely.
“Imminent danger” means a hazard exists which could reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical harm immediately or before the imminence of such hazard can be eliminated through normal compliance enforcement procedures.
If recent history has taught us anything, then we should all be well aware of the fact that the laws currently in place overwhelmingly are in favor of protecting the police. In the past 18 months in Grand Rapids, we have seen the City Attorney and the City Manager stop any efforts to reduce funding for the GRPD, with vague language about “what is legal.” We have seen the GRPD repeatedly harass, intimidate and arrest Justice for Black Lives members, always justifying the arrests with their interpretation of the law or their selective enforcement of City ordinances. We have also seen numerous efforts to obtain GRPD documents through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, where the information is highly redacted.
Considering the history and the bad faith efforts of the City of Grand Rapids around policing issues, the public should be highly skeptical of the City’s updated Surveillance policy.
GRIID 2022 Winter Class: The Function of Policing in the US and how we can work towards a world Without Police
In this 8-week class, we will explore the history of policing in the United States, its role in maintaining structural racism and how it has been used to suppress social movements.
We will also look at more contemporary dynamics with policing, investigating the notion of community policing, the practice of counter-insurgency by police departments, and the bi-partisan support for increased funding for policing.
Lastly, we will look at the movement to defund the police, using numerous writings from activists coming out of the abolitionist tradition, a discussion about the Movement for Black Lives Defund the Police toolkit and several other recent reports that challenge the dominant narrative that society needs police and that they keep us safe.
This will be a great opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and respond to all those liberal memes, like this one.
This class will take place on Monday evenings, from 6:30 – 8:30pm, beginning on Monday, January 17. The class will be held for 8 consecutive weeks, ending on Monday, March 8.
GRIID is asking for a $25 suggested donation for the class and will be re-directly the funds raised to groups working on defunding the GRPD. However, you will not be turned away if you can’t contribute financially.
If you are interested in signing up, please send an e-mail to jsmith@griid.org. There will be a 15 person limit for the class, which will be conducted virtually.
Activists that have been trying to remove the Confederate statue in Allendale, are now suing the Township for Free Speech violations
It has been roughly 18 months that activists have been organizing to remove the Confederate statue in Allendale. The protest began in the summer of 2020, about the same time that the country erupted over the price murder of George Floyd.
Allendale Township has fought the activists on the removal of the Confederate statue from the very beginning, often arguing that to remove the statue is to remove history. Other players, such as Ryan Kelley, the co-founder of the American Patriot Council, also joined the fight to defend the Confederate statue, while at the same time calling the COVID pandemic a hoax and opposing any kind of government measures to protect the public from the spread of the virus.
In October of 2020, Kelley and his minions organized a rally in the park where the Confederate statue is located in Allendale. A counter-protest was organized, which drew a great deal of media attention, although often failing the report on more critical aspects of the protests.
In March, we reported on the four activists who were charged by Allendale Township of defacing the Confederate statue, although the charges were essentially bogus.
In May of 2021, the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists had called for a boycott of an annual concert series held in Allendale. That concert series was cancelled.
Now, four civil rights advocates have filed a federal lawsuit in the Western District of Michigan against Allendale Township for censoring speech promoting racial justice. The lawsuit asserts that Allendale, located in Ottawa County, Michigan, unlawfully violated their free speech rights by allowing people to pay for messages on engraved bricks in a local park promoting a wide range of individual interests, but rejected bricks with messages supporting racial equality.
According to the Media Release from the four plaintiffs:
In an August 2019 meeting, the Township Board reinstated a decades-old fundraising program that allowed community members to purchase bricks to be engraved with messages of their choice and placed in the township’s Garden of Honor surrounding statues commemorating various wars. The Board did not limit the type of message applicants could have inscribed on a brick. Bricks in the park today have messages such as, “I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE,” “ALLENDALE ANIMAL HOSPITAL,” and “ALLENDALE CLASS OF 2003.”
One of the statues in the Garden of Honor is of a Confederate soldier and a Union soldier with a small, enslaved Black child between their legs. Following the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, many Americans began calling for the removal of Confederate statues. Numerous community members, including plaintiffs, and organizations, such as Grand Valley State University, have urged Allendale to remove the Confederate soldier—thought to be one of the only Confederate statues north of the Mason-Dixon line—from the Garden of Honor. Thus far, the Allendale Township Board has refused to remove or replace the statue of the Confederate soldier.
Plaintiff Tony Miller is a Black veteran of the United States Navy. In March, Miller submitted brick applications to honor the service of Black and Indigenous Americans in the U.S. armed forces and to promote racial justice. Miller’s submissions included either the phrase “Black Lives Matter” or “Indigenous Lives Matter” followed by the name of a veteran. Because the brick display faces the Confederate statue, Miller hoped his bricks would make a particularly powerful statement.
In response to the brick applications of Mr. Miller and a few other civil rights advocates, the Allendale Board decided to change the rules for inscribed bricks and to allow only messages that stated a veteran’s name, branch of service, dates of service, war or conflict, location of service, rank, unit, medals and awards, and/or POW or MIA status. Even though Mr. Miller and the other plaintiffs submitted brick applications before the Board adopted the new policy, the Township Clerk rejected all of their applications because they did not meet the brick program’s new content requirements.
Mr. Miller stated, “I just want to make Allendale a more welcoming home for families like mine. It’s not fair for the Board to change the rules just to prevent us from promoting racial justice.”
The lawsuit asks the federal court to order Allendale to install the bricks with racial justice messages that were applied for before the rule change.
To view the legal complaint, click here.
Minimum Wage increase is an insult to workers in Michigan: Time we realize that workers have more power than politicians
On Friday, MLive posted a story about the minimum wage in Michigan, stating that after the New Year, the minimum wage will go from $9.65 to $9.87.
$9.87 is an outrageously low wage, it is so low that it is insulting to workers, no matter what kind of work you do. The soon to be $9.87 an hour minimum wage in Michigan does not even cover the most basic necessities. In fact, a $9.87 wage would not even cover the cost of rent for people in Michigan.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, people in Michigan need to earn at least $15.62 to cover the cost of rent. For people living in Grand Rapids, even earning $15.62 would not be enough considering what the cost of rent at many places in the city.
Of course, $15.62 an hour is what a single person would need for a one bedroom apartment. If you are a single parent, and need a two bedroom apartment, then you would need to earn $18.55 an hour, just to be able to afford rent. This doesn’t necessarily cover the cost of utilities, food, health care, transportation and you can pretty much forget about having money left over to do something entertaining. If you add student loans to the equation or child care costs, you are likely to go into debt or to have two jobs just to make ends meet.
Clearly, the politicians who pass minimum wage laws have rarely ever worked for at minimum wage, especially once they were out of high school. And when I say politicians, I’m not just talking about Republicans, but Democrats as well. Think about it. Earlier this year the Biden administration had originally proposed an increase to the federal minimum wage, up to $15 an hour. Even with the Democrats controlling the White House, the Senate and the House, they could not get a $15 federal minimum. wage increase passed, especially with several Democrats voting against the proposed increase.
A more effective way to raise wages, to get employers to pay a livable wage, is to organize in your own workplace and to support workers who are organizing to demand just wages. In fact, as we have seen in recent months, more and more workers are realizing that they have a great deal of leverage and power, even if it is just withholding their labor until employers begin to respect them with paying a more just wage. We have seen this with Kelloggs recently and lots of other places that are already unionized. However, even in places that are not unionized, especially in the service industry, many places are beginning to pay $15, $18 or even $20 an hour because there are lots of workers who will no longer submit to working for less than what they can reasonably live off of.
The history of the labor movement, especially in the earlier part of the labor movement, has demonstrated that by organizing themselves and making demands of employers, they were able to win better wages, benefits, safer working conditions, etc. In fact, all existing labor laws were the direct result of workers organizing, engaging in strikes and other tactics to win their demands. Politicians have never initiated living wage demands, workplace safety demands, worker benefits, etc., those things have come about because of the organized efforts of workers themselves. In fact, according to Cloward and Piven’s book, Poor People’s Movements, most major labor victories happened because of spontaneous worker actions, especially the sit-down strike.
According to Jeremy Brecher’s book Strike!, there were 48 sit-down strikes in 1936 and 477 sit-down strikes in 1937. All of this happened before most of the New Deal policies were put into effect. In fact, most labor historians acknowledge that the tremendous amount of labor unrest was what pushed the Roosevelt Administration to adopt the New Deal Policies in the first place.
All of this is to say that workers have more power than bosses and if we are organized we can not only win a livable wage, but we can create a world that is not dictated by Billionaires, corporations or the Capitalist Class.
With a nearly unanimous vote, the Michigan House passes bill to provide $300 Million for policing
Three weeks ago, we reported on proposed legislation that would provide $300 million in funding for police departments to hire more cops and fund addition police programs.
In our previous GRIID posting we wrote:
Michigan’s House Speaker, Jason Wentworth was quoted in the MLive article as saying:
“Michigan’s men and women in uniform deserve to know that they are a priority and that their work is important to us. In an era when far too many people are attacking law enforcement and looking for ways to defund the police, we chose to stand with them and find solutions together.”
HB 5522 passed overwhelmingly, with a vote of 97 – 3, with seven legislators abstaining. The 3 no votes were all from Republicans, which means that every Democrat (not including those who abstained) in the Michigan House voted for the $300 million in police funding.
The near unanimous vote for more police funding is consisted across the country and has been for decades, with both parties choosing to provide massive amounts of funds to police departments, while social programs are constantly being cut. You can see which politicians in Michigan have been receiving financial support from police unions, by going to the site No More Cop Money.
Even MLive responded to the false perception that Democratic lawmakers were in favor of defunding police departments. In an article posted on December 2nd, the MLive reporter writes:
Despite repeated claims from Republican lawmakers in Michigan that state Democrats supported defunding police departments, most large Michigan cities are spending more on police services in wake of last year’s racial justice movement.
In other words, Democratic lawmakers are just as committed to funding police as are GOP lawmakers. Again, this is consistent with police union funding of candidates, both Republican and Democratic candidates. If one looks at the largest police union in the country, the Fraternal Order of Police, you can see that between 1990 and 2020, Democrats had received more funding from the FOP than did Republicans in both the House and the Senate.
Back to the near unanimous vote in the Michigan House to provide $300 million in additional funding to the police, one could argue that this might be in part because Democrats who will be up for re-election in 2022, will not want to be perceived as anti-police or soft on crime. It will be interesting to see which candidates in Michigan will be receiving funding from police unions during the upcoming election cycle.
GRIID 2022 Winter Class: The Function of Policing in the US and how we can work towards a world Without Police
In this 8-week class, we will explore the history of policing in the United States, its role in maintaining structural racism and how it has been used to suppress social movements.
We will also look at more contemporary dynamics with policing, investigating the notion of community policing, the practice of counter-insurgency by police departments, and the bi-partisan support for increased funding for policing.
Lastly, we will look at the movement to defund the police, using numerous writings from activists coming out of the abolitionist tradition, a discussion about the Movement for Black Lives Defund the Police toolkit and several other recent reports that challenge the dominant narrative that society needs police and that they keep us safe.
This will be a great opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and respond to all those liberal memes that say, “Defund the police doesn’t mean get rid of the police, it means………”
This class will take place on Monday evenings, from 6:30 – 8:30pm, beginning on Monday, January 17. The class will be held for 8 consecutive weeks, ending on Monday, March 8.
GRIID is asking for a $25 suggested donation for the class and will be re-directly the funds raised to groups working on defunding the GRPD. However, you will not be turned away if you can’t contribute financially.
We will not be using a singular book for this class, rather chapters from numerous texts, which GRIID will provide in digital form. The sources we will be using come from the following books:
- Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police, edited by David Correia & Tyler Wall
- Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, by Kristian Williams
- Abolition For the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons, edited by Colin Kaepernick
- A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete, by Geo Maher
- Life During Wartime: Resisting Counter-insurgency, edited by Kristian Williams, Will Munger and Lara Messersmith-Glavin
- Movement for Black Lives Defund the Police Toolkit
If you are interested in signing up, please send an e-mail to jsmith@griid.org. There will be a 15 person limit for the class, which will be conducted virtually.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 