Neoliberal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: What the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce really practices
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce endorsement of Republican candidate for Governor Bill Schuette continues to generate plenty of controversy, particularly because of his stance over LGBT issues.
We wrote an article a few weeks ago in response to the backlash against the Chamber’s endorsement, which asked why did the endorsement of Schuette generate such controversy, when the Chamber of Commerce has a history of endorsing candidates that embrace a political vision that is part of the larger neoliberal economic platform, which disproportionately impacts communities of color, the working poor, queer and immigrant communities.
There have been some businesses and organizations that have withdrawn their membership, but most have remained, which provides a perfect opportunity to examine the GR Chamber’s politics, especially since they are hosting their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Summit today in Grand Rapids.
As social movements continue to challenge systems of power around racial, economic and LGBT justice, the business community has grappled with how to win social capital with these movements and not abandon their primary goal of representing the capitalist class.
The history of the US Chamber of Commerce and all of its chapters around the country has been a history that exclusively focuses on how the most powerful members of the business community can ban together to further their political agenda and expand their wealth. Lets be honest about the fact that even though a business of any size can be part of the Chamber of Commerce, the larger businesses and corporations are what driver Chamber policy. This is the case with the national US Chamber of Commerce and it is the case with the Grand Rapids Chamber. Just look at who sits on the Board of Directors and you can see who is making the decisions about the direction of this entity. Many of the people and businesses represented on the GR Chamber board are also part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
So, why does an entity that represents the interests of the capitalist class hold Diversity, Equity and Inclusion summits?
First, as mentioned earlier, there is a tremendous amount of social capital to be gain by embracing diversity, equity and inclusion. Having more people of color, women or members of the LGBT community as part of the business community is a buffer against accusations that the business class are racist, sexist and homophobic. However, there are significant limitations to businesses that adopt diversity, equity and inclusion language and policies, specifically if they are adopted as a form of identity politics. Businesses love having more diversity in the board room or on their staff as long as those people buy into what Crystal Fleming, author of How to be Less Stupid About Race, identifies as neoliberal inclusion. For Fleming, neoliberal inclusion is a form of tokenism that does not address larger systems of oppression like White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Homophobia and Capitalism.
Longtime educator and organizer Elizabeth Martinez says that using the word racism is problematic, since it does not name the system of racial power that exists, which is White Supremacy. Martinez’s definition of White Supremacy is:
White Supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege.
Contrast this definition of White Supremacy with the what the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce does, which according to their own mission is to be a champion for West Michigan business. This means that the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce primary focus and work is to look out for the interests of the business community. Some might say this is self evident, but the point here is that because this is their focus they will use whatever means they can to support that mission, even if it means to host a diversity, equity and inclusion summit.
In fact, such a strategy is smart on their part. If you can get people who have been the most marginalized by White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Homophobia to feel included in the GR Chamber, then you have won a great deal of social capital that not only diverts attention away from the primary mission – more profits and more political influence for the capitalist class – it allows people to not have to think about the harm being done to the most marginalized in this society.
Lets be real, this form of tokenism is widely practiced and embraced by non-profits all over the country. Take for instance the Human Rights Campaign, which puts out an annual Corporate Equality Report, rating corporations that have positive policies towards the LGBTQ community. In their 2018 report they list corporations like Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Amazon as having great ratings. These are all companies that exploit their workforce and fight against labor unions. These are corporations that pillage the earth and destroy indigenous lands all across the globe. However, in the world of diversity, equity and inclusion you can exploit and pillage as long as you have LGBT-friendly policies.
This is exactly the kind of logic that the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce embraces. The GR Chamber has OutPro, because it wins them social capital, but it simply means that those who identify as LGBT can also be part of the capitalist class and exploit and pillage as well as straight people. This is exactly why Crystal Fleming names this as Neoliberal Inclusion, because the capitalist class is more than happy to have people of color, women and members of the LGBTQ community as long as they embrace the neoliberal economic model.
Any organization that cares about social justice issues and fights against systems of oppression would not only end their membership in the Chamber of Commerce, they would see them clearly as an organization inherently in opposition to social movements that fight for collective liberation.
How People in Power see Social Movements: A Kent County Administrator and the End the Contract with ICE campaign narrative
It is always instructive to see how those who hold positions of power view the world.
When talking about historical events, those in power prefer to highlight the “official history” of what took place. “Official history” is the view of history from those in power often seen as the historical winners. This view of history serves those in power and attempts to minimize the role that social movements played throughout history. For example, those in power like to say that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, when in fact the abolition of slavery was done almost exclusively by African Americans who rioted against their slave masters, burned the plantation houses, sometimes killed the master, fled the plantation, sought refugee in the underground railroad or fled the country.
In this example we are led to believe that a politician freed those in slavery, using legal and acceptable means of achieving a goal. Those who actually freed themselves and were assisted by other former slaves or allies, used whatever means necessary to engage in what historian David Roediger calls, self-emancipatory tactics. It is true that Lincoln did present the Emancipation Proclamation, but this was merely a law that supplanted a previous law which made it ok for white people to enslave black people.
A recent example of how those in power view history, can be seen in an interview on WKTV (Public Access TV) with Kent County Administrator Wayman Britt, which you can view here below.
There are several things worth pointing out about what Britt said, which I want to address.
First, early on in the interview he talks about how the Kent County Jail’s contract with ICE, “ensures that any detainees are treated properly and fairly.” This is a smart play on words by Britt, but it is misleading, since aren’t all people who are being held in the Kent County Jail treated properly and fairly? In other words, why try to make a distinction? Britt makes this statement up front as a way of putting viewers at easy about detainees, without having to actually address the real harm that ICE does to the immigrant community.
Second, Britt makes the claim that the Sheriff’s Department can’t say no the ICE, because it is a federal law. This is simply not true. One, there are numerous communities across the country that are making the decision to end their contracts with ICE or passing resolutions that will prevent said communities from using any resources that would support or aid ICE to do harm against the immigrant community. Two, Britt’s statement also ignores plenty of historical examples of local governments defying federal laws, especially those used to oppress groups of people.
Third, the Kent County Administrator says that after 72 hours people could be released and that the county wants to make sure that citizen’s rights are protected. Again, he uses language that is deceptive. More importantly, Britt uses the phrase citizen’s rights, which based on the actual reason that the federal government is using ICE to target people in the immigrant community, is because of their status as undocumented. The federal government and ICE do not see immigrants who are undocumented as citizens, which is exactly why they are being targeted by ICE.
Fourth, when talking about the organized effort to get the county’s contract with ICE terminated, Britt uses the good protestor/bad protestor argument. He says there are times that they (protestors) have done a good job during public comment and then there are times that they (protestors) have disrupted and interrupted the County Commission meetings. This good protestor/bad protestor statement is meant to reflect his view (someone in power) views as acceptable tactics and unacceptable tactics.
Fifth, Britt gives his view of the campaign to end the contract, which began in late June of 2018. Britt refers to the People’s Commission Meeting, which was held in September, but pretty much ignores all the other examples since June 28th. Britt also states that, “we don’t want to remove people from the room or arrest people.” However that is exactly what they have done on a few occasions, along with engaging in other tactics to deter public participation – putting up barriers and signs in the commission chambers, sending cops out to intimidate people before they come to the meeting, not allowing people to bring their backpacks into the meeting, etc.
Sixth, the County Administrator says, “it’s odd to me that people would not take the road to working with state and federal legislators.” One, this ignores and dismisses that work that many people in this community have done to change state and federal law on immigration policy. Two, it ignores the fact that many people are still working on changing state and federal policy. Three, it also ignores the rich history of people working to confront local governments as one strategy to change state and federal policy. Confronting local government on policies that are imposed by the federal government is a large part of the Civil Rights Movement, but it has also been a tactic in the environmental justice, anti-war and anti-apartheid movements, just to name a few.
Seventh, towards the end of the interview Britt states, “I’m as concerned as they are…..but ending the contract is not something we can do.” One, there is no evidence that they are as concerned as those confronting them about the ICE contract. Britt then engages in mansplaining, as if people don’t know what the issue is all about.
Lastly, the County Administrator says we need to resolve this through discourse, by listening and if we want to resolve the issue those protesting need to do so with federal legislators. These final comments by Britt again re-affirms his belief that the County can do nothing about it, plus he places value on discourse, which is just a convenient way of saying that this is a tactic that is respectable. The fact is that members of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE have had numerous conversations with county officials, commissioners and the Sheriff’s Department, but there has be no willingness on the part of the county to end the contract. If they are unwilling to end the contract, then what is the point of discourse.
As a contrast, WKTV did interview two members of Movimiento Cosecha GR, an interview we are posting here below.
Last night, some 25 people participated in the national No Business With ICE Action Day, here in Grand Rapids. Cities across the country participated in the action to draw attention to the many corporations and businesses that have contracts with ICE, and to demand that they end their contracts with an agency that does tremendous harm to the immigrant community.
The target in Grand Rapids was the Edmark Development Company. Edmark, which now owns the Waters Center building, leases space to the Department of Homeland Security/ICE at 161 Ottawa NW. However, you wouldn’t know this, since there is no information listed at their online directory or the directory in the building’s lobby.
Movimiento Cosecha GR and the GR Rapid Response to ICE group were handing out flyers with information about Edmark, along with ways for people to contact them to demand that they end their lease with the Department of Homeland Security/ICE. The number to call for Edmark is 616.575.6051. There is also an online petition that people can sign.
However, before going to the Waters Center, people gathered at Calder Plaza, where they were met by 12 – 15 cops from the GRPD. The cops told the group that if they went into the Waters Center building and disrupted people there for entertainment (the Waters Center is an ArtPrize venue), they would be arrested.
It was a cold and raining night in Grand Rapids, which meant there wasn’t much foot traffic, so the action moved from the Waters Building and decided to go to Rosa Parks Circle to see if there were more people that they could share the flyer with.
Upon arriving at Rosa Parks Circle the group stood in front of the Grand Rapids Art Museum, specifically where channel 8 has their ArtPrize studio, holding up banners and signs and chanting. After about 5 minutes, the GRPD (which followed them down) told people they had to move off the brown colored bricks onto the grey colored bricks or they would be arrested.
The group then went down to the arena district and continued to hand out flyers and to chant about ICE, Edmark and the cops, since the cops kept following the group the entire way. The action ended at the ArtPrize office on Sheldon & Weston, where flyers were left for ArtPrize staff.
Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE also wrote up a statement, which was delivered to the Edmark Development Company office. It is a powerful statement, which we will re-post here:
To: Edmark Development Company
161 Ottawa NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49508
From: Movimiento Cosecha GR
GR Rapid Response to ICE
Concerned citizens
Date: October 1, 2018, A National Day of #NoBusinessWithICE
We demand that you cancel your contract with ICE and stop renting office space to the Department of Homeland Security.
Why?
- It’s morally wrong to be complicit with ICE. ICE abuses immigrants and children.
There’s evidence that there have been over 33,000 complaints filed against ICE over the last 7 years, alleging a wide range of abuses in immigration detention. Those included sexual abuse. There are cases in which complying with a demand could get an immigrant released -but they could be deported to the wrong country if they didn’t.
The ACLU has obtained over 30,000 pages of documented abuses of immigrant children in ICE custody. ICE officers have:
- Punched a child’s head three times, kicked a child in the ribs
- Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head
- Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search that ended in a sexual assault which was too graphic to describe here.
- They’ve done many other things – calling children dogs, threatening them with sexual assault by other inmates, running over a teen with a patrol vehicle, refusing to let children stand up for days, and more.
This is the organization that you are allowing in your building.
- ICE separates families and hurts our community.
In 2016, the number of undocumented immigrants in Kent County was over 13,000. The undocumented share of the immigrant population was over 26%.
This means that most immigrant families and many non-immigrant families here have loved ones who are under-documented, and the fear of their detention and deportation affects all areas of their lives. The fear of losing a loved one. Of losing a family member. Of losing the income they need to live.
Even when they are not abused by ICE like in the examples above, children are traumatized and do poorly in school when a parent is taken. Mental and physical health, productivity, and quality of life all suffer greatly when a family is separated.
Yet it is estimated that immigrants contribute $3.3 billion a year to Kent County’s economy. Immigrants are our valued neighbors, working, living, learning, and playing alongside of us in our day-to-day lives. We must stand with them.
- We must make it so that ICE cannot do their violence in our city.
Businesses all over the country have stopped doing business with ICE. Virgin Airlines won’t use their flights to deport people anymore. Several local municipalities have canceled their contracts with ICE and ordered ICE detainees to be released. By making it difficult for ICE to work in our city, we can help to stop the violence and keep families together.
Stop renting to ICE. Support the immigrant community.
Betsy DeVos Watch: Freedom, Free Speech on Campus and the National Constitution Center
A few weeks ago, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke at an event organized by the National Constitution Center for their annual Constitution Day.
The speech that DeVos gave in September, was instructive on many levels. A primary theme of the Secretary of Education’s speech centered around freedom and freedom of speech. In many ways, Secretary DeVos was chastising both students and campus administrators of limiting ideas and information. Such a claim seems rather laughable coming from a person who justifies her family’s contribution of millions of dollars during election cycles as “free speech.”
Another point that DeVos addressed was the issue of civility. Civility is a topic and theme that more and more campuses are pushing, especially since there are more and more students and community members who are challenging what they would identify as hate speech.
A good example of hate speech is the student-led protests that have confronted the white supremacist leader Richard Spencer. More and more student groups or community groups that are marginalized – black, latino, immigrant or queer communities – are protesting, interrupting or even trying to prevent those who promote white supremacy, homophobia, closed borders and privatizing education, as a few examples.
These are examples that are in sharpe contrast to the examples that Betsy DeVos does provide. One example, DeVos gives states:
An official student activities board at the College of William & Mary, a public campus in Virginia, recently hosted a director of the American Civil Liberties Union for a discussion on free speech. Almost as soon as the event got underway, students rushed the stage and began to shout down the ACLU representative, an organization typically allied with many of the same causes shared by those who were shouting. The event never resumed.
What DeVos failed to mention is that those protesting the event were members of a Black Lives Matter chapter that were specifically challenging the ACLU’s defense of people like Richard Spencer and other white supremacists to have a public forum to spew their hate. This protest was held in October of 2017, so the BLM protest was drawing attention to the ACLU’s defense of the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia.
A second example that Betsy DeVos gave in her speech was about U of M students bringing Alveda King to campus and then being charged by the university to provide security. DeVos also mentioned that she was the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What DeVos failed to mention in her speech was that Alveda King was invited to campus, since she was an anti-abortion activist and was invited by an anti-abortion student group. When other students found out that King would be speaking about 
her anti-abortion views, the university decided that security would be needed and then charged the group that brought King to campus.
One last example that DeVos mentions was the joint statement that Princeton’s Robby George and Harvard’s Cornel West issued on freedom of thought. While Cornel West issued such a statement, DeVos again failed to mention that Dr. West was part of the counter-demonstration in Charlottesville attempting to shut down the white supremacy march.
Betsy DeVos also stated that the country has “abandoned truth.” Yes, a person who grew up in a wealthy family that was part of the religious right and married into an even wealthier family that is part of the religious right movement that seeks to impose its values on the rest of society, had the audacity to tell students that people have abandoned truth.
Grand Rapids Police Task Force Recommendations: False solutions and the need for Radical Imagination
For several years now the City of Grand Rapids and the GRPD have been reviewing their policies and making some adjustments because of public pressure.
Most of the public pressure has been coming from communities most negatively impacted by police presence and police practices, specifically the African American and Latino/Latinx communities.
This pressure coincided with increased police brutality and police killings of black people across the US, especially since Michael Brown was murdered by cops in Missouri a little more than four years ago.
The most recent round of recommendations that have been developed by a Task Force made up of cops and some residents is just the latest list of recommendations that ultimately present a false solution.
There are 38 recommendations put forth dealing with the following areas:
- Staffing and Deployment
- Internal Affairs (Accountability)
- Training
- Youth Policy (this was added at the request of the police chief)
- Community Policing and Crime Reduction
- Recruiting and Hiring
As you can see from the list, the recommendations are internal to the GRPD and are essentially mild reforms that do not address the fundamental role of cops, which is to protect power and maintain the status quo. To quote Alex Vitale, author of the book, The End of Policing:
The problem is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last forty years, a fundamental shift in the role of police in society. The problem is policing itself.
Do we really believe that if police officers take cultural competency courses that it will result in a reduction of policing and arrests in black and brown communities? Do we really believe that hiring more minority officers or female officers will fundamentally change the function of policing? Does having more cops in neighborhoods, walking a beat and getting to know the residents mean that crime will be reduced? These are all reformist solutions that are generally presented to communities all across the country, yet the results are still the same.
- The US has the highest incarceration rates in the world and the highest percentage of people who are on parole, on probation, in jail or prison are disproportionately black and brown communities experiencing poverty.
- Police harassment and violence directed at communities of color are on the rise.
- Police departments have become more militarized.
- Police departments are engaging in increasing levels of surveillance.
- Police departments are using massive amounts of city budgets – 1/3 of the Grand Rapids City Budget is devoted to policing.
Take for instance the idea of community policing. In the new recommendations, there are eight community policing recommendations:
Recommendation 5.1: Recognizing that community policing works best when it is supported by elected leaders and is a subset of community-based governance; the Mayor and City Commission should adopt a Resolution that mandates community policing as the operating philosophy of the police department and require all city departments to contribute to enhance public safety through community collaboration.
Recommendation 5.2: GRPD should develop a citywide community policing plan that incorporates crime reduction strategies, community engagement and partnerships, and police department oversight.
Recommendation 5.3: GRPD should include community members in its CompStat process.
Recommendation 5.4: Develop a patrol strategy that allows Beat officers time to engage with the community in non-enforcement activities (e.g., foot and bicycle patrols).
Recommendation 5.5: Require Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) training to all sworn officers. This training teaches officers how to solve community problems in partnership with the community and through a mode that is comprehensive and evidence-based.
Recommendation 5.6: Incorporate the core principles of community policing – engagement, collaboration, problem-solving, and building trust and legitimacy in annual performance evaluations for all officers.
Recommendation 5.7: GRPD Beat officers should be required, and given the time, to initiate and complete at least one POP project on a quarterly basis.
Recommendation 5.8: GRPD should develop a specific POP incentive program(s) that recognizes and highlights GRPD staff – both sworn and civilian – in problem-solving with the community.
These recommendations might sound like a good idea, but that is only because we fail to understand the essential function of police departments as protecting power and maintaining the status quo. Within this framework of understanding, community policing is essentially a form of counterinsurgency, which seeks to win over the populace of any community, to gain access to information about populations they consider dangerous, and to undermine efforts for collective liberation.
Kristian Williams, in his book, Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency, examines the history of community policing and the disastrous impact it has had on communities of color and poor communities.
In Williams’ book, he looks at the research done by the RAND Corporation, which studied community policing. The Rand Corporation says this about community policing as its paradigm for counterinsurgency:
Pacification is best thought of as a massively enhanced version of the ‘community policing’ technique that emerged in the 1970s. Community policing centered on a broad concept of problem solving by law enforcement officers working in an area that is well-defined and limited in scale, with sensitivity to geographic, ethnic, and other boundaries. Patrol officers form a bond of trust with local residents, who get to know them as more than a uniform. The police work with local groups, businesses, churches, and the like to address the concerns and problems of the neighborhood. Pacification is simply the expansion of this concept to include greater development and security assistance.
Does this assessment by the RAND Corporation sound eerily like the recommendations put forth by the GRPD?
A Community-based vision for Liberation that doesn’t include cops
Part of the work that community-based organizing must do, is to challenge all of us to engage in radical imagination. Radical imagination simply means to envision a world that is outside of the acceptable and existing frameworks. For instance, instead of proposing that those with tremendous wealth donate to projects that provide affordable housing, we could propose that housing is a fundamental right and if everyone had a livable wage they could afford adequate housing.
When we talk about radical imagination and policing, many movements propose that every community should be able to determine how to create safe and secure communities. This is exactly, what many communities of color, specifically black communities have been calling for since Michael Brown was murdered by a cop in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. This is exactly what the Movement for Black Lives has been calling for in the radically imaginative vision, seen here on the right.
We all most push for a radically new way to create safe and free communities. We all need to radically imagine our communities that no longer includes state violence in the form of police or prisons. Together we can imagine something new.
Don’t be fooled by Wolverine Worldwide’s PR stunt during ArtPrize!
Corporations go to great lengths these days to present themselves as being environmentally sustainable or practicing social responsibility. Hell, even oil companies have very slick PR campaigns to communicate to the rest of us that they are a “green” company.
Within the capitalist framework, corporations want to tap into public concerns about hunger, homelessness or environmental sustainability. Within this framework, corporations can encourage consumers to buy their product, which will result in the corporations donating a portion of their profits to some non-profit.
These corporate campaigns tap into a very vulnerable aspect of humanity, in that they want people to feel good, while at the same time contribute to the ongoing consumption of the world’s resources.
Manipulating this kind of public sentiment is very dangerous and it has dangerous consequences. One way that the purchase our way to social justice is dangerous is that it tends to redirect our thinking, even our collective imagination away from what the root cause is of any given social problem. For instance, if I purchase Boxed Water, they will donate a portion of their profits to plant trees. Sounds good on the surface, but it distracts use from the ridiculousness of buying water, when water should be a right that we all have access to. Secondly, buying boxed water distracts us from thinking about all the energy and resources it takes to manufacture the boxes and transport them, when people could just be drinking tap water.
Another way that purchasing to achieve social justice is dangerous, it that it means that we believe that simply donating money will solve our social problems. For instance, the current housing crisis that millions face in the US, cannot simply be fixed by monetary donations. The real housing crisis is a crisis that the so-called free market has creates, which results in millions of people not being able to afford to buy a home or rent an apartment. The market dictates the cost of housing and at the same time (we are told), the market determines what kind of wages that businesses can pay. Not so ironically, this same market, which has forced skyrocketing housing costs and stagnate/low wages also directs billions of dollars to the real estate industry and property management companies.
Lastly, the danger of purchasing our way to social justice thinking also tends to reward the same companies that are responsible for the theft of public funds, racism, homophobia or environmental catastrophes and threats to public health. A great example of this is taking place this Friday, September 29th during ArtPrize.
The Why We Walk project is being sponsored by Wolverine Worldwide where participants will turn their ArtPrize experience into a donation for one of three local charities: Habitat for Humanity of Kent County, Family Promise of Grand Rapids or Western Michigan Center for Arts + Technology.
According to the Facebook event page:
Wolverine Worldwide will donate $50,000 but your steps will determine how much money each charity will receive – why we walk. Simply show us why you walk ArtPrize and for every one-mile you walk (or 2,000 steps), you will be given a token to vote for a charity. At the end of the day, the charity with the most votes will receive $25,000; the charity with the 2nd most votes will receive $15,000 and the charity with the 3rd most votes will receive $10,000. While you’re out walking and exploring ArtPrize and the local community use #WhyWeWalk for a chance to win gift baskets filed with Wolverine Worldwide brand product. At 5pm we’ll draw a random winner from all the #WhyWeWalk hashtag users; the more times you use #WhyWeWalk, the better the chances for winning the gift basket. All participants will be given a discount code to use on any Wolverine Worldwide brand product.
Again, this all sounds good and might even give us some warm fuzzies. However, such charity functions should not distract us from what the real function is of this PR stunt by Wolverine Worldwide.
First, this PR stunt is primarily a way to distract us from or minimize the harsh truth that Wolverine Worldwide has been lying the the public for decades about their environmental contamination in Kent County. Wolverine Worldwide’s toxic dumping is resulting in millions of public money being used for cleanup and massive health costs to families that have been and will suffer from the corporation’s contamination. On top of that, Wolverine Worldwide is still denying most of the damage they have done. (Check out the Facebook page of Michigan Demands Action Group for updates and analysis on the Wolverine Worldwide contamination https://www.facebook.com/groups/demandaction/)
Second, Wolverine Worldwide’s $50,000 donation is insulting when one considers the fact that the company has eliminated over 500 jobs in the last decade and their CEO, Blake Krueger, has a total compensation package (salary, stocks options and bonuses) of nearly $8 million in 2016. The company’s charity during ArtPrize will simply hide the gross inequities that they engage in as a matter of practice.
Of course there will be people who will be fooled by these corporate hucksters and then there are those that say Wolverine Worldwide’s donation will benefit needy families, so don’t be so hard on them. I say, no amount of charity can hide an injustice and no amount of charity can reverse the systemic harm being perpetrated on the people of Kent County.
Don’t be fooled by Wolverine Worldwide’s PR stunt during ArtPrize!
Jeb Bush was brought in for the West MI Policy Forum to get them to adopt the same education policy platform that Betsy DeVos is pushing
Despite not being able to report in person on the 2018 West Michigan Policy Forum (WMPF) conference, it is still important to write about some of the things that took place on Monday in Grand Rapids.
Former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, was one of the main speakers at the WMPF conference, a conference which made education policy the focus of this year’s gathering.
So far, there has very little reporting done about the conference of business leaders and members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure. The only story from the main news sources in West Michigan was a piece on MLive, a piece which focused on what Jeb Bush had to say.
The MLive article was headlined, Jeb Bush touts education reform to West Michigan business leaders. The headline alone should tell us something about how the MLive article would frame the issue. While one could technically use the phrase “education reform” to describe what the West Michigan Policy Forum wants to do, it does not adequately communicate the reality of what Jeb Bush and those who embrace his views on education truly want to do. A more accurate description would be that the types of education policy that Bush (and the WMPF) want to adopt would undermine public education and impose a neoliberal economic model for how education is done in Michigan. Essentially, this model would seeks to attack teacher unions in public schools, privatize education and education services, promote a curriculum that best benefits businesses and allow public money to be used for private & religious schools.
The MLive article does really question the message that Jeb Bush brought to West Michigan, although they did state:
Bush also supported the expansion of charter schools and the use of public money for private and religious school tuition, the Washington Post reported.
Beyond that statement, the MLive reporter presented a very brief overview of what the former governor of Florida had to say.
Unfortunately, the MLive reporter did not verify the claims made by Bush and did not inform readers that the powerpoint he used was created by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, also known as ExcelinEd
The MLive article also failed to inform readers that Jeb Bush is the Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, nor to they report on the mission of the organization.
In fact, the 5 main education policy positions that ExcelinEd promotes are:
• Charter Schools
• Public School Choice
• Education Scholarship Accounts
• Tax Credit Scholarships
• Vouchers
In addition, MLive did not bother to tell their readers that ExcelinEd is a national organization that hosts an annual summit to promote their neoliberal education model. ExcelinEd also is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network, organizations that are deeply committed to promoting a neoliberal model of education.
One final point that MLive omitted from their brief article is that the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which Bush is the Board Chairman of and the organization which provided the former-Governor of Florida with, also is funded by some of the wealthiest families and largest corporations in the US that also believe in the neoliberal education model – families like Bill and Melinda Gates, the Walton family, ExxonMobil, News Corp, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation. Actually, the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation ended their funding in 2017, once Betsy became the Secretary of Education. However, Betsy DeVos is still deeply involved in the Foundation for Excellence in Education, as she was the keynote speaker at their national summit in 2017.
Now that we know that the West Michigan Policy Forum is committed to making “education reform” (which is code for a neoliberal education model), the focus of their efforts to lobby state politicians, its seems even more urgent that the public should be made aware of these intentions.
Grand Valley Labor News three-part series on Amway from 1980
It would be utterly impossible for people to not know that Rich DeVos died recently. Not only is the West Michigan the news media still canonizing him, it is very difficult to even find a critical comment about the co-founder of Amway, apart from the more honest obituary that GRIID posted.
In light of that, we thought it would be important to re-post something recently added to the Grand Rapids People’s History Project.
We recently received a three-part series of articles written by Michael Johnston, a Grand Rapids labor historian and former journalist with Grand Valley Labor News (GVLN).
This recently acquired three-part series is important, since Johnston provides important analysis about co-founders Rich DeVos & Jay Van Andel. The GVLN series is also important because it looks at the anti-labor practices of the Ada-based corporation in the late 1960 and early 1970s.
Part I of the series provides more of an overview of the Amway Corporation and its co-founders DeVos and Van Andel. One thing important from Part I in the series is the information about how much media the Amway corporation produces and owns, both in the United States and around the world.
In Part II of the series, entitled, The Right Wing Idol, Johnston takes a look at the ideological worldview of the Amway co-founders and provides details on who these two members of the capitalist class were funding at the time. This investigation into which organizations DeVos and Van Andel were funding is similar to our post from the late 1990s. It is important to have some comparisons in different decades to see how their contributions to Right Wing entities had evolved.
In addition, the picture that accompanies Part II in this series, is from May of 1980, where some 500 people were in Calder Plaza to protest Amway’s anti-labor practices (pictured above). Most of those protesting were from various trade unions, but there were also representatives from ACORN – the Association for Community Organizing for Reform Now.
In Part III of the series, the writer takes a close look at Amway’s anti-union position, beginning with examples from the 1960s, when the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (part of the AFL-CIO) attempted to unionize the Amway plant in Ada.
This story is particularly interesting since it discusses how Rich DeVos began holding mandatory in plant meetings to counter the union efforts. Part III devotes a fair amount of attention to this dynamic, since DeVos has made this practice of regular meetings with employees an important part of his strategy to undermine workers who attempt to create a union within the company founded on a pyramid scheme.
(A big thank you to Michael Johnston for sharing this series and for allowing us to post in on the Grand Rapids People’s History Project site.)
Access Denied: GRIID not allow to attend the 2018 West MI Policy Forum Conference
Ever since their inaugural conference in 2008, I have attended and reported on every West Michigan Policy Forum conference. I had every intention of reporting from the 2018 West Michigan Policy Forum conference, but I was denied access as a media person from attending.
What follows in my e-mail correspondence with people involved in the conference.
As early as July 24, I had sent an e-mail to Omar Cuevas, who works for the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce and is the VP of Sales and Marketing. Cuevas was one of the people listed as contacts for the 2018 West Michigan Policy Forum conference.
I asked is the conference was open to news media and if I could get a media pass for the day, as I had done for all their previous conferences held since 2008. The GR Chamber of Commerce contact said, “I’m going to connect you to the PR firm handling this event and have them follow up with you.” The PR firm responsible for all promotions and media was SeyferthPR. SeyferthPR lists among its clients, Amway, RDV Corp., Talent 2015, Rockford Construction, Autocam, Bissell, Perrigo, SIBSCO and Huntington Bank, all of which are part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
On July 30th, I asked if Omar was going to give them my contact info or if he could share their contact info with me? He responded by saying, “I forwarded your email to Seyferth PR.”
I did not hear back on this matter, so on August 21st I sent the following e-mail, “I still haven’t heard from the folks at Seyferth PR about media access to the Sept. 24 Policy Forum. Can you give me an e-mail of someone over there I could speak with?” He replied by saying, “I apologize Jeff. I will reach out to them.”
Another three weeks went by, so I sent Omar another e-mail on Wednesday, September 12, stating, “Omar, still haven’t heard anything. Is there someone I can contact directly about obtaining a media pass for the WMPF Summit on the 24th? This time Mr. Cuevas sent me the following reply on Friday, September 14, saying “I’m sorry for the delay. I have passed on all of your messages to Seyferth PR. I am going to find out today.”
That same day, I received the following e-mail from Michael Zalewski who is Senior Counsel for SeyferthPR. He wrote the following:
Jeff, sorry I had not got back to you sooner regarding media pass request. You are certainly welcome to purchase a ticket to WMPF. Also please note, as shared with all other media, by purchasing a ticket to event you are able to attend ECON luncheon, which is part of the conference.
As a point of clarification, I responded by asking, “Michael, are you telling me that this event is not open to the media?” Zalewski’s response was, “Again, you are certainly welcome to purchase a ticket to WMPF. Also please note, as shared with all other media, by purchasing a ticket to event you are able to attend ECON luncheon, which is part of the conference.” I responded to this non-answer with, “I ask this because in past years they were providing passes for reporters. My budget prohibits me from buying a ticket. You are no longer giving media access to this event?”
At this point I also contacted someone I know who writes for MiBiz and asked if they were planning on attending and if they had to purchase tickets to the West Michigan Policy Forum conference. The journalist I know from MiBiz said that he wasn’t sure if he was attending, but someone with MiBiz would be attending and NO, they did not have to purchase a ticket.
Mr. Zalweski did not respond to the previous e-mail I had send, so I sent him another e-mail stating, “I just checked with folks I know over at MiBiz and they are not required to purchase a ticket to come and report on the event. Since that is the case, I will be coming, as I have a right to be there as a reporter.”
Zalweski’s response was prompt this time and he stated, “Well first this is a by invite only event it’s not a public event. However this is being hosted by the Chamber of Commerce so let me get back to them on your request.” First, there was nothing on the WMPF conference registration that suggested this was an invite only event. Second, why had he not said that up front? Third, this has never been an issue in previous conferences held by the WMPF. Lastly, if SeyferthPR was dealing with all media inquiries, why was Mr. Zalweski now checking with the GR Chamber of Commerce about my request?
On Thursday, September 20th the Senior Counsel for SeyferthPR repled:
Based on WMPF criteria for media passes to event, your request for media credentials has been denied . Please note this is a private, by-invitation only event and the West Michigan Policy Forum reserves the right to issue or deny media credentials.
I replied immediately, stating, “Seems rather arbitrary. So why have i been given a media pass for all of the previous WMPF conferences and not this one?” Mr. Zalweski did not respond to this last e-mail.
In many ways this is completely understandable, since I have been highly critical of the West Michigan Policy Forum conferences and their role in the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
It is also possible that since I had written a critical piece about the Gr Chamber of Commerce on September 19th, the day before Mr. Zalweski’s last e-mail, that that could have played into their decision to deny me a media pass.
However, despite my criticisms of both the West Michigan Policy Forum and the GR Chamber of Commerce, what would they possibly have to fear by denying me a media pass? This blog is not read by tens of thousands of people and is fairly insignificant in the local media landscape of commercial media, which is almost uniformly business-friendly.
It is unfortunate, especially considering that the commercial media outlets will not provide substantial analysis of what takes place at the conference on September 24, a conference which is making a neoliberal education model their platform for state policy changes in Michigan for the rest of this year and 2019.
Making a Pilgrimage for Immigrant Justice and Driver Licenses
People have been organizing pilgrimages for centuries. For many people, pilgrimages are associated with religious or spiritual journeys. However, organized pilgrimages have also been a significant tactic in the history of social movements.
For the purposes of this article, I was to focus on three historical examples of social movements using pilgrimages as a tactic to gain attention to goals they all sought to achieve.
The first example is from Michigan in the summer of 1988. Hundreds of people began their pilgrimage of peace in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and ended in Detroit. This pilgrimage was organized by a coalition of peace & justice organizations across the state that were all working for disarmament, particularly the disarmament of nuclear weapons.
The pilgrimage lasted 3 months, with people walking about 12 miles a day. Organizers had found churches, schools and libraries all along the route of the pilgrimage, places that hosted a forum every night, so that people could talk about the importance of nuclear disarmament. In addition, the pilgrimage included stops at factories that had contracts with the Department of Defense to make parts for nuclear weapons. This was an important component of the pilgrimage, since it exposed how much money and how many companies were profiting from the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction.
A second example is from 1972, when the American Indian Movement, along with other Indigenous organizations, engaged in what was called the Trail of Broken Treaties. This pilgrimage began on the west coast in October of 1972 and ended in Washington DC the week before the November election.
Indigenous people were given a promise by the Nixon administration that they would meet with representatives at the end of the pilgrimage to discuss Indigenous issues. The American Indian Movement had even created a 20-point position paper to present to the Nixon administration.
All along the route, the Indigenous activists that participated in the Trail of Broken Treaties, met with and stayed at the homes of other First Nations people in order to build support and raise awareness about their campaign.
When the group arrived in Washington, DC, the Nixon administration refused to meet with them, so the Indigenous activists occupied the Department of Interior building, where the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) had offices. During the occupation, Indigenous activists took some of the documents and records from the BIA and burned them in the hallways. After a week, the Nixon administration decided to negotiate an end to the occupation, which led to further treaty negotiations.
The third, and last example of pilgrimages being used by social movements, took place in 1966. The pilgrimage was organize by the United Farm Workers (UFW), a movement made up of migrant workers from the Latino/Chicano community and the Filipino community.
This pilgrimage focused on the working conditions that migrant farm workers faced on a daily basis, both the low wages, horrid living conditions and chemical pesticides that workers were exposed.
Led by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, the UFW pilgrimage began in Delano and ended up in Sacramento, California, the state capitol.
What was unique about this pilgrimage is that it merged the use of the tactics of strikes and boycotts with religious iconography, particularly the Virgin of Guadalupe. Those participating in the pilgrimage sang traditional Mexican protest songs, while some, including Cesar Chavez walked barefoot, which was also a traditional way for Mexicans to participate in pilgrimages.
The UFW pilgrimage did help in building support for the larger farmworker movement, but it took more strikes and nation-wide boycotts to help them achieve their goals.
It is in the same spirit as these historical examples of pilgrimages, that Movimiento Cosecha will be organizing a pilgrimage this fall. The Movimiento Cosecha pilgrimage will begin in Grand Rapids on Friday, October 5th and conclude at the Lansing State Capitol on Tuesday, October 9. The focus of the pilgrimage is a campaign to win drivers licenses for all. Those in the undocumented/under-documented immigrant community cannot currently obtain a drivers license and Movimiento Cosecha wants to change that.
To find out more details about the Drivers Licenses for All campaign or the October pilgrimage, go here https://www.facebook.com/events/261930651314731/
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 