This morning, MLive posted an article about two bill in the Michigan House of Representatives that would prevent local communities from limiting their cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
According to MLive:
The bills (HB 4083 and HB 4090) are sponsored by Republican Reps. Beau LaFave, R-Iron Mountain, and Pamela Hornberger, R-Chesterfield Twp., and are scheduled to be discussed in the House Military, Veterans and Homeland Security Committee – which LaFave chairs – at noon Tuesday, April 9. Previous versions of the legislation cleared a House panel last session but did not get taken up for a vote by the full House.
A useful summary of the two bills are provided by the House Fiscal Agency:
If passed, these bills would undermine local government autonomy and prevent actions taken like the recent Grand Rapids City Commission to suspend Captain VanderKooi for calling ICE while off duty to alert them to the incident involving Jilmar Ramos-Gomez.
The Grand Rapids based groups, Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response was instrumental in pressuring the City of Grand Rapids on Captain VanderKooi, although they were demanding he be fired. These two groups were also demanding that the City of Grand Rapids end all cooperation with ICE, not allow any city resources to be used for cooperation with ICE and support the Drivers Licenses for All campaign.
House Bill 4083 was introduced by Rep. Pamela Hornberger from the 32nd District and House Bill 4090 was introduced by Rep. Beau LaFave from the 108th District. According to data provided by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, the DeVos Family is the top contributor to Rep. Hornberger’s campaign ($14,000) and the fourth largest contributor to Rep. LaFave’s campaign ($9,000).
Last week we kicked off a new series of articles that will look at how the economic system has transformed and co-opted language to the benefit of the capitalist class.
We mentioned the new book, Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism, by John Patrick Leary, which provides a wonderful analysis of capitalism’s use of language, along with a list of words that this system uses.
Just think about the terms that capitalism has created or transformed in recent years to give it an edgy, almost counter-cultural feeling. Words like place making, robust, stakeholder, thought leader, creative class, human capital, curator, best practices and empowerment. All of these words used to mean something else, but now they are used by the capitalist class as the language that best describes what it is they seek to achieve.
Last week we looked at the term accountability in Grand Rapids. This week, lets talk about the word stakeholder, and specifically how it is used by the capitalist class here in Grand Rapids.
Leary says, “Stakeholder’s primary meaning in the OED is an independent person or organization with whom money is deposited, especially when a number of people make a bet or other financial transaction.”
Clearly, the term stakeholder is rooted in the financial world. The author notes that the word stakeholder transition during the 1930s depression, “when calls for economic planning and socialism reached a high point.”
The more contemporary way in which the term stakeholder is being used, combines the financial meaning, with the idea of planning. In Grand Rapids, I have noticed that since the 1980s, the term stakeholder is most often used by systems and structures of power to give the illusion that anyone who is a stakeholder can have a seat at the table. What this often translates to, is that those who are invited are primarily those from the business community, government officials and representatives of non-profit organizations. The “public” might be invited as well, but as we all know when the business community is invites, they take up a lot of space at meetings and they tend to have more power in conversations around issues like economic development.
The stakeholder dynamic is further explored in an article from If The River Swells, which states:
When speaking of development or gentrification in Grand Rapids, a constant refrain heard from city leaders, developers, and even many opponents is the need for more “community involvement” or “community engagement.” Development is presented as if it is a dialog or a process in which we are all on equal footing, rather than something done by those with considerable capital and political power. The appeals for participation are repeated over and over: the city and developers allegedly want to hear from the “community”, while always looking for more ways to get people involved.
However, what is actually being encouraged is a very specific and narrow form of “involvement” that centers around the process of attending city meetings, meetings with developers, and other such similar events. It’s presented as a type of civic duty akin to voting – if you don’t do it, you don’t have a right to complain. A sort of hyper-local version of “America, Love It or Leave It.” Often when these conversations happen, they involve a considerable amount of blame being placed on those who are critical. The assumption is always that they have chosen “not to be involved” and that because they allegedly aren’t participating their voices aren’t being heard, and therefore, their concerns aren’t being addressed. It’s a charge that has been leveled at us repeatedly over the past year: that if we participated in the allegedly “important meetings” that are happening, “our voice would be heard”.
Of course, our voices, the community’s voices are rarely heard. Instead, those in the capitalist class love to hold public meetings to gain input, even thought the real decisions are being made by those who have the most money (which also means the most power), which are developers. In this sense, using the term stakeholder is merely meant to lull the public into thinking that their voice matters and to present the illusion that private economic development companies want community engagement. In the end, economic development corporations make the decision, not matter who else is “at the table.”
There are numerous examples of entities that use the term stakeholder, but this week’s example of how capitalism uses the term stakeholder is the Rockford Construction Company.
It is widely known on social media how the TV show Fox & Friends put up a graphic that stated, Trump cuts aid to 3 Mexican Countries. The producers of the show later apologized, but not before the screw-up had saturated social media and even brought the wrath of other news sources who were appalled by the mistake.
One could say that the error is a reflection of the decline in US journalism, a decline that we have witnessed for decades now. However, there are larger (and I believe more important) issues at stake with the US State Department’s announcement that the US would no longer be providing foreign assistance to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
First, most of the mainstream commercial news media did not provide much information on current foreign aid to the three countries named. For example, the New York Times stated in an article on March 29:
“Currently, the United States spends about $620 million a year for gang prevention programs and other initiatives aimed at helping support civil society in the three countries. Advocates say that cutting the funds will only accelerate the migrant flows into the United States.”
This was the extent of any details on the amount of US aid that was going to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, not did the New York Times provide much information on how the US aid was being used.
Secondly. the New York Times article fails to provide much historical context, in terms of how much US aid has poured into those countries in recent decades and for what purposes.
Lastly, there was limited investigation into how ending foreign assistance to the three countries would limit the number of people who are seeking asylum in the US or what Trump called, an “invasion” of people who were nothing more than conducting a “big fat con job.”
Instead, most of the attention was focused on the error that the news show Fox and Friends made, rather than, 1) providing the public with substantive information on what US aid to Central America has looked like in the past; 2) what it looks like now; and 3) how it will achieve the goal of reducing refugees from seeking political asylum.
Historical Context
The United States has been giving massive amounts of foreign aid to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala for since the the early 20th Century. However, the bulk of the aid money was either military aid, funds to support drug war programs, corporate subsidies, free trade zones and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). For example, all throughout the 1980s, the US was contributing $1million a day in military aid to El Salvador, in order to fight a counterinsurgency war against a popular armed rebellion. In Guatemala in the 1980s and 90s, the US was providing millions in military aid, military advisors and military training to the death-squad government, which resulted in the deaths of roughly 200,000 people and the disappearance of some 60 – 80,000. In fact, the US counterinsurgency wars in El Salvador and Guatemala at that time were the major cause of displacement and a root cause of the refugee crisis that brought hundreds of thousands of Central Americans seeking asylum in the last few decades of the 20th century.
For more background information check out the following resources:
https://medium.com/s/story/timeline-us-intervention-central-america-a9bea9ebc148
http://umich.edu/~ac213/student_projects06/student_projects/usica/main.htm
More Recent History
Since the US sponsored counter-insurgency wars have ended in Central America, US aid to the region has decreased. However, the regional trade policy, known as CAFTA, along with free trade zones and an increase in drug trafficking, has resulted in further destabilization in the region, an increase in poverty and continues to force people out of the El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Check out the following resources:
https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/cafta-fact-sheet-aug-2018.pdf
Current US funding for Central America
US Foreign Aid to Central America has declined in recent years, towards the end of the Obama administration and now under the Trump administration. According to the Washington Office on Latin America:
The 2018 House bill would cut assistance to Central America by $40 million — all of which would come from the Development Assistance account, through which $279.5 million was funneled to the region in 2017. Development Assistance supports violence-prevention efforts, job-creation programs, and other non-security related programs mostly administered by USAID. For 2018, the House supports $235 million through this account, a $50 million reduction in funds to the Northern Triangle.
As the below tables show, this bill maintains funding levels for security assistance through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET), Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, De-mining and Related Programs (NADR), and International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) programs. It also keeps funding for Attorneys General from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, for the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), and the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH).
House appropriators kept conditions attached to Central America assistance, putting a hold on at least half of funds until the Secretary of State certifies that countries are taking steps to improve accountability, transparency, justice systems, and security practices, among others. This year, the Committee went a step further and included $20 million for an “Incentive Award” program, which would be given to the single Northern Triangle country that has made the most progress on two or more of the conditions.
This analysis from WOLA tells us a great deal about US foreign assistance to Central America, since it provides not only a dollar amount, but a break down in what kind of programs the funding goes to.
Image if this is how the US news media reported on US foreign policy towards Central America. Not only would we be better informed about what US policy in that region is being used for, we would not be so easily manipulated by the government/corporate media propaganda and misinformation about the refugee caravans from Central America.
Lastly, while the 3 Mexican countries error was from Fox News, this issue of Central America, Central American refugees and US funding in that region have been created from bipartisan US policies and supported by both liberal and conservative news agencies that ultimately supports US foreign policy in Central America. Making fun of Fox & Friends might make us feel superior, but the real problem is that US-based journalism has primarily failed us around complicated and critical issues like the Central American Asylum Seekers, US Foreign Assistance in Central America and what impact US foreign policy has on that region.
West MI Policy Forum one of several groups who wants the minimum wage to only be $12.05 in 2030
The business class in the US has always understood that there is a real class war happening at all times, even if the working class is unaware of that fact.
In early December, the GOP-led Michigan legislature passed Public Act 368 of 2018, which would increase the minimum wage in Michigan at a grotesquely slow rate over the next decade, reaching a paltry $12.05 in 2030.
This incremental wage increase is insulted to working class people, who cannot live off these kid of wages or even afford the most basic resources in order to have a healthy life.
The Michigan Supreme Court is reviewing this issue right now, since Public Act 368 of 2018 is being challenged. The entities who have been most vocal about defending the legislation passed in 2018 – with a recent court filing – are the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Manufacturers Association, the Michigan Realtors Association and the West Michigan Policy Forum.
In fact, a few days ago, the West Michigan Policy Forum posted on their Facebook page a link to a Detroit News article and bragged about their organization being one of the groups aggressively seeking to maintain the absurdly low minimum wage increase over the next 10 years.
Some of the more prominent people who are the board of directors for the West Michigan Policy Forum are:
Doug DeVos, Peter Secchia, John Kennedy, Mike VanGessel, Michael Jandernoa, JC Huizenga, Steve Van Andel, Johnny Brann Jr, Jim Dunlap and Blake Krueger.
These men make up the Grand Rapids Power Structure, so it is no surprising that they do not support a living wage for working families. Despite their outright war against working class families, those who are part of the West Michigan Policy Forum like to present themselves are benevolent leaders who really care about the community. A week does not go by in the West Michigan news media where we hear about the wonderful things that Start Garden, Rockford Construction, Wolverine Worldwide, Amway, Meijer or Spectrum Health are doing for the little people in the greater Grand Rapids area.
Look, if these people are deliberately pushing state policy to keep wages low, then whatever charity or entrepreneurial shit they are concocting is nothing more than a con they are playing on families in West Michigan who are struggling to pay their mortgage, their rent, health care costs, utilities, transportation costs and other basic necessities.
Remember, that these rich, white men are regularly meeting to plan assaults against working class families and families of color and then turning around and dangling money in front of these same families with their get rich quick entrepreneurial schemes.
The following statements are based on the afternoon session from the Michigan Civil Rights Department hearing in Grand Rapids on Thursday, March 28.
Cle Jackson, with the NAACP, opened up the hearing, referencing recent incidents with the two latino youth and the black motorist who was punched some 30 times. These are however, on two cases that make up dozens of other documented incidents with the GRPD. Jackson, also said that this kind of police abuse & violence directed at black and brown communities, has been happening for decades, and it needs to stop.
A staff member of the Michigan Civil Rights Department (MCRD) then spoke and laid out both the process for those who wanted to speak and somewhat of a framework. The MCRD spokesperson did say that the framework for determining whether civil rights have been violated is the Elliot Larsen Civil Rights Act, which currently does not include the rights of the LGBTQ community.
Depending on the testimony provided, the MCRD may begin an investigation of the GRPD. In addition, it was stated clearly that the MCRD will not tolerate any retaliation against those who speak out, and they specifically mentioned retaliation from an employer, an elected official or anyone else in a position of power against those who offer testimony.
At the very beginning, when people started giving testimony at 1:30pm, there were an estimated 200 people in the room. The people who spoke, filled out a sheet of paper and were called forward to address the MCRD.
- The first speaker was a lawyer with the ACLU, who recently moved to Grand Rapids, specifically the Heritage Hill neighborhood. She shared her experience where the GRPD followed her home in a cruiser, while she and her son were walking home. Then suddenly, a black man was walking in the other direction and the GRPD stopped that man. She ended by saying Grand Rapids is a great place to live, if you are white.
- The second speaker, also with a non-profit advocacy group, addressing two specific cases of police abuse in Grand Rapids, the two latino youth who were held at gunpoint in the southwest part of GR and the black man who was punched nearly 30 times while driving on the westside.
- A black man, who had two relatives who were police officers, said those officers told him that the GRPD is a racist city. He then talked about the two boys who were arrested for walking in the street. He said that, “students from a local high school in his neighborhood always walked in the streets and the track team always ran in the streets, so why were the two latino boys treated the way they were?”
- Another black man spoke, who said he was arrested this past Tuesday by the GRPD. He said there were three police cruisers involved in his arrest. They made him take a sobriety test and one officer said that he appeared to “be on something.” He was detained for 7 hours, since that is the time length to sober up, even though he was not high and never has been.
- A black woman then talked about an incident from February of 2018. She lives in the Adams Park area. A white woman was drinking in her car and making a great deal of noise and this woman and another neighbor asked for her to keep the noise down. This woman called the police and when the police arrived they spoke with the white woman first who told the officer that the woman who called was the problem. The GRPD officer yelled at the black resident, who also said at this point that she felt her safety was in jeopardy. She called 911 a second time and said the officer didn’t even speak with the her, but the response from the dispatcher was to make her feel like she was the problem.
- Another lawyer from the ACLU then spoke, specifically about the GRPD’s relationship with ICE. She read a statement that was released earlier in the day by the ACLU, along with numerous other documents to support their position on several other cases involving Captain Kurt VanderKooi.
Another black man shared his story about how the GRPD came to his house and one officer forced his way into this man’s house, resulting in his eye being split open. The GRPD tried to get him to not pursue the complaint against them. He also said that bad cops needed to be weeded out and then says that he think there are some good officers. - A black man who is a small business owner, then spoke about a friend of his who was harassed, intimidated and accused of being part of a murder. He said he was tired of this happening over and over again, where the GRPD harasses and intimidates people. He said because he has spoken out, he has been stooped by the GRPD 106 times in recent years.
- A black women then shared a story about being intimidated as well. She feels that the GRPD always wants to justify whatever they do and that the black and brown communities feel this is nothing short of abuse. She also brings up the two youth who were stopped for walking in the street and said that there are so many neighborhoods where it is not safe to walk on the sidewalks.
- Another black woman then spoke, sharing stories about a race relations forum in 1991, but felt like nothing good came out of it. She is a criminal justice major and has been pulled over numerous times, for what she stated was “just being black.” The GRPD does not follow their own policy and she shared numerous examples of use of force. For instance, she saw a guy in his wheelchair, who was stopped by the GRPD and forced out of his chair and searched. She also addressed the GRPD pulling of guns on youth in this community.
- A black woman spoke, who lives in Grand Rapids and has raised her kids in this community and feels that they are at risk from the GRPD. She said that body cameras do not work for the public. The GRPD is racially profiling people, and acknowledges that she doesn’t know what to do to keep her children safe.
- A white woman then speaks about what has happened to her. She owns a business on the westside and has witnessed members of the GRPD that has removed people from her store. The GRPD always treated people fairly, no matter who they were. This woman was defending the GRPD. One guy sitting next to me said, she’s at the wrong meeting and numerous people who visibly angered that this white woman not only ignored the previous testimony, but that she felt so entitled to come for the purpose of defending the police. This woman’s testimony was the perfect example of white privilege and white arrogance.
- Another black woman then spoke and said she does not feel safe and has never felt safe whenever interacting with the GRPD. She called the GRPD when she thought someone was trying to break into her home. When the cop arrived she felt unsafe and like he was questioning her, instead of empathizing with her concerns. She recently called the police after her granddaughter had been abused by her daughters boyfriend. The GRPD wanted her to call Children Protective Services and seemed disinterested in the violence against her granddaughter.
- A black man then shares his story about something that happened in the Madison neighborhood. He has been pulled over numerous times and been told by the GRPD that they have been waiting to pull him over with no clear reason. He owns rental property in the neighborhood and that the GRPD has intimidated him, frisking him and physically threatened him, sometimes trying to provoke him so that they could use force. He then told a story that about being given a ticket by the GRPD, and while he was in court to pay a fine, the judge said he swore in the courtroom. When this man said he didn’t and that could he play the courtroom recording back and the judge said no and sentenced him to 10 days in jail.
- A white woman spoke next, sharing two incidents in the past month in the Roosevelt Park neighborhood. The first incident dealt with someone blowing their horn and a neighbor had to move his car. A GRPD officer came and pulled the woman’s neighbor out of the car by force and was then detained by the cops because of how disrespectful he spoke to the cops. The GRPD then dropped the charges and said that their body cam footage was deleted. In the second incident, there were 5 cops with guns pointed at 2 black teenagers.
- A latino man spoke about how his experience with the GRPD is that they want to escalate the situation, not de-escalate. The GRPD was called by his ex-girl friend, even though he had not harmed her, but the GRPD said in these cases, “someone has to go to jail.”
- Another older black man spoke and began by stating that he didn’t think this hearing will result in anything. He wanted to see change and not just a fact finding opportunity. “Nothing has changed over the years,” he said.
- Another black man spoke about a department of justice case, which he believes the charges were completely fabricated. He said he is moving soon and will never live in Grand Rapids ever again.
- A black woman who is a member of Messiah Missionary Baptist Church in the SE part of town, spoke next. In recent weeks, members of her church have been targeted by the GRPD for parking violations, in a neighborhood with numerous churches that have high attendance. Just a few blocks away where there are white churches, where members park on both sides of the street and no one is getting a ticket. The same thing is the case, “with the white gentrified area on Wealthy St, where there are always lots of people parking on the street, but these people are not being targeted for parking violations by the GRPD.”
- A 65 year old black man then talks about it being 2019 and this stuff is still going on. An incident he mentions was in the Oakdale neighborhood, where a car crash had taken place. He says there was clear discrimination. His wife has a nice car and she is always being stopped by the GRPD in the area, “so you can’t have a nice car in this neighborhood without being pulled over? The GRPD has no respect for our community. We pay their salaries. They don’t know us and don’t even try to know us.”
- Another black man who has lived here for 70 years, then spoke about a lack of representation and no organizational representation for black people. He was critical of the NAACP, since he doesn’t think it works for them. He says he is tired of seeing black kids having guns pulled on them, especially since he never sees this happening to white kids. “This is not gonna change until a white kid gets killed by the GRPD.” This guy is a truck driver and he says that truck drivers call this city Racist Rapids.
- A black woman makes the observation that on the same day this hearing is being held, the racist President is in town. She doesn’t take shit from people, so she knows that as a confident black woman she will be targeted by the GRPD. She spoke about having the GRPD called on her in certain businesses. For example, she was arrested in the front of her home, with three cruisers being called and then pulling her out of her car and arrested for no apparent reason. The charges were later dropped, but the damage had been done, especially since her daughter witnessed this abuse.
- Another black woman, who is a retired court magistrate, talked about in her work experience of people of color being arrested for walking in the street. People should not be afraid to just walk around. During her 23 years on the job she, never heard of a white person being arrested for walking in the street.
If people were unable to attend either the afternoon or evenings sessions they can submit written statements electronically now, through 1 p.m. on Friday, April 5, 2019. Statements must include a name, address and a telephone number or email address for contact. Statements can be emailed to Community Engagement Liaison Gwendolyn Moffitt at MoffittG@Michigan.gov.
Michigan Senator Gary Peters uses the same lie about BDS that the Israeli government does
In 2017, Michigan Senator Gary Peters co-sponsored a bill that would essentially criminalize the BDS movement in the US.
The Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720) was introduced a few months ago and was drafted with input from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The ACLU has sent a letter to the Senators who co-sponsored this legislation stating, “We urge you to refrain from co-sponsoring the legislation because it would punish individuals for no reason other than their political beliefs.”
I sent a message to Senator Peters recently, asking him to vote no on the anti-BDS legislation. Here is part of his response:
On February 5, 2019, the Senate passed the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act. This bill is a combination of several key U.S. foreign policy initiatives, including authorizing security assistance to Israel, imposing new sanctions on Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and extending the United States’ existing security partnership with Jordan. Although I had concerns about certain provisions in this bill, I voted in support of it because it will help advance several critical national security priorities. We must make it clear the United States stands with its allies in the Middle East that are confronting violent extremist groups throughout the region.
The bill clarifies U.S. law with regards to the ability of state and local governments to divest from or limit contracting with entities engaged in boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) campaigns targeting Israel. The underlying purpose of BDS activities is to delegitimize Israel’s sovereign right to exist as a country. I do not support these campaigns, which single out Israel and in effect undermine the prospect of direct peace negotiations to solve territorial disputes.
What Senator Peters says about BDS is the exact same thing that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says and it is a lie.
According to the BDS movement site, their goal is as follows:
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.
Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.
BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world. Eleven years since its launch, BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.
The fact that Senator Peters voted for the anti-BDS legislation is not surprising, since he , like most of the US Senate receive substantial funding from the Israel Lobby, according to Open Secrets.
In fact, US support for Israel has been a bi-partisan affair since the US began providing billions of dollars in aid to Israel in the mid 1970s.
Another GRPD Press Conference to justify the use of force
Yesterday, the GRPD once again held a press conference in order to respond to another violent incident involving members of the African American community. You can view the video at the GRPD Facebook page.
The Press Conference lasted just over 7 minutes, with Interim Chief Kiddle making a statement, followed by a few questions from reporters. This most recent Press Conference was no doubt organized to respond to a particular incident, but also because someone had recorded what had happened.
Interim Chief Kiddle and other police officers have made it a point to say that the public recordings of police violence “distorts the public perception” of police actions. No shit, because the videos from residents often conflicts with the narrative that the GRPD wants to provide. And the narrative from yesterday’s GRPD Press Conference was the same as it has been in the past few months – the police officers involved acted appropriately and did things they were trained to do.
This was one of the questions asked by a reporter during the Press Conference, about why the police officer kicked the man. Kiddle responded by saying, “kicking is a police maneuver, a distraction and pain technique, intended to try get someone under control who is resisting arrest.”
If you kick someone, you could be charged with assault, but if the GRPD does it to you, it is simply a technique to get someone under control. Does anyone else see the irony in such a statement coming from the GRPD?
Just within the last month, the GRPD has held two Latino youth at gunpoint for walking in the street, punched a black man at least 30 times, while his child is in the back seat of the car, and in this most recent incident, the GRPD officer pull a man out of the car and kick him because he was resisting arrest.
As someone said during the City Commission meeting last night, “How many more incidents are there of the GRPD using force against residents that are not being recorded by people?”
Coalition of groups hold Press Conference to issue demands in light of increased GRPD and ICE violence
Earlier today, members of Movimiento Cosecha GR, GR Rapid Response to ICE and the group 360 GR Movement, held a press conference in front of City Hall to address recent violence against the Black, Latino/Latinx and immigrant communities in Grand Rapids.
It has been a month since members of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response disrupted the City Commission meeting, particularly in response to the GRPD’s role in contacting ICE against Jilmar Ramons-Gomez.
Since that late February Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, the GRPD union has attempted to present activist groups as mobs and suggest that the GR City Commission has “caved” to the demands. The reality is that the city only responded to one of the demands presented in February, which was calling for Captain VanderKooi to be fired for his role in contacting ICE. The other demands – 1) the City of Grand Rapids should use no resources to support ICE and not cooperate with ICE violence against the immigrant community and 2) the City of Grand Rapids should endorse Movimiento Cosecha GR’s Drivers License for All campaign; these demands have been completely ignored.
Those who spoke at the Press Conference held earlier today not only addressed the fact that the City of Grand Rapids has ignored the previous demands, they responded to recent incidents of police violence against members of the black and brown communities, which we have written about as well.
Now these three groups have added to their demands and will present them at the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting tonight (March 26). What follows is a list of the new set of demands that was put together by the 360 GR Movement, Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE.
- Fire Captain Curt VanderKooi and the unnamed officer who beat the young man in the car. VandeKooi has a long history of discrimination based on race and he is not safe for our neighborhoods.
- Stop all cooperation with ICE and use no city resources to do the work of ICE. There should be no police role of “ICE liaison.”
- Support Driver’s Licenses for All in the State of Michigan.
- Release the code of conduct for officers and the track record of each officer in following this code of conduct, including complaints against them. Release the reports of their investigations so that the public can track their accountability processes. Create an accountability reprimand policy for all officers that stand by during instances of beatings or other harm.
- Create subpoena powers and investigative powers for our Civilian Appeals Board.
- Give a vote of No Confidence to Acting Chief Kiddle.
- Create a program whereby GRPD pays for at minimum 5 years of trauma-related therapy especially for any youth interaction deemed inappropriate regarding harassment, profiling, excessive force etc.
- Appropriate the million dollars a year that the city has set aside to deal with community police relations directly to the community instead of it just standing by while police incidents continue to separate our community. The community knows best what to do with that money to make our neighborhoods safer.
Besides attending the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting to present these demands, the three groups will be speaking to these demands at the Michigan Civil Rights Commission public hearing this Thursday, hearing that are being held because of the recent documented GRPD acts of violence against communities of color.
The Language of Capitalism in Grand Rapids
I recently got a copy of the new book, Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism, by John Patrick Leary.
Leary’s book is delightful to read, but also serves as an important guide for how to think about how the system of capitalism has co-opted, even transformed the language we use to describe things.
The author states in his introduction that, “A notable feature of contemporary capitalist discourse is its embrace of what earlier ruling classes never hesitated to repress: dissent and heterodoxy, the stuff of innovation in the old, seventeenth-century sense.”
Just think about the terms that capitalism has created or transformed in recent years to give it an edgy, almost counter-cultural feeling. Words like place making, robust, stakeholder, thought leader, creative class, human capital, curator, best practices and empowerment. All of these words used to mean something else, but now they are used by the capitalist class as the language that best describes what it is they seek to achieve.
Leary also makes the point that, “the managerial tenor of the terms in this book, also reflect s the way that capitalist ideology renders labor invisible, just as it has always done.”
What I would like to do in the coming weeks and months, is to use some of the words found in Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism, and apply them to organizations and structures in Grand Rapids. This is an important task, since the application of language and analysis is particularly relevant when we can use it in our own locale, to name and identify that which we are most familiar with.
Therefore, we will take one of capitalist words included in Leary’s book and use it to describe an organization, an entity or a system in Grand Rapids that embraces capitalist on neoliberal capitalist values.
Today’s capitalist word is, accountability.
This is what Leary says about the word accountability:
Accountability is a term that has exploded in popularity over the last five decades after remaining relatively consistent for centuries. It shares with innovation a deep and mostly forgotten religious background. With the combination of moral responsibility it retains from its Christian origins and the now dominant meaning of task-based counting, accountability captures the popular fantasy of quantifying virtue.
There are plenty of organizations or systems of power that the capitalist use of the word accountability would apply to in Grand Rapids. However, considering what has been happening in the past few years and even the past few weeks, maybe the word accountability would best fit with the GRPD.
Now, many people would think that “holding the GRPD accountable” is a good thing. But what exactly does that mean? Policing scholar Alex Vitale, in his most recent book, The End of Policing, states:
“accountability measures, like body cameras and civilian complaint boards, are not only subject to the authority of the police – who can turn off the camera or stonewall the board – but also leave intact the basic institutional functions of the police, which have never really been about public safety or crime control.”
Indeed, the GRPD union has been making the claims that the public video taping of their actions against people of color in recent weeks has “altered public perception.” Of course it has, because it is in direct conflict with the GRPD version of what happened. More importantly, as Vitale points out, accountability with the GRPD is near impossible when the police are allowed to police themselves, when they use one-third of the City’s budget and when the police union contract allows them to remove formal complaints from individual officer files.
The notion of accountability with the GRPD is almost a joke. What is needed, is not accountability, but a completely different conversation on the fundamental nature of policing and whether or not its primary functions is to protect systems of power and to manage certain populations, specifically communities of color and any communities of dissent.
Anyone who is familiar with the DeVos family, knows that the two central ideological pieces their family embraces are, Christianity and Capitalism.
To be clear, the kind of Christianity that the DeVos family practices is a mix of Calvinism and Christian Reconstructionism. Calvinism is evidenced by their, “we are part of the chosen, therefore God has blessed us with great wealth,” and Christian Reconstructionism can be seen in their desire to put biblical law over US Constitutional law. For more on the family’s history see our DeVos Family Reader: We’re Rich and We Do What We Want.
Within the past two weeks, with two separate announcements, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, put God and the Market as talking points for recent policy decisions.
On March 11, DeVos made this announcement:
The U.S. Department of Education, in consultation with the U.S. Department of Justice, determined the statutory provisions in Section 1117(d)(2)(B) and 8501(d)(2)(B) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that require an equitable services provider to “be independent of … any religious organization” are unconstitutional because they categorically exclude religious organizations based solely on their religious identity.
DeVos went on to say:
“The Trinity Lutheran decision reaffirmed the long-understood intent of the First Amendment to not restrict the free exercise of religion. Those seeking to provide high-quality educational services to students and teachers should not be discriminated against simply based on the religious character of their organization.”
So much of constitutional law comes down to interpretation, but what is really at issue here is not the discrimination of religious educational institutions, but the use of public funds for said institutions.
The second major announcement came on March 21st, with Betsy DeVos’ statement on the Trump administration’s Executive Order on higher education.
We believe that these important reforms, along with the Department’s ambitious negotiated rulemaking agenda, will make college more affordable, break down barriers to innovation in higher education, and encourage new approaches and new partnerships for the benefit of students.
While this Executive Order does deal with tuition costs and loan payments, the important point to note in the statement above is “new partnerships for the benefit of students.”
What Betsy DeVos means when she talks about new partnerships, is specifically partnerships with the private sector – the corporate and business community. This focus, from the Secretary of Education was reflected a few days earlier, on March 18, when Betsy DeVos was speaking at a meeting for the National Council for the American Worker.
Here Betsy DeVos is very clear about what the objective of higher education should be, when she says:
“To meet the needs of our nation’s students and our growing economy, we must rethink higher education. Right now, there are 7.3 million unfilled jobs in the United States, yet too many Americans remain out of the workforce because they lack the skills necessary to seize these opportunities. We must do better for our students and workers.”
In many ways, these two major announcements, which have occurred within the past two weeks, are a clear indication of Betsy DeVos’ desire to make God and the Market central aspects of the US education system.
