Last week, the chairman of the Michigan Freedom Fund and DeVos family political operative, Greg McNeilly, wrote an opinion piece in the Detroit News entitled, This election, know candidates’ stance on defunding police.
The article by McNeilly is less about the issue of Defunding Police and more about where candidates stand on the issue of Defunding the Police in the upcoming August Primary.
McNeilly demonstrates his own lack of understanding on the issue, by making overly simplistic comments, as well as presenting misinformation. McNeilly calls the killing of George Floyd “horrific,” but fails to mention that Floyd was murdered by a cop.
The DeVos family operative goes on to say that the protests have been necessary (although I doubt that he has participated in any of them), and then goes on to say:
“So has the selfless and genuine response of the overwhelming majority of Michigan’s remarkable law enforcement officers.”
McNeilly then gives examples of calls across the state to Defund the Police, using Grand Rapids as one example. However, McNeilly uses the claim made by the Grand Rapids Police Officers Association, when talking about how the proposed cut to the GRPD budget might impact policing in Grand Rapids. McNeilly makes this statement as fact, without noting the source or substantiating the validity of the cop union in Grand Rapids.
McNeilly then makes an even more outlandish claim by saying that “violent criminals have spoken out too,” on the matter of defunding police. The Chairman of the Michigan Freedom Fund makes the claim that violent crime is up across the US, leaving us all to think that the idea of defunding the police is a terrible idea.
McNeilly brings the issue back to where candidates stand on this issue, even though he offers no insight into the matter. While I agree it is important that people know where candidates stand on the issue of defunding the police, McNeilly ignores another important component of this issue, which is candidates who get money from police unions.
We reported on the issue of cop unions and political candidates in late June, with an important link to the data provided by the group No More Cop Money.
On the matter of political candidates and where they stand on defunding of police, lets take a look at candidate races in the Grand Rapids area for state legislature. We looked at candidate websites or candidate Facebook pages.
72nd State House
- Dem. Lily Cheng-Schulting – no position on defunding police
- Rep. Steven Johnson – no position on defunding police
73rd State House
- Dem. Bill Saxton – no position on defunding police
- Rep. John Inhulsen – no position on defunding police
- Rep. Bryan Posthumus – no position on defunding police
- Rep. Robert Regan – no position on defunding police
75th State House
- Dem. David LaGrand – no position on defunding police
- Rep. James McKeiver – no position on defunding police
76th State House
- Dem. Rachel Hood – no position on defunding police
- Rep. Doug Zandstra – opposes defunding police
77th State House
- Dem. Bob Smith – no position on defunding police
- Rep. Tommy Brann – no position on defunding police
86th State House
- Dem. Jeff Merritt – no position on defunding police
- Rep. Thomas A. Albert – no position on defunding police
As you can see from this sample of candidates from the greater Grand Rapids area, only one had a position on defunding police and they were against it. Most candidates are playing it safe and not taking a position, but if they took a public position in support of defunding police, it would signal a first step in their commitment to the demands of the Movement for Black Lives.
In recent days, more and more people have become aware of federal officers in unmarked vans grabbing people off the streets in Portland, Oregon.
While some may find this practice alarming, it is consistent with the history of state repression in the US. For example, in 1919, federal agents rounded up some 3,000 dissidents, many of whom were anarchists, socialists or members of the radical labor union, the IWW. This action was led by US Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, which is why it is often referred to as the Palmer Raids.
It is vitally important that those of us committed to collective liberation become familiar with this history of state repression. Not only is state repression an integral part of US history, it is important in terms of how we organize against it. An excellent overview of this history of state repression can be found in the book, Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States, by Jules Boykoff.
Additionally, we have to fundamentally alter our understanding of policing in the US. The recent Black Lives Matter uprising that is happening in cities all across the US are beginning to wake people up to the realities of US policing. There is so much about policing that we need to unlearn, especially since our perceptions of what law enforcement does is so different from what the documented history can teach us. However, it is understandable that our understanding of policing is so biased,when one considers how the function of policing has been presented to us in K-12 education and how cops are represented in the dominant cultural narratives in the US – TV shows, movies, etc.
How the GRPD deals with dissent
When it comes to how law enforcement deals with public dissent and dissidents, we need to understand that the police rely on two fundamental strategies:
Negotiated Management – also called Command and Control techniques – this is when police attempt to negotiate actions, always with the goal to manage it. This often takes the form of cops asking people to get permits to protest, showing up at a protest to let everyone know that they are there to keep people safe, when in fact they are there to manage or control public dissent.
Escalated Force – this is where the state uses surveillance, infiltration, negative press, pre-emptive arrests, protest zones and the use of less lethal weaponry to suppress public resistance. This is what we have seen in Grand Rapids beginning on May 30th, where they have used weapons agains the public, relied on curfews, brought in the National Guard, sought to control the public narrative in the news media and have created the good protester/bad protester dichotomy.
Until we come to terms with these facts, we will continue to view the police as a necessary good and only seek to reform the GRPD. When we speak the language of copspeak – of police reform – we see the world as police do. Police reform is the science of police legitimation accomplished through the art of euphemism. Police reform speaks in a language carefully calibrated to limit our ability to understand police as anything other than an equitable force and indispensable institution.
Ultimately, we have to see that police and policing, even in West Michigan, function to protect power. Black communities have understood this about the US, since the country was founded. James Baldwin, in his famous 1966 essay on policing, referred to policing as a function of an occupying power. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense used the same language several years after Baldwin wrote his essay, always referring to the police as an occupying force.
However, white communities don’t tend to see the police through the same lens, especially white liberal communities like Grand Rapids. As Alex Vitale, in his groundbreaking book, The End of Policing:
“For liberals, police reform is always a question of taking steps to restore the legitimacy of policing…………They want the police to be better trained, more accountable, and less brutal and racist – laudable goals, but they leave intact the basic institutional functions of the police, which have never really been about public safety and crime control………..The reality is that police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and highly managing the behaviors of poor and nonwhite people; those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements.”
This notion of policing and what function the GRPD plays within the system of power, is becoming clearer to more and more people. What has become apparent to more people since May 30th is the GRPD’s use of the two strategies noted above, both the Negotiated Management strategy and the Escalated Force strategy. For the past 7 weeks both strategies have been employed by the GRPD, and at times simultaneously.
We have been attempting to document the GRPD’s use of these two strategies, beginning with the article we wrote just after the May 30th protest, entitled, Don’t Let the System Control the Narrative on the Black Lives Matter protest in Grand Rapids.
Since then, we have written numerous articles on the GRPD, in the following order:
A Brief History of how the GRPD responds to protests and dissent
We need a campaign to Defund the GRPD
Is there really any such thing as a Peaceful Protest?
They are going to do what they want: Grand Rapids, the GRPD and the illusion of Democracy
Grand Rapids Police Officers Association releases statement against the calls for Defunding the GRPD
Grand Rapids City officials, deception and Defunding the GRPD
WOODTV8 uses far right sources to demonize anti-racist and anti-fascist movements
Grand Rapids news media acts as a conduit for the GRPD, twice in the same day
The GRPD & Respectability Politics vs Community Control over public safety
Ultimately, what we have been doing at GRIID is to provide an ongoing counter-narrative to what the City of Grand Rapids, the GRPD and the commercial news media have been presenting since May 30th. And we will continue to do so as long as the resistance to state violence continues in this community.
In Part II, we will look at how the GRPD uses counterinsurgency tactics to management and suppress public dissent.
The current push from the city of Grand Rapids to say that they are working on implementing a series of police reforms is nothing new.
A few years after the 1967 racial uprising in Grand Rapids, several members of the African American community submitted a position paper to the Grand Rapids City Commission. This was in 1970, which was reported in the Grand Rapids Press, saying:
“some of the demands from the black community were that the city should hire a black aide to Police Superintendent Robert Anderson, the withdrawal of the police tactical unit from the inner city until an investigation of alleged police brutality is completed and a request that any time there is a request for a cruiser in the black community, if there are no black policemen available, do not send any.”
The result was that another committee was established to look into the demands. This is a pattern that has been repeated over the decades, when the Black community presents demands and the City’s responses are to set up another committee and maybe adopt some mildly reformist policing practices.
In 2016, there was a protest organized by Black youth, where the Chief of Police was confronted on the issue of police violence against the Black community.
In 2017, a group of Black men came to the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, demanding that the City call for a state of emergency around policing.
Two months after the group of Black men made demands, the GRPD held “listening sessions” in Grand Rapids to re-build community/police relations.
In late 2017, the GRPD held a Black girl at gunpoint, with additional calls for police accountability.
In September of 2018, after another Black youth was detained, the Chief of Police said they were simply following procedure.
In March of 2019, after more police abuse of Black and latinx residents, the GRPD hosts a press conference to say that people need to “obey the police.”
The most recent calls for police accountability and Defunding the GRPD have been met with the same responses this community has seen for decades. The GRPD comes up with a new list of “reforms” and another committee is established to pacify the public. The new Community Police Advisory Council was announced last week by Chief Payne, which will include the Chief and the following members of the community:
- Tracey Brame – Assistant Dean at WMU – Colley Law School. Brame started the Access to Justice Clinic at WMU-Cooley and teaches courses in Family Law, Race and the Supreme Court, and the Death Penalty.
- Marco Bulnes – Mayan Buzz Cafe, Mayan Industries LLC
- Ja’Von Fields – Newly elected President of the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP Youth Council. His involvement with the NAACP ranges from being President of his local branch, to Juvenile Justice Chair of the MI State Youth & College Divison, and a certified Trainer of the National NAACP Youth & Collge Divison.
- Willie Gholston – Senior Pastor at First Community AME Church in Grand Rapids
- Larry Johnson – former GRPD officer, now the head of Public Safety & Security for the Grand Rapids Public Schools
- Raynard Ross – Associate Dean at GRCC and members of the Board of Education for the Grand Rapids Public Schools.
Now, I have nothing against these six people, but it seems as though Chief Payne chose people based on respectability politics, rather than those who have been directly impacted by police violence or those who have been involved in organizing protests since May 30.
Regardless of how one feels about the new Community Police Advisory Council, such a move not only seeks to minimize public pressure for defunding the GRPD, it also means that City Officials and the GRPD have no real interest in community control over policing.
Community Control is one of the main components of the Black Lives Matter vision, which was crafted in 2015. Along with End the War on Black People, Reparation, a Divest/Invest component and Economic Justice, Community Control is central to this vision.
This vision of Community Control states:
Direct democratic community control of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, ensuring that communities most harmed by destructive policing have the power to hire and fire officers, determine disciplinary action, control budgets and policies, and subpoena relevant agency information.
Community control over policing is also what many other Black-led groups have been calling for. In a recent article on Black Agenda Report, it cities Chicago organizer Frank Chapman:
“All of the reforms being called for, including abolishing and defunding the police – reforms that directly affect the current existence of the police as outside occupiers of our communities — are embedded in CPAC. CPAC is the way to ensuring these demands are met. CPAC puts the power of reform in the hands of communities through directly elected representatives. That’s community control. With community control, we decide the if, when, and how of policing – up to and including abolition. With community control, we can defund, demilitarize, and regulate the police out of existence. Communities can reimagine a world without police – but not without the power to do so themselves. We’ve heard nothing from our elected leadership about this broad demand to re-conceive public safety, except for the 19 alderpersons who support CPAC.”
If the GRPD is truly committed to protecting and serving the residents of Grand Rapids, then City officials need to let the public, and especially the Black community, have community control over policing in this city. In fact, there is no justifiable reason for not allowing this to happen, especially since the public pays the salaries of the cops.
There is been a fair amount of attention given to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a program which small businesses with relief loans during the pandemic.
However, like much of the relief money coming from the federal government, funding through the Paycheck Protection Program has benefited banks. According to a recent article on The Intercept:
The Small Business Association, which is running the PPP program, has long been criticized for struggling to process emergency relief quickly during past natural disasters. So when the time came to respond to the coronavirus crisis as fast as possible, the SBA was in no position to do it itself, and Congress mandated that the loans be run through banks instead.
The same article provides two examples of banks that are making millions from the PPP:
New Jersey-based Cross River Bank’s estimated $163 million haul would be more than double its net revenue last year. JPMorgan Chase could make $864 million.
There has also been a fair amount of attention to the fact that the Ayn Rand Institute, the far right think tank, had received PPP funding. However, as the Center for Media & Democracy has pointed out, there are numerous far right groups that have received PPP funding from the federal government, listed below.
MLive, also posted an article about PPP funds going to businesses in Michigan last week, with the headline, 185 Michigan businesses got at least $5 million in federal paycheck protection dollars.
The MLive article also provide a way for people to search which businesses received PPP funding from the federal government. There were 30 businesses in Grand Rapids that received between $5 – 10 million of federal taxpayer money, including businesses such as Rockford Construction, Warner Norcross & Judd, Michigan Turkey Producers and Barfly Ventures LLC.
There were 69 entities receiving between $2 – 5 million, including Aquinas College, Catholic Charities West Michigan, Grand Rapids Christian Schools, Progressive AE, RBC Ministries and Westwood Christian Services.
There were 135 entities in Grand Rapids that received between $1 – 2 million of PPP funding, including Atomic Object, Butterball Farms Inc, General Synod Council of the Reformed Church in America, Mel Trotter Ministries, Northpointe Christian School and Plasan North America.
There were 435 entities that received between $350,000 and $1 million, including All Saints Academy, Calvary Church, Calvin Theological Seminary, Catholic Central High, CWD Real Estate Investment LLC, Fox Motor Group LLC, Holy Spirit Parish, Kuyper College, Seyferth & Associates and Wolverine Gas and Oil Corporation.
Lastly, there were 679 entities that received between $150,000 and $350,000, including Art Prize, Christian Schools International, Ellis Parking, Grand Rapids Downtown Market Inc, Grand Rapids Youth for Christ, Long Road Distillers, MIBIZ Inc, Mike & Johnny Brann’s Steak & Seafood Inc, Pregnancy Resource Center, Start Garden Inc, Tommy Brann’s Steak & Seafood and Words of Hope Inc.
What is instructive about this list is that there are a great deal of religious groups getting bailed out by public tax money, which I find extremely troubling. Where is the separation of Church & State. If these religious groups can get public money, then they need to be paying taxes.
In addition, there are several businesses and business entities that are deeply entrenched in the Grand Rapids Power Structure, such as Rockford Construction, Warner Norcross & Judd, CWD Real Estate Investment LLC, Fox Motor Group LLC, Wolverine Gas and Oil Corporation, Art Prize, Grand Rapids Downtown Market Inc and Start Garden Inc. Lastly, a few of the businesses have also been vocally in support of the GRPD, especially since the Defund the GRPD campaign began, notably the Brann restaurants and Long Road Distillers.
It is instructive that these groups are getting public tax money, especially since they have a history of being anti-union, some are anti-public education and many of them are connected to groups like the West Michigan Policy Forum, which lobbies state lawmakers to pass neo-liberal policies that hurt working class people, the LGBTQ community and disproportionately Black and latinx communities.
When the CEO of Goya, Robert Unanue, meet with President Trump sang his praises, little did he know there would be backlash for his actions.
An informal boycott is now happening against Goya, with a wave of posts on social media about the company.
What hasn’t received as much attention is the reason why the CEO of Goya was meeting with President Trump in the first place. The Trump White House had announced on July 9th, a new program called the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative. Based on the White House statement, released on July 9, the Hispanic Prosperity Initiative will, “improve Hispanic Americans’ access to educational and economic opportunities.”
The White House statement lays out a framework for what the initiative is all about, which lists the following items:
(i) identify and promote educational and workforce development practices that have improved educational, professional, and economic outcomes for Hispanic Americans;
(ii) encourage private-sector initiatives and foster public-private partnerships that improve access to educational and economic opportunities for Hispanic Americans;
(iii) develop a national network of individuals, organizations, and communities, with which to consult and collaborate regarding practices and policies that improve access to educational and economic opportunities for Hispanic Americans;
(iv) monitor the development, implementation, and coordination of Federal Government educational, workforce, and business development programs designed to improve outcomes for Hispanic Americans; and
(v) advise the President, through the Secretary of Education (Secretary), on issues of importance to Hispanic Americans and policies relating to Hispanic Americans’ prosperity.
This description around “school choice” and “public-private partnerships” should raise lots of red flags for anyone who is concerned about how this initiative could negatively impact the latinx community. In many ways, the language used by the White House fits well within their larger Neo-Liberal Capitalist plans, especially for communities of color. Even more alarming, is the fact that this initiative seems to fall under the control of the Department of Education, which means Betsy DeVos.
As Secretary of Education, DeVos also released a statement on July 9, praising the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative, stating:
“Hispanic families, like so many families across America, want their children educated in personalized ways that meet their unique needs and their family’s values. We know that a great education is also the launching pad to a great job and long-term prosperity. I applaud President Trump’s strong leadership in support of more educational opportunities and greater prosperity for all Hispanic Americans. At the U.S. Department of Education, we’re working to open up new career pathways including apprenticeships and earn-and-learn opportunities, expanding support for Hispanic Serving Institutions, prioritizing new public charter schools in Opportunity Zones, and fighting for education freedom so Hispanic students—and all students—can find their right fit.”
We should also find this statement from DeVos rather alarming, since it clearly signals another push with this administration to lure communities of color into the privatized educational sphere. This strategy of undermining public education first educes funding for public schools, and then provides a whole menu of incentives for charter and other private educational models to use public money.
In Grand Rapids, we can see how the GRPS continues to deal with reduced budgets, which leaves Black and latinx students with less resources and quality teachers. Faced with these dynamics, latinx parents will look to other education opportunities for their children, which often means looking at Charter Schools or other private educational models.
While some might see the Hispanic Prosperity Initiative as nothing more than a ploy to reach latinx voters for Trump, we should be concerned about how the Hispanic Prosperity Initiative will play out and how it will impact students who are currently in the public education system.
We don’t need no stinking permits to protest: 100 years of dissent and disruption in Grand Rapids
Ever since the Black Lives Matter uprising that began in Grand Rapids on May 30th, Police Chief Payne has been suggesting to those who are protesting that they should get a permit from his office, “so everyone can stay safe.”
Not only do people not need a permit to protest, Chief Payne’s plea for people to obtain a permit drips of irony. The protests that began on May 30th have specifically been directed at police violence against the Black community. Asking those who are protesting to seek permission from the GRPD, to resist police violence, is both confounding and ridiculous.
Now, there are numerous reasons for people to engage in public protest and dissent, but historically, one of the main reasons for protesting has been to disrupt business as usual, to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of conformity, or to strategically force systems of power to meet the demands of those who are protesting.
Social Movements throughout history have rarely sought permission to dissent. Abolitionists did not ask permission to resist slavery. Organized workers, especially in the late 19th century and early 20th century, did not ask permission to demand better working conditions. The Civil Rights Movement didn’t ask permission to engage in a sit-in and freedom riders weren’t asking permission to ride segregated buses.
We have a long history of dissent and disruption in the United States. In fact, the use of dissent and disruption were integral components of social movements, which have been the primary driving force for social change throughout history. People with power, either economic or political power, don’t wake up one day and say, “I think we should give people more rights.” Whatever rights and freedoms we enjoy currently are the direct result of the sacrifices that people in social movements have made to win those freedoms.
We also have a long history of dissent and disruption right here in Grand Rapids. I have been working on the Grand Rapids People’s History Project for 10 years now and I am constantly amazed and inspired by how often people in Grand Rapids have used direct action to make demands and to change lives. What follows is a brief overview of dissent and disruption over the past 100 years in Grand Rapids.
1911 Furniture Workers Strike – 6,000 furniture workers go on strike to demand better wages, better working conditions and the right to have a union. Workers clash with cops in the streets and throw rocks at scab workers brought in from outside the community.
1917 – Socialists in arrested for passing out anti-draft information during WWI.
1937 – Workers go on strike in Grand Rapids, after being inspired by the Flint Wildcat Strike.
1963 – 3,000 people march in Grand Rapids to protest the Birmingham Church bombing.
1965 – Black South High students walk out, in what is called the Mustache Affair. Read the WOODTV8 editorial found on the link, which demonstrates their bias has been around for decades.
1967 Race riot, which was sparked by police harassing Black youth.
1968 – Mayor of Grand Rapids denies Black community a permit to mourn the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
1968 – 1972 anti-Vietnam War organizing in Grand Rapids.
1970 – Student-led Earth Day protests in Grand Rapids.
1986 – Anti-Contra Aid protest in Grand Rapids.
1989 – 100 people shut down Michigan Street protesting US involvement in the murder of 6 priests in El Salvador.
1991 – Gulf War protests in Grand Rapids.
1996 – Anti-Police Brutality Protest in Grand Rapids.
2000 – Anti-Globalization protests in Grand Rapids.
2003 – Anti-Iraq war protest when Bush came to Grand Rapids.
2006 – 10,000 march for immigrant justice in Grand Rapids.
2007 – Protest against Congressman Ehlers’ ongoing support for the US occupation of Iraq.
2016 – Thousands of people protest in the streets of Grand Rapids after the election of Donald Trump.
2017 – Immigrant Justice movement in Grand Rapids begins, with Movimiento Cosecha GR.
May 1st, 2017 march, organized by Movimiento Cosecha GR.
May 1st, 2018 march, organized by Movimiento Cosecha GR.
June 2018 End the ICE Contract protest at the Kent County Commission meeting.
May 1st, 2019 march, organized by Movimiento Cosecha GR.
This is only a sample of the ways in which people in Grand Rapids have protested over the past 100 years and in none of these instances did people ask permission to dissent!
It is rare for commercial news outlets to challenge the policies and practices of local police department, since commercial news media has always internalized the values of the dominant systems of power in this community.
Local news outlets believe that the GRPD functions to “protect and to serve” the people of Grand Rapids, The local commercial news media never questions the integrity of the GRPD and often acts as a conduit or a mouthpiece for law enforcement.
This loyalty that the local commercial news media has towards the GRPD was in full display on Sunday, July 12, with two separate stories.
First, the GRPD fed the local news agencies with pictures of banners hung in Grand Rapids recently, along with images of what appears to be the stenciled phrase Defund the GRPD, along with other words that appeared at City Hall and according to the GRPD at the homes of several city officials.
In addition to the images that the GRPD provided to the local news media, the GRPD provided a statement, which read as follows:
“These bullying and intimidation tactics are unacceptable and won’t be tolerated. This crosses the line,” Grands Rapids Police Chief Eric Payne said in a statement. “There is a process in place for determining our department’s budget, and we must let that process play out. There are more productive ways to exercise your right to free speech and have your voice be heard. Vandalism and violating the law are not the answer.
“We are committed to mutual respect and trust as we work with the community to build stronger relationships. If we’re all in this together, let’s show it.”
This exact same statement or portions of it, was used by MLive, WOODTV8, WZZM 13 and WXMI 17. In addition, to the photos and the statement from the GRPD, the police asked the local news outlets to publish phone numbers for people to call the GRPD if they have information on to assist the cops to catch the “vandals.”
All of the four major commercial media outlets did not bother to seek out any other opinions on this matter, but they did affirm the GRPD’s position on this issue, since the news agencies never questioned whether the banners or the stenciled statements were anything other than vandalism. Such conformity is astounding, especially in light of the fact that there has been a large community call for Defunding the GRPD in recent weeks.
A second example of how the local commercial news media acts as a conduit for the GRPD – also on July 12 – had to do with a peaceful parade/procession that was organized by the family and friends of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was shot and killed by Louisville police in March, and the parade/procession was held in Grand Rapids.
WZZM 13 did report on this event, but their story on covered the beginning of the event, before the parade/procession left Mackay-Jaycees Park on Sunday afternoon.
The parade/procession, which was mostly done by people in cars, went to downtown Grand Rapids later on Sunday, with the GRPD arresting several people. WOODTV8 calls the action a “pop up event.”
The channel 8 story then provides most of the content directly from GRPD Police Chief Payne, who says:
“I, along with the community, continue to be saddened by the death of Breonna Taylor and understand the concerns about how her life was lost,” Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Payne said. “That is why I am actively working to improve community safety in Grand Rapids. I want this to be a city where all people feel safe and are safe at all times throughout our community.
“Public safety is our top priority,” Payne continued. “Blocking traffic at major intersections is not safe for participants or motorists. The last thing we want is for someone to get hurt or to arrest anyone for trying to exercise their right to free speech. Such gatherings should be coordinated with our special events office. A special event permit can help avoid confusion and protect the public’s safety.”
Again, there are no other voices and no questioning from WOODTV8 on the statement from Chief Payne. WOODTV8 merely acts as a stenographer for the GRPD, publicizing just what they said, along with providing ways to contact the police station. This in no way constitutes journalism, especially when there were other sources that were easily accessible on social media.
We found several videos from people who had recorded the police arrests during the event for Breonna Taylor, both this short video and a longer one that shows how disrespectful the GRPD were to Black community members.
WOODTV8 has done it again, broadcasting stories that are sensationalist and full of misinformation. On Monday, we posted a deconstruction of a WOODTV8 story that essentially provided a White Supremacist group with free airtime.
Last night, WOODTV8 once again engaged is shoddy journalism that was meant as clickbait, but failed to actually inform the public. The first story was framed as Riots Revealed: Follow the Money, a Target 8 investigative story, which investigates nothing. The story begins with the newsreader saying that a month after rioting in Grand Rapids, “suspicion lingers,” and then states that the news station found out that a group was bailing out those charged with rioting.
This supposed investigative story wants viewers to believe that they uncovered who bailed out people charged with rioting, when in fact, the Michigan Solidarity Bail Fund has been very public on social media for more than a month. GRIID even posted a story on the Michigan Solidarity Bail Fund on June 2, primarily because GRIID supports the recent uprising and those who have participated in the uprising, which includes bailing people out of jail.
WOODTV8 reporter Susan Samples begins her expose by talking about how a few key strokes can create a conspiracy or reveal truths. In one of the images used in the video b-roll you can see the name Andy Ngo and on the WOODTV post about this story, it shows that the channel 8 reporter was relying on Andy Ngo for information about someone the news station believes is behind the bail fund. The thing is, Andy Ngo is a fascist, a supporter of the Proud Boys and other far right groups, plus he has made it his mission to promote misinformation about antifa. This claim is supported by numerous independent news sources, like the Jacobin, Rolling Stones Magazine and Media Matters.
The channel 8 story then spends the rest of the time trying to get information a person that was outed by Andy Ngo and then seeks to frame the rest of the story as if WOODTV8 is really trying to get to the bottom of something. They aren’t. Instead, whether intentional or not, WOODTV8 has demonized a human being just because they believe in bailing out people who were arrested during the May 30 uprising in Grand Rapids. In addition, WOODTV8 provides far right groups and state forces – cops, prosecutors, etc – with information that will do nothing other than cause harm to people who are deeply committed to anti-racism and anti-fascist organizing.
In the follow up story, WOODTV8 then does a story on antifa and talks to someone from Saginaw claiming that are part of antifa.
The story that aired last night, begins with anti-antifa propaganda, including Trump denouncing the group. This sets the tone for the whole story, which has little to do with illuminating information on the anti-fascist movement. This sensationalized story is really about trying to frame antifa as an extremist group, instead of digging into its history, which has been explored by people like Mark Bray, author of the book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
However, WOODTV8 prefers sensationalism, since the news stations is driven by ratings and understands that it’s primary viewing demographic are white, middle class people.
During this “expose on antifa,” channel 8 actually uses commentary from Ryan Kelly, a white supremacist with the American Patriot Rally, who has organized numerous anti-lockdown protests in Lansing, one in Grand Rapids and brought heavily armed white guys to Allendale to intimidate people who were protesting the Civil War monument.
In the rest of the channel 8 story, the reporter seeks to sensationalize antifa as extremist, even using the FBI as a source about antifa. The questions asked by the reporter of the person claiming to be part of antifa are leading and ridiculous, always using words like extremist and violence, along with video b-roll of property destruction. Viewers of this story could not come away with any real information on what antifa is, nor its history.
It’s bad enough that WOODTV8 provided free airtime to White Supremacist at the beginning of the week, only to end the end with two stories that furthers a far right agenda by demonizing people who are anti-racists and potentially providing law enforcement agencies with more information and more justification to target anti-racists and anti-fascists.
After the DeVos-led School Voucher ballot initiative was defeated in 2000, Dick & Betsy DeVos didn’t let that defeat stop their plans to undermine public education.
On the heels of the School Voucher defeat, Betsy DeVos created the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), identified as a non-partisan, non-profit entity, “supporting quality choices in public education for all Michigan students,” according to the GLEP webpage.
However, GLEP has been very partisan, by consistently backing mostly GOP candidates, especially those that push for charter schools and using public funding for private education.
Here is a list of the candidates they are endorsing for the 2020 election cycle. We include a link to the candidates’ largest funders and how many of them received funding from the DeVos family.
17th District: Joe Bellino
30th District: Diana Farrington $13,000 DeVos family
36th District: Douglas Wozniak
39th District: Ryan Berman $5,000 DeVos family
42nd District: Ann Bollin
43rd District: Andrea Schroeder $6,000 DeVos family
44th District: Matthew Maddock
51st District: Michael Mueller $6,000 DeVos family
57th District: Bronna Kahle $14,000 DeVos family
63rd District: Matt Hall $5,000 DeVos family
64th District: Julie Alexander $5,000 DeVos family
65th District: Sarah Lightner $5,000 DeVos family
66th District: Beth Griffin $14,000 DeVos family
77th District: Tommy Brann $15,000 DeVos family
78th District: Brad Paquette $6,000 DeVos family
84th District: Philip Green
86th District: Thomas Albert
87th District: Julie Calley
88th District: Luke Meerman
89th District: James Lilly $15,000 DeVos family
91st District: Greg VanWoerkom $5,000 DeVos family
93rd District: Graham Filler
94th District: Rodney Wakeman
97th District: Jason Wentworth $9,000 DeVos family
98th District: Annette Glenn $6,000 DeVos family
99th District: Roger Hauck $12,000 DeVos family
102nd District: Michele Hoitenga $6,000 DeVos
106th District: Sue Allor $14,000 DeVos family
108th District: Beau Lafave $9,000 DeVos family
110th District: Gregory Markkanen
Of the 30 incumbents that GLEP is endorsing, all 30 are Republicans and 19 of them received funding from the DeVos family. However, for those that also received funding from the Michigan House Republican Campaign Committee, most of the money also comes from the DeVos family.
GLEP has also endorsed 9 non-incumbent candidates for the Michigan House.
19th District: Martha Ptashnik
45th District: Mark Tisdel
47th District: Meghan Reckling
56th District: T.C. Clements
61st District: Bronwyn Haltom
70th District: Patrick Outman
73rd District: Bryan Posthumus
83rd District: Andrew Beeler
104th District: John Roth
Make no mistake about it, the Betsy DeVos-created Great Lakes Education Project is deeply committed to pushing their education agenda, which pushes more charter schools, more private schools and seeks to redirect public funding away from public education.
Since the Tuesday morning Committee of the Whole meeting at City Hall, MLive has posted two articles dealing specifically with the issue of defunding the Grand Rapids Police Department.
The first article, posted in the afternoon of Tuesday, July 7, focuses on the proposal from 2nd Ward Commissioner Milinda Ysasi, to cut the funding to the GRPD by bringing it down to the 1995 City Charter mandated 32% of the budget, which would roughly reduce the GRPD’s budget by $9 million.
The same MLive article mentions that there were two other City Commissioners who had voiced support for defunding the GRPD – Jones and Reppart. The article then goes on to say that this proposed budget cut was opposed by City Manager Mark Washington, the Chief of Police and the Grand Rapids Police Officers Association.
The second MLive article, which was posted in the early morning hours of Wednesday, July 8 (updated later that morning), focused on the evening City Commission meeting and how the City officials undermined the democratic process failed to practice transparency and disclosure. Apparently, the City Attorney had made a ruling after the Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday morning, determining that the City Commission could not vote on defunding the GRPD by an additional $9 million.
There were over 100 people who called in to comment on the proposal to defund the GRPD, with many more waiting to comment that the city did not get to. What is instructive about the meeting last night was that the City Attorney, the City Manager and Mayor Bliss all knew that the Commission could not vote on this matter, but failed to reveal such information at the beginning of the meeting. Such a display of subterfuge, once again demonstrated how the City of Grand Rapids is not interested in participatory democracy.
Over the past month, there has been an ongoing call for Defunding the GRPD, from people in the streets to the more formal campaign that has taken place in recent weeks. There are numerous groups that have taken an active role in calling for a Defunding of the GRPD, such as the NAACP, the Urban Core Collective, Equity PAC, Together We Are Safe, the People’s Budget GR, Movimiento Cosecha GR, the Grand Rapids Area Mutual Aid Network and GR Rapid Response to ICE. In fact, there hasn’t been this many groups working on a singular issue for some time now in Grand Rapids.
Unfortunately, consumers of MLive or the local TV news might not be aware of the fact that a social movement is behind the Defunding the GRPD campaign, since none of the four major news outlets – MLive, WOODTV8, WZZM 13 or WXMI 17 – bothered to mention these groups in their coverage from Tuesday or this morning. It was reported that 2nd Ward City Commissioner proposed the budget cuts (for which I am grateful), but this was a direct result of getting thousands of messages from people demanding the GRPD be defunded. The failure of the local news to report on this fact and to frame the proposal to defund the GRPD not only dismisses the voices of those organizations, it sends the message to news consumers that change happens because politicians initiate something, which is rarely the case in US history. Those involved in the Defund the GRPD campaign, lots of hours, numerous meetings and organizing their circle to send messages to City officials, that is reason why a proposal to Defund the GRPD was even on the table.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 