On Monday, MLive reported that the insurance brokerage company Acrisure, will receive $7 million in public money from the State of Michigan, for the company’s decision to move from Caledonia to downtown Grand Rapids.
Acrisure will move their business to the new Studio Park complex, just behind the arena, but the move won’t happen until 2021.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation has awarded the insurance brokerage the $7 million of public money, $1 million from a Michigan Business Development grant and the other $6 million from the Good Jobs for Michigan Program.
So here is what MLive didn’t report:
First, the board of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which granted the $7 million, is made up of a mix of government bureaucrats and corporate representatives.
Second, Acrisure, the insurance brokerage firm that received $7 million in public funds, last year got $2 billion from investors that now puts the corporation’s value at about $7 billion. One of the investors was Blackstone, which refers to itself as, one of the “world’s leading investment firms with over $457 billion in assets under management, including investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt, and equity, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds, all on a global basis.” In reality, Blackstone is one of the corporations globally that has bought up tens of thousands of single family home properties and turned them into rental units to make massive profits over the past decade. (see graphic below from Right to the City)
Third, Acrisure will move to Grand Rapids in 2021, being gifted $7 million in public funding, while thousands of families can’t afford rent in a city that considers itself to be a “welcoming city.”
Fourth, a company that is worth $7 billion gets $7 million in public funds because they will pay their employees an average salary of $74,464 a year.
The rich benefit from government subsidies, while the rest of us have to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and are stuck with Capitalism.
The Acton Institute continues to practice White Supremacy by attacking the 1619 Project
White Supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege.
The above statement is a definition of White Supremacy, by the longtime activist and writer Elizabeth Martinez. The statement also reflects the very same kind of ideology that is perpetuated by the Grand Rapids-based Acton Institute.
The Acton Institute denies that structural racism exists and has perpetuated that lie since the organization was founded. They continue to deny the existence of White Supremacy and structural racism in the content on their website and who they invite give lectures or be part of the Acton University. The irony of their denial of White Supremacy is in fact, evidence that they perpetuate White Supremacy.
A recent example of how the Acton Institute perpetuates White Supremacy is with their recent interview with Ismael Hernandez, founder of the Freedom and Virtue Institute. Hernandez was invited to be part of the Acton podcast for the purpose of denouncing the 1619 Project.
In the Acton interview with Hernandez, he says, “It is disheartening to see the New York Times initiate this project. It perpetuates this notion that there is still an ideology of White Supremacy and structural racism.”
Hernandez goes on to say that the 1619 Project, “is a form of paternalism” and “makes people passive, specifically black Americans.”
Lastly, the founder of the Freedom and Virtue Institute says, “The 1619 Project is really a disservice to the new generation of African Americans.”
In contrast to the White Supremacist views of Hernandez and the Acton Institute, it is worth listening to what the creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has to say. In an article from ColorLines, Hannah-Jones says the 1619 Project:
“aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones was also on CBS earlier this year, in this short interview, where she talks about African Americans fulfilling the US experiment in democracy.
There is also an interesting article from the Nation Magazine, just last month, talking about how conservatives organizations, like the Acton Institute, are upset with the 1619 Project. Again, Nikole Hannah-Jones is quoted by saying:
Our Declaration of Independence, approved on July 4, 1776, proclaims that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” But the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true for the hundreds of thousands of black people in their midst. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” did not apply to fully one-fifth of the country. Yet despite being violently denied the freedom and justice promised to all, black Americans believed fervently in the American creed. Through centuries of black resistance and protest, we have helped the country live up to its founding ideals. And not only for ourselves—black rights struggles paved the way for every other rights struggle, including women’s and gay rights, immigrant and disability rights.
Unfortunately, the Nation article doesn’t really address why conservatives are so upset by the 1619 Project. In the case of the Acton Institute, their attacks agains the project are rooted in their free-market capitalist fanaticism. The fact that the brand of capitalism that has been practiced in the US is rooted in the theft of indigenous land and the enslavement of Africans, is something that the Acton Institute will not accept. The Acton Institute doesn’t deny that slavery existed, but they want to control the narrative about what the legacy of slavery is in the US and how the system of capitalism has continued to exploit and do other forms of harm to African Americans.
It is impossible to separate White Supremacy from Capitalism or Capitalism from White Supremacy. This is the assessment of numerous scholars and organizers, and it is the message that Ibram X. Kendi is communicating in his most recent book, How to Be an Anti-Racist. Kendi says, “I think in order to truly be antiracist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.”
People in Grand Rapids should know who practices and perpetuates White Supremacy. It’s not just the neo-nazi groups, it is a multi-million dollar organization with fancy offices and is run by a Catholic priest.
GM Workers on Strike: History and Opportunity
In has been a week since 50,000 autoworkers decided to go on strike at numerous General Motors facilities across the county. This strike didn’t come out of nowhere, though, as many rank and file members of the UAW have been disgusted with company bosses and union leadership.
On September 4, Labor Notes reported:
Routine strike votes were taken at the three companies in August. All passed with their usual votes in the high 90 percents. On September 3, the UAW announced that GM would be its first target—the union chooses one company at which to bargain the pattern, which the other two will follow. Contracts expire at midnight September 14.
Some members speculated that union leaders might call a brief strike as a demonstration to the feds that they were not bought off by corruption. Others hoped that deepened mistrust in leaders would encourage members to vote no on a bad tentative agreement, as Chrysler workers did on the last contract in 2015—winning gains for workers at all three companies.
This same Labor Notes article also talked about the level of corruption and collusion between Union leadership and GM bosses.
For people who have been following big labor’s decline have been aware of how frustrated rank and file workers have become over the past several decades. This frustration grows out of the decision of big labor to embrace capitalism and cooperate with corporate America, for most of the 20th Century, as is well documented in Paul Buhle’s book, Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor.
The frustration of UAW rank and file members is also well documented in the book Autoworkers Under the Gun: A Shop Floor View of the End of the American Dream, by Grand Rapids resident and now retired GM worker, Greg Shotwell. GRIID interviewed Shotwell in 2012, and his comments back then are just as relevant now.
Just a few years before Shotwell wrote his book, the Obama administration had bailed out General Motors with $10 billion and yet the UAW leadership accepted major contract concessions. IN the ensuing years, the bailout led to record profits for GM, while workers were not getting the contracts they were fighting for. Now GM wants to cut off health care benefits for thousands of autoworkers.
Writing for the Nation Magazine, Jane McAlevey also talks about the corruption with UAW leadership, but she talks about why this current strike is so important for the workers to win. She writes:
The official press releases from the UAW name other core issues in this strike: keeping US plants open, improving health care and wages. But to win something as huge as forcing GM to reopen plants and reinvest in American workers requires more than eliciting dubious company promises to create more jobs—it requires the kind of strike preparation and strategic thinking that has been absent at the highest levels of the union for far too long.
McAlevey also notes in her article that the UAW was at the forefront of radical labor organizing in the 1930s and 40s, with a nod to the wildcat strike in Flint. On December 30, 1936, workers began a wildcat strike in the Fischer Body plant in Flint. A wildcat strike is where workers occupy the factory, thus making it more difficult for management to bring in scab workers. GM attempted to use the courts and police violence to break up the wildcat strike, but workers, their families and their neighbors stepped up to support them and join the resistance. GM even lobbied Michigan’s Governor Frank Murphy to send in the National Guard. Murphy refused and on February 11 of 1937, GM finally conceded to the demands of the workers and recognized the UAW as the worker’s union.
Workers should look to this example of direct action from 1936-37 in Flint and considering escalating their tactic of picketing, to that of a full blow strike. If the UAW leadership does not support it, the public would, as there has already been significant public support for the striking autoworkers and escalating their action would only solidify public support. Either way, it is important that people support the strike in whatever way they can. Public solidarity is vital and it will not only send a strong message to the workers, but it will signal to the larger public that people care about working class struggles.
Reflections on the Climate Strike Action in Grand Rapids
On Friday, I joined the Climate Strike action in Grand Rapids, which began at 10am at at a small park in the southwest part of town.
There was maybe 200 people there just before they began to walk downtown. The crowd was probably 75% youth and it was led by youth. Seeing so many young people with concern over climate change was a refreshing site and as people who are no longer in our youth, we should do whatever we can to affirm and support young people who want to organize and take action.
However, it would be dishonest of me to not address what I believe to be a seriously flawed strategy that the Climate Strike in Grand Rapids was employing. The primary goal of the action I attended was for people to walk over the Senator Peters office and demand that he not accept money from the fossil fuel industry. The irony is that earlier this year, Senator Peters agreed to do just that, but then accepted $5000 from Consumers Energy, which the representatives from the Sunrise Movement said was unacceptable.
Despite the fact that Senator Peters had already violated this agreement, those who organized the Climate Strike action on Friday felt that it was best to go back to his office to demand that he again commit to not taking money from anyone of the fossil fuel companies.
Along with way, as people were walking from the westside to downtown, there were honks from motorists, but it was clear that this action was designed to NOT disrupt business as usual in Grand Rapids. As we are facing record heat, tornados, draught, flooding, increased soil erosion, the death of species on a daily basis, why would we not want to disrupt business as usual. It’s not just the fossil fuel companies that are to blame. We can’t deny that other business sectors have failed us, like the agribusiness sector, the transportation sector, the military industrial complex, etc. In fact, it should be made clear that capitalism – increased profits, constant growth and the pillaging of the planet – is to blame. Add to that local, state and federal governments, which not only have failed us miserably on Climate Change, they have protected and coddled the very system of capitalism that is causing this disaster.
On the Need for Disruption and Direct Action
Going to Senator Peters office and demanding that he not accept money from the fossil fuel industry, while seeming like an important step, in many ways is a inadequate tactic. First, demanding that any politician doesn’t take money from the fossil fuel sector is a drop in the buckets, when so so much of our society is based on the consumption of fossil fuels. For instance, Senator Peters sits on the Armed Services Committee and he voted again, along with most members of Congress, to support the $750 Billion military budget for 2020. The US military is one of the largest non-country entities in terms of their fossil fuel consumption. Going after Peters for supporting the US military industrial complex would not only be more effective, it would bring US militarism’s contribution to Climate Change.
Second, saying that you are going to demand that Senator Peters not take money from the Fossil Fuel industry and then not using tactics to force him to do so, just won’t make it happen. If people chose to occupy his office, yesterday, today and tomorrow, he would eventually agree to their demand. Politicians and systems of power do not make policy decisions that are in the best interest of the public, rather they make policy decisions that benefit those who have the power. We have to be willing to take risks if we want change to happen, especially if we want deep, systemic change to happen.
Just think of what people on the front lines of the climate justice fight are doing. When I say people on the front lines, I mean communities of color – Indigenous, black, latinx – who are fighting for climate justice and fighting in such a way as their life depended on it….because it does. Think about what indigenous people did at Standing Rock. Indigenous people at Standing Rock weren’t asking something of the government, so much as putting their bodies on the line to stop the pipeline company from putting yet another oil pipeline through their lands. This is called direct action and it means taking great risks.
Another example is what Indigenous people in the Amazon are doing now and have been doing for decades, which is to confront loggers, confront cattle ranchers, oil companies and the Brazilian government from harming the Amazon. The indigenous people in the amazon are also not always using non-violence, since they are literally fighting for their lives.
At this point however, it must be acknowledged that maybe it is my generation of activists and organizers who are to blame for the current crisis. Maybe we have not been bold enough or taken enough risks in order to avoid the climate crisis we now face. Maybe we were too comfortable. Maybe we did not recognize that capitalism was the root of the problem and we thought that we could just make it nicer. Maybe we didn’t see how US militarism, the food system, the transportation system and so many other sectors were part of the problem. Maybe we were seduced by representative democracy, thinking that all we needed to do was to vote for the right people and all would be well. Maybe we thought that if we just recycle and eat locally that this would all go away. For the failures of my generation, I apologize. I apologize to the young people today who are now having to fight for their very lives and for the future.
However, together, we can fight the climate crisis. Together we can organize and resist and engage in direct action to actually disrupt business as usual. Together, we can create new ways of living that doesn’t rely on capitalism. Together we can create a world where we are truly alive and not spending our time as idle consumers, stuck in jobs we despise or thinking that we don’t have the power to change our circumstances.
Let’s do what the Puerto Ricans did recently and just shut things down until we get what we want. Let’s disrupt this filthy, rotten system. Let’s use Direct Action. Let’s practice Mutual Aid. Let’s believe in the power of Collective Liberation!!! Climate Justice NOW!
A solid resource for those organizing against Climate Change and for Climate Justice, is the booklet, Organizing Cools the Planet: Tools and Reflections to Navigate The Climate Crisis, by Hillary Moore & Jaoshua Kahn Russell. https://climateaccess.org/system/files/Moore%20and%20Russell_Organizing%20Cools%20the%20Planet.pdf This booklet offers great organizing tools and put an emphasis on Direct Action as a primary strategy to for achieving Climate Justice.
On the Defensive: New ICE propaganda statement demonstrates that they are feeling all the public opposition
Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a statement to The American Public.
The ICE statement acknowledges that there is growing opposition to ICE practices on immigration issues, but in the first paragraph ICE says, “we want to set the record straight.”
The statement is nothing short of government propaganda, designed to misinform and attack those who are publicly opposed to the violence and abuse that ICE is imposing on the immigrant community across the country.
In the second paragraph, they use a tactic, which is meant to undermine the credibility of the massive public opposition to ICE. ICE states that two of their facilities, “have been the target of lawless gunfire.” By saying there have been gunfire at two ICE facilities, they are hoping that people will ignore the fact that there has been hundreds of demonstrations against ICE in the past two years, often with civil disobedience, sometimes at ICE facilities and sometimes at corporations who have contracts with the government agency. ICE also wants the public to ignore the fact in several hundred communities across the US people have organized to do things like offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, created bond funds for immigrants in detention and fought to end ICE contracts with local governments and law enforcement agencies. The intention of identifying incidents where gunfire was used at ICE facilities also is designed to get the public to ignore or minimize the tremendous harm that ICE has perpetrated against the immigrant community.
After the initial framing of the work that ICE does, the statement then presents 4 major talking points, talking points which we will deconstruct:
ICE makes targeted arrests every day; ICE does not conduct “raids”
No need to get into a semantics fight here, whether ICE calls it targeted arrests or raids is irrelevant. The fact is that ICE makes hundreds of arrests everyday in the US, primarily against people who are undocumented. ICE claims under this heading, “ICE focuses its limited resources first and foremost by targeting those who pose the greatest threat to public safety and border security.” This is patently false, most of the arrests are people who are undocumented but pose NO serious threat to public safety. And most of the undocumented people who end up in ICE custody are those who commit petty misdemeanors like driving without a license.
ICE does not need a warrant to make an arrest
Most people are aware of this fact. In Grand Rapids we share information with the undocumented immigrant community about what to do if ICE comes to your home and we ALWAYS say that ICE does not need a warrant. ICE can come into your home, even break down the door if they want to, which we have documented in several instances. In this section, the ICE statement also makes it a point to say, “Obstructing or otherwise interfering with an ICE arrest is a crime.” GR Rapid Response to ICE is well aware of this threat of obstruction, but they defy this type of intimidation tactic and will actively obstruct ICE in order to prevent them from arresting and detaining an immigrant.
ICE officers treat detainees with dignity and respect
This point is simply a straight up lie. Community groups, like GR Rapid Response to ICE have documented the lack of respect that ICE agents have when interacting with the immigrant community. In addition, there have been numerous groups that have published reports on the poor, often brutal treatment of immigrants at the hands of ICE agents and those that they contract with. Here are just a few of those reports:
Fatal Neglect: How ICE Ignores Deaths in Detention
Recent Reports Documenting Abuse and Corruption in U.S. Immigration Jails
ICE Raids on US Immigrant Families Risk Serious Abuses
ICE officers are aware of the real and emotional impact of immigration enforcement
Again, it is irrelevant of ICE officers are aware of the harm, especially since there is no evidence that stop the arrests, stop the detentions and stop to violence against the immigrant community. Just saying that ICE officers are aware is nothing more than a weak attempt to humanize the ICE agents. However, I don’t think for a moment that ICE officers have any idea of the REAL emotional trauma that their officers perpetrate against the immigrant community. Groups like the American Psychological Association, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the National Council of La Raza and Community Psychology have all documented the emotional trauma that ICE causes the immigrant community.
For ICE to say that they are aware of the emotional impact that their agency has on the immigrant community in nothing more than insulting.
The ICE statement concludes by attempting to once again argue that their actions are rooted in public safety. The fact is that there is a movement all across the country that doesn’t buy into this bullshit propaganda. This movement is growing by the day and is exposing the lies perpetrated by ICE and resisting the harm they cause when they arrest, detain and deport immigrants. La Lucha Sique!!
Fair Food Project in West Michigan: Does it promote Food Justice or West Michigan Nice
On Saturday, MiBiz published an article announcing that the Non-Profit Migrant Legal Aid has a new program called the Fair Food Project.
According to the Migrant Legal Aid website:
The Fair Food Pledge is a partnership between Migrant Legal aid, food entrepreneurs and agriculture dependent retailers in which vendors and employers are jointly monitored for fair and ethical treatment of farmworkers. If farmworkers are unlawfully treated, this whistleblower program responds to the violation by alerting vendors and agriculture dependent retailers of the violation.
However, the language of the project is rather vague, without specifics about what it means to be treated ethically or fairly.
The Executive Director of Migrant Legal Aid, Teresa Hendricks, who is quoted in the MiBiz article, states:
“The workers have a limited season to make the bulk of their money and the growers have a limited time to get their products to market. Neither one of them would prefer to be in a lawsuit. This is a way that we offer voluntary compliance, immediate action and a market-based remedy.”
A market-based remedy? That simply will not work. Market-based solutions simply do not work. For instance, the farmers can continue to pay farmworkers whatever they want, since there are no minimum wage requirement for farmworkers. This means that workers will continue to be exploited. The Director of Migrant Legal Aid admits this in the MiBiz article saying of migrant farmworkers, “They remain the poorest of the working poor.”
Check out this video produced by Migrant Legal Aid, which briefly explains the Fair Food Project.
The video states that Migrant Legal Aid will be monitoring for unfair treatment, but never says how they will be able to do that. Migrant Legal Aid also states on their website that. this project is inspired by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers located in Florida. However, what the non-profit fails to say is that the Coalition of Immoklee Workers is a worker-based human rights organization that is made up mostly of migrant farmworkers who use boycotts and strikes to hold farmers and the food industry accountable for exploitation and other abuses, unlike the model that Migrant Legal Aid is proposing. This could be because there are no existing unions for migrant farmworkers in West Michigan, which has allowed farm owners to take advantage of farmworkers for decades, despite the fact that West Michigan has some of the highest concentrations of migrant workers in the country.
At the end of the MiBiz article, Hendricks states that the growers benefit from the program by “avoiding strikes and boycotts.” The fact is that historically, the only way that farmworkers have won any form of justice, it is exactly because they have engaged in boycotts and strikes.
Lastly, the Director of Migrant Legal Aid frames this partnership as a way of practicing West Michigan Nice, stating:
“The Fair Food Project is a Midwest-designed program to work the way companies and cultures work here. We’re working with their corporate responsibility departments instead of against them and they’re voluntarily cooperating with us. It’s Midwest Nice: Tell us how to fix it and give us an opportunity to fix it first.”
The reality is that corporations don’t fix it unless they are forced to. This is the entire history of social movements in the US, where workers have forced companies and corporations to agreeing to safer working condition, better wages, benefits, worker safety standards, etc. None of these things were ever a gift from corporations, but only through the struggle of workers.
My fear is that West Michigan retailers will sign the pledge, which is great PR for them, but it will do virtually nothing to fundamentally improve the lives of migrant farmworkers.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos began her “Back to School” tour at a closed-to-public-school-parents meeting at a religious private voucher school in Milwaukee
On Monday, US Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, kicked off her “Back to School” tour at St. Marcus in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While there was plenty of news coverage about this Back to School tour, numerous media outlets failed to acknowledge that DeVos chose this school because Milwaukee was the birth place of the School Voucher movement, a movement that Betsy and her husband Dick DeVos have been part of from the very beginning.
DeVos acknowledges in her speech that she came to Milwaukee for this very reason, to honor those who were part of the School Voucher movement at the start. DeVos uses this opportunity to to talk about freedom in education and how poorly the US is doing, but she was primarily using this forum to promote her department’s program, the Education Freedom Scholarships.
In March, we documented how the Education Freedom Scholarships was just the most recent part of the Neo-Liberal education model. The Education Freedom Scholarships is a program to allow people and corporations to donate to a designated scholarship granting organization (SGO) and be reimbursed in the form of a tax credit. With the DeVos plan, states would designate the eligible SGOs, but the federal government would fund the tax credit reimbursement, up to $5 billion total. In her speech, Betsy DeVos also refers to the Education Freedom Scholarships as, “the most transformative idea for American education in decades.”
There isn’t much else in DeVos’ speech worth critiquing, since she sticks to the same talking points over and over again. However, despite the fact that her visit to St. Marcus’s was closed to the public, this did not stop people from protesting DeVos and her department’s attacks on public schools, as was reported on by a local TV station in Milwaukee.
In addition to the protest outside of St. Marcus School, there were other groups voicing their objection to the Secretary of Education’s decision to kick off her “Back to School” tour at a private school that has benefited from the voucher program.
The Wisconsin Public Education Network released this statement the day before DeVos spoke at St. Marcus.
On the eve of a visit to Milwaukee by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, public school parents and advocates from across Wisconsin wondered why Secretary DeVos’s visit and policies neglect public school children. Secretary DeVos’s visit is occurring as parents in the Palmyra-Eagle School District attempt to save their kids’ school system from closure, and as voters across Wisconsin approved a record amount of school referenda to enhance aging facilities and/or maintain programming. Despite the calls nationwide for targeted support aligned with the needs of local students, Secretary DeVos proposed to cut $7.1 billion in federal funding from America’s public schools, while dramatically increasing funding to private and privately-operated schools.
While Secretary DeVos launches her “Back to School” tour Monday with a closed-to-public-school-parents meeting at a religious private voucher school in Milwaukee, advocates all over the state express frustration with her focus on expanding a program that has failed to deliver results in Wisconsin, diverting funds from public schools statewide and putting children at risk.
As we have noted in previous Betsy DeVos Watch postings, the Secretary of Education has been confronted by parents, students and community organizers across the country since she joined the Trump administration in early 2017.
Rally in Grand Rapids confronts GRPD’s complicity with ICE, organizers release major statement
Last night, about 25 people participated in an action that was specifically in response to the recent decision by the City of Grand Rapids to only give Captain VanderKooi a 20 hour suspension for his egregious behavior, where he contacted ICE on Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a US citizen and former Marine, using racist language and racial profiling.
The action was designed to confront the GRPD directly, so protestors marched around the GRPD headquarters, most carrying signs and using chants like, “Cops and ICE go hand in hand.”
The organizers of the action timed their protest during the GRPD’s shift change and greeted roughly a dozen patrol cars that were exiting the station garage around 6:45pm, as seen here in the photo below.
After greeting GRPD officers outside the exit that police cruisers use, the rally then moved to the front on the GRPD station, where organizers attempted to get into the station itself, but were limited to only accessing the main entrance, where they continued chanting to send the message to those inside in the station.
Besides engaging in a public demonstration over the 20-hour suspension of Captain Kurt VanderKooi, the action organizers released a statement, which they read in both English and Spanish in front of the GRPD headquarters. The statement not only addressed the VanderKooi situation, it also addressed the ongoing harassment and intimidation that Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE has experienced at the hands of the GRPD over the past two years while organizer for immigration justice. The full statement can be read here below:
In December of 2018, Captain Curt VanderKooi was off-duty and saw a news story about the arrest of Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a U.S. citizen and a Marine veteran, after Ramos-Gomez had trespassed on the helipad of a local hospital in the midst of a post-traumatic episode. VanderKooi notified ICE asking about Ramos-Gomez’s status, and though GRPD had several forms of ID for Ramos-Gomez verifying his citizenship, ICE detained him for three days. This is after the officers working the case had already clearly identified Ramos-Gomez as a U.S. citizen and a veteran living with PTSD.
After months of delay, having been found guilty of biased policing by the Civilian Appeals Board, VanderKooi was allowed to choose 20 hours of unpaid suspension as his consequence – less time than Ramos-Gomez was wrongfully detained by ICE. Although other GRPD officers were complicit in the wrongful detention of Ramos-Gomez, no other officer has received any consequences for their actions.
Yet in response to VanderKooi’s suspension, the police union issued a statement that never acknowledges the harm that was done to Jilmar Ramos-Gomez or his family or close community in any way, instead centering the person who did the actual harm, Captain VanderKooi. In addition, the police union statement makes false claims about the lack of due process and places the blame on the members of the community who have raised their voices in concern, accusing them of doing so for some nebulous “political gain.” In fact these people, particularly those from vulnerable communities, are simply speaking up in an effort to reduce harm to themselves and others.
The police union has shown no interest in accountability, but instead acts with impunity and continues to hide behind the shield in a cowardly way when it comes to taking responsibility for the harm done. Unfortunately, the police union has shown us time and time again that hiding behind the shield is what cops do – it’s part of their structure. If they had any interest in truly protecting the community, this would include taking responsibility as any community member would when they have caused harm. The evidence shows they are interested only in protecting themselves from any criticism, and they work outside of and against the community by doing so.
It has been the experience of organizers and volunteers with GR Rapid Response to ICE and Movimiento Cosecha GR that the GRPD has monitored and attempted to suppress our efforts toward immigrant justice – they show up at our public actions in numbers that are meant to be intimidating, though we always provide our own crowd safety at our actions. Police officers have also physically intimidated our participants and have attempted to dictate what the movement for immigrant justice can and cannot do. Our participants, particularly our vulnerable and affected folks, do not feel safe with the presence of police.
We know that not only do Cops and ICE go hand in hand, but that cops are more interested in protecting institutions built on white supremacist values than in truly reaching out for needed social change and community connection. This is why GR Rapid Response to ICE, in solidarity with vulnerable communities, advocates not only an #AbolishICE strategy, but an #AbolishPolice strategy.
The largest part of both city and county budgets go to police instead of to communities who, given the same funding, could find proactive and healing solutions to the root causes of neighborhood violence, family separation, and more. A police system based on incarceration is not helping our neighborhoods heal – it is destroying them and destroying the pillars of support that should be in place for them. We call on all communities to come together and claim these resources for building better neighborhoods without police and without relying on police for enforcement of human rights.
Condemning Drag Shows is not an aberration: Spiritual Violence as a foundational part of West MI
“Normally I’d never put myself in such a spiritually toxic environment. But I wanted to do my due diligence so my reporting on it would be accurate. I asked my guardian angel for protection and some of the Christian protestors outside the event were kind enough to pray that God would keep me safe. So I went in.”
The above quote is the opening comments of an article written by Stephen Kokx, an article entitled, I went to a Down syndrome drag show. What I saw horrified me. Kokx is the Assistant Director of Digital Marketing for LifeSite, a Christian non-profit organization that promotes homophobia, transphobia, patriarchy, anti-choice and anti-immigrant values.
The article by Kokx is instructive on so many levels, plus it wreaks of white saviorism, along with a smug pompousness that is all too familiar with religious zealots, as is evidenced by a video that accompanies the article by Kokx. However, what the LifeSite contributor had to say was nothing out of the ordinary in West Michigan. For as much as we like to think that Grand Rapids and West Michigan are becoming more and more tolerant, the truth is that this area is rooted in spiritual violence.
In the book, Gathered at the River: Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Its People of Faith, written by James D. Bratt, it begins with the Protestant and Catholic Missions that were both established along the Grand River in the early 1820’s. These early missions were used to manipulate the Indigenous people who inhabited West Michigan, so that White Settlers could move in and take over the land.
This type of spiritual violence is repeated and normalized through the past 200 years in West Michigan, whether it was used to repress African Americans, women who didn’t buy into the patriarchy, the LGBTQ community that would not submit to heteronormativity or workers who didn’t comply with the capitalist robber barons. Hell, lets face it, the brand of Christianity that is practiced in West Michigan by a lot of people, particularly those with power, has caused a great deal of harm in this area.
Now, I know that there are people resisting the intolerance, but the fact is that West Michigan is still greatly impacted by a Christian Spiritual Violence that is so normalized, we often don’t even recognize it. Sure, the Christians who were protesting the drag show at Wealthy Theater are often seen as extremists, but therein lies the problem. There are likely thousands of people in West Michigan who agreed with those who protested the drag show at Wealthy Theater, even if they stayed at home or only commented on social media. Those protesting the drag show were not some rogue group, rather a microcosm of the ethos that many in West Michigan embrace.
Let’s stop and think about how normalized Christian Spiritual Violence is in the Greater Grand Rapids area. Here is a short list of the ways in which it is practiced:
- Most of the Christian Churches in West Michigan are not welcoming to the LGBTQ community.
- Most Christian Churches in West Michigan do not actively oppose White Supremacy.
- Most Christian Churches in this area have not resisted US Wars, nor are they opposed to US militarism.
- Most Christian Churches do not oppose the Prison Industrial Complex, which disproportionately impact black and brown communities.
- Most Christian Churches embrace some form of charity, but do not condemn the economic system of capitalism.
- Most Christian Churches in West Michigan do not practice the biblical imperative of welcoming immigrants to this community, especially those who are undocumented.
- Most Christian Churches are silent on domestic violence, sexual assault and rape.
- Most Christian Churches in West Michigan are complicit in ongoing environmental destruction and climate change.
- Most Christian Churches in West Michigan are not involved in promoting housing justice, offering hospitality to those who face eviction, those who cannot afford the cost of rent and those who are homeless.
Another problem with thinking that the people who protested the drag show at Wealthy Theater are just marginalized extremists, is that it takes away our ability to see how institutionalized Christian Spiritual Violence is in this community. Think about the influence of the most powerful families in West Michigan, what I have identified as the Grand Rapids Power Structure – DeVos, Van Andel, Kennedy, Secchia, Jandernoa, etc. These families overtly identify with a Christian denomination, some CRC and some Catholic. They all have contributed millions to the Republican Party, which means they support policies that do tremendous harm to communities of color, working class families and the LGBT community. At the same time, they all have foundations that providing funding to non-profit organizations that promote charity or serve individual family needs. What we rarely see is any criticism of the fact that these wealthy families are creating the very inequities that exist, all in the name of God, then turn around and fund programs which are designed to take attention away from these inequities, so we don’t see these wealthy families as major contributors to harm (spiritual violence).
Then there are entities like the Grand Rapids-based Acton Institute, which has global reach within the Catholic community, which provides theological justification for the same kinds of policies that the Grand Rapids Power Structure promotes. In a sense, the Acton Institute acts as an apologist for those within the local power structure to continue to do harm and perpetuate spiritual violence.
What we have are the most powerful families who use Christianity to justify their spiritual violence, which then involves numerous non-profit Christian agencies to acts as a cover for the various types of spiritual violence, justified by groups like Acton Institute, with lots of complicity by the Christian Churches in the area that either take an active role in promoting this process or are silent in the face of all of this.
For anyone who is involved in doing organizing work to challenge systems of power and oppression in West Michigan, it is impossible to effective do this work without acknowledging the role that Christian Churches play in perpetuating the various forms of injustice that plague this area. This is not to say that there are no Christian Churches who do the important work of fighting systems of power and oppression, but they are the exception and not the norm.
Tell us what to write: Once again, MLive acts as a stenographer for the Amway Corporation
On Tuesday, MLive posted a story about the 60th anniversary of the Ada-based global corporation known as Amway. Amway, is short for The American Way, according to founders Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos.
Actually, it isn’t terribly accurate to say that MLive posted a story, rather was more like, “tell us what you want us to write.” Now, I’m not suggesting that Amway actually told MLive what to print, but it doesn’t matter, because the story that MLive published essentially reads like they wrote just what the Amway leaders wanted them to say.
The text of the article has no real new information about the pyramid scheme corporation and the two videos posted by MLive are also consistent with a style of journalism known as stenography.
The two videos posted by MLive are here below. This first video focuses on what the new CEO of Amway, Milind Pant, is saying, while the second video only has Amway co-Chairman Doug DeVos speaking. In both cases we don’t know what the MLive reporter asked them, as the questions are not included.
This news story about Amway is indicative of the kind of journalism that has been practiced more and more over the past 20 – 30 years, especially with the consolidation of news media ownerships has taken place.
There is nothing investigative about the story, there is no evidence that any serious questions were asked, and no where do we see other perspectives included. The story that MLive posted could have included a comment from the Chinese government, since that was one topic raised in the article.
Other questions that could be asked are:
- How does Amway impact local communities around the world, specifically how does it undermine local economies?
- How do the millions of dollars that Amway contributes to candidates influence public policy that would be beneficial to the Amway Corporation?
- How does the even larger sums of money that the DeVos and Van Andel families contribute to the Republican Party benefit the Amway Corporation?
So, how is it that the only daily newspaper in Grand Rapids, would fail to practice good journalism when it comes to the most powerful corporation in West Michigan, a corporation that is still run by two of the most powerful families in West Michigan, the DeVos and Van Andel families?
