Philanthropy is just reputation laundering for the oligarchy.
It is that time of the year again, when GRIID posts about the various West Michigan Foundations from families that make up the Grand Rapids Power Structure. I started with the DeVos family, which has 5 different foundations. Now I want to look at the Van Andel family foundations.
The Stephen and Amy Van Andel Foundation
GRIID has always begun our Foundation Watch work by looking at the foundations associated with the most powerful family in West Michigan, the DeVos family. Six weeks ago I looked at the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, then five weeks ago I investigated the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation. Four weeks ago it was the Dan and Pamela DeVos Foundation, and three weeks ago it was the CDV5 Foundation, which is the Cheri DeVos Foundation. Two weeks ago I looked at the DeVos Family Foundation, and last week I wrote about the David and Carol Van Andel Foundation.
According to GuideStar, in 2023, the Stephen and Amy Van Andel Family Foundation contributed $16,482,013 leaving them with $99,226,020 of funds left in their foundation account.
The Stephen and Amy Van Andel Family Foundation made contributions to dozens of entities in 2023, but there are some clear categories of groups they contributed to, such as the Religious Right, Think Tanks, Education-centered groups, and social service entities, to name a few.
Religious Right
- Bethel Community Education – $50,000
- Guiding Light Mission – $10,000
Think Tanks
- Acton Institute – $2,500
- American Enterprise Institute – $20,000
- The George W Bush Foundation – $3,000,000
- Grand Rapids Economic Club – $25,000
- The Heritage Foundation – $10,000
Education-centered groups
- Cornerstone University – $15,000
- Grand Rapids Catholic Secondary Schools – $100,000
- Grand Rapids Christian Schools – $300,000
- Hillsdale College – $3,000,000
- Potter’s House – $30,000
- Western Theological Seminary – $1,876,000
Van Andel-owned, created or connected groups
- Van Andel Research Institute – $10,000
Groups receiving Hush $
- Baxter Community Center – $30,000
- Family Promise – $75,000
- Kids Food Basket – $25,000
- Literacy Center of West MI – $25,000
One recipient of funding from the Steve and Amy Van Andel Foundation that stands out is Hillsdale College ($3 Million). Hillsdale College is know for being part of the larger Charter School movement that opposes Public Education and is on the advisory board of Project 2025.
Hillsdale College has a long history of practicing and promoting far right values. The former President of Hillsdale College, George Roche, was also on the advisory board of the US affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League, according to Scott and Jon Lee Andersen’s book, Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League.
Hillsdale College has hosted forums over the years with speakers such as Manuel Ayau, a member of Guatemala’s Amigos del Pais, a group linked to the death squads in Guatemala. Hillsdale also houses the late John Bircher Clarence Manion’s tape collection, with lectures from former Nicaraguan Dictator Anastasio Somoza Hillsdale’s magazine, Imprimis, which provides a forum for anti-minority views.
In another book by Russ Bellant, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism, the author writes:
“Longtime Hiilsdale President Roche is opposed in general to social engineering plans, among which he includes affirmative action and public education. Roche has attacked the Civil Rights Restoration Act as frightening federal intervention. He calls affirmative action “the putrid backwash of all the tired social engineering schemes and complains that its advocates are so hypersensitive that a school’s unwillingness to set up advanced bongo drum programs is called racist.”
Bellant goes on to say:
“The selection of contributors for Hillsdale’s monthly magazine, Imprimis, also relfects the school’s far right political views. In one issue, Gerda Bikales, a founder and former executive director of the English Only organization, US English, condemned the advocates of cultural diversity and bilingual education. She attacked the skilled language planners and other militant advocates who promote bilingual education, as well as those who aggressively pursue diversity and cultural pluralism.”
However, don’t just take the word of Bellant, even a recent article in the New York Times made it clear that the politics of Hillsdale College are reactionary and far right.
Because Hillsdale College does not accept federal money, they do not have to follow federal policy, like Title IX. As a result, the college does not follow Title IX guidelines on sex discrimination and the handling of sexual assault cases and it has refused to engage in the otherwise required reporting on student race and ethnicity, let alone develop an affirmative action plan. Not surprisingly, the school’s “race blind” admissions policy results in an overwhelmingly white student body.
In 2013, Dr. Arnn was castigated by Michigan legislators when, during testimony against the Common Core, he made a remark about officials who questioned Hillsdale’s racial record. Years before, he said scornfully, Michigan officials had come to the campus with clipboards, trying to count faces and prove, he said, that the college “didn’t have enough dark ones.” He later issued a barbed apology: “No offense was intended by the use of that term except to the offending bureaucrats.”
The New York Times article goes on to say:
It is no coincidence that Justice Clarence Thomas, an advocate of strict “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution, delivered the commencement address last spring, likening Hillsdale to a “shining city on a hill” for its devotion to “liberty as an antecedent of government, not a benefit from government.”
On a recent episode of Doug DeVos’ podcast Believe, GRIID provided some analysis on the comments from the current Hillsdale College President, Dr. Larry Arnn, which are here below.
The President of Hillsdale College engages in what most scholars refer to as American Exceptionalism. American Exceptionalism is the idea that the US as a country is unique and special and should be seen as a model for the rest of the world. This sentiment is reflected in the conversation between Dr. Arnn and Doug DeVos, since neither of them mention anything about the US genocidal policies directed at the First Nation’s people that lived here way before the Europeans invaded these lands.
The Hillsdale President does acknowledge slavery, but just in passing. Interestingly enough, Dr. Arnn then spends a great deal of time talking negatively about the 1619 Project, stating:
You know, the New York Times has done that frightful 1619 Project. And they claim that the movement of the founding of America from the colonies forward was in the direction of perpetuating slavery.
The President of Hillsdale College then cites Gordon Wood as the leading US Historian, so as to contradict the claims made by the 1619 Project. This theme is not really explored by DeVos or his guest, since both are not interested in a serious exploration of the more honest history that the 1619 Project explores, particularly as it related to the centuries long practice of systemic racism in the US and how it has impacted the Black community in particular.
While DeVos and his guest make backhanded comments about Critical Race Theory, they fail to mention that Hillsdale College has developed their own curriculum to counter the 1619 Project. The Hillsdale project is called The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum, which is a very sanitized and whitewashed version of US history.
Hillsdale College is also smack dab in the middle of the Charter School debate in the US, providing curriculum resources and a cadre of ideological apologists for far right values. In fact, a recent investigation by NewsChannel5 in Tennessee, “discovered new evidence that reveals the true Hillsdale connection, including more hidden-camera video from the reception hosted by Hillsdale president Larry Arnn for Lee.
That’s the same video where Arnn famously declared that public school teachers come from “the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges.”
Following the release of that controversial video, three Tennessee school boards voted down applications from the Hillsdale-affiliated American Classical Education to open charter schools in their districts.
All of this is to show that, like so many other wealthy families from West Michigan, the Van Andel family has a long history of funding far right causes and institutions, like Hillsdale College. This example demonstrates once again, that philanthropic contributions are not simply charitable gifts, the foundations of wealthy families are designed to channel massive funds to promote their ideological interests.
Billionaires like the DeVos family will also benefit from the Big Beautiful Bill just for owning private jets
The Big Beautiful Bill, which is only beautiful for the Capitalist Class and government entities like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will deeply hurt millions of people in the US, especially those who rely on Medicaid.
There is another aspect of the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) that hasn’t received much attention, one which will benefit billionaire families like the DeVos family.
According to inequality.org, the BBB:
“Includes a massive tax subsidy for private jet buyers. Instead of corporations deducting the purchase of their jets over several years of their useful life, the BBB includes 100 percent “bonus depreciation” in the year of purchase.
For example, a corporation purchasing a $50 million private jet could potentially deduct the entire $50 million from their taxes in the year of the purchase, rather than spreading the deduction over many years. This amounts to a massive taxpayer subsidy, as ordinary taxpayers pick up the tab for the private jet industry and billionaire high flyers.
From our IPS research on private jets, we know that regular taxpayers and commercial air travelers subsidize the high-flying excess of private jet owners. In the U.S. private jets use seven percent of the airspace but only contribute 0.6 percent of the cost of using it.
As wealth has concentrated into the vaults of the ultra-wealthy, the demand for private jets is surging. Every billionaire appears to need one or two. As a result, private jets are one of the largest and fastest growing sources of air and climate pollution. In 2023, private jets emitted 19.5 million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a 25 percent increase over 2013 levels.”
The DeVos Family and their fleet of jets
It is always difficult to find out details about the wealth of the DeVos family, primarily because they don’t believe in full transparency and because they have diversified their wealth and assets in such a way as to make it difficult to track.
There was an interesting article from Business Insider in 2018, with a headline that read, Education secretary Betsy DeVos owns a fleet of 12 private jets and 4 helicopters. In that article it states:
According to Forbes, the DeVos family owns a fleet of 12 private jets — 1 Boeing Business Jet, 5 Gulfstream G550’s, 1 Gulfstream G450, 2 Bombardier Challenger 350’s, 3 Cessna Citation CJ4’s — and four helicopters.
We also know that while she was the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos used her own private jets to travel as Education Secretary, rather than using commercial planes.
Then there is the fact that the global corporation that Rich DeVos founded with Jay Van Andel, the Amway Corporation, also has a fleet of private jets and other planes, with their own hangar at the Kent County Airport.
The Amway corporate jets get even more use than the private jets owned by the DeVos family, primarily because the Amway jets are used by more people, particularly the people who are near the top of earners in their notorious pyramid scheme. In addition, the Amway Corporation has partnered with other commercial airline companies to offer exclusive trips to Amway distributors for Amway conventions. One example was the partnership with the Emirates, the world’s largest international airline, which transported over 6,500 distributors and company representatives to Dubai.
Then there is the Charter School scheme that Dick DeVos runs, the West Michigan Aviation Academy. The West Michigan Aviation Academy, located at the Kent County Airport, is a school designed to create more pilots, but it also encourages more private jet/plane ownership and use. In the past, Dick DeVos has complained about his Charter School not getting enough public funding.
Therefore, on top of the fact that the DeVos family:
- Makes massive political contributions to GOP candidates/politicians, which adopt policies that do tremendous harm to working class families, immigrants, the LGBTQ community and BIPOC people in general;
- Uses their foundations to funnel millions to far right groups like Focus on the Family or think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute or the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
The DeVos family and the Amway Corporation – just on the matter of air travel – emit at least 10 times more pollutants than anyone else who books a flight from the Kent County Airport. Lastly, besides travel for pleasure, the DeVos family uses their private jets to travel to places to meet with other disgustingly rich people to figure out new ways to expand their wealth and to exploit and oppress more of the world’s population, while creating more pollution and perpetuating Climate Change. Reason #31 for why we should have nothing but contempt for the most powerful family in West Michigan, the DeVos family.
Last week, Michigan Senator Slotkin, along with several Democratic Senators, introduced a bill that is called, the Visible Identification Standards for Immigration-Based Law Enforcement (VISIBLE) Act of 2025.
According to a statement released by Senator Slotkin, the VISIBLE Act would do the following:
- Requires immigration enforcement officers — including DHS personnel such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), federal agents detailed to immigration operations, and deputized state or local officers — to display clearly legible identification, including their agency name or initials and either their name or badge number, in a manner that remains visible and unobscured by tactical gear or clothing;
- Prohibits non-medical face coverings (such as masks or balaclavas) that obscure identity or facial visibility, with exceptions for environmental hazards or covert operations; and
- Requires DHS to establish disciplinary procedures for violations, report annually to Congress on compliance, and investigate complaints through its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
In the statement released by Slotkin, it provides some of the motivations for proposing such a bill, stating:
Clear, consistent, visible identification helps reduce miscommunication during enforcement encounters, strengthens officer credibility, and improves public cooperation, all of which are vital to mission success. The VISIBLE Act would place a critical check on the government’s power, ensuring basic transparency safeguards that protect public trust and legitimacy in immigration enforcement operations.
I highlighted parts of the statement from Senator Slotkin, so as to make a point about the absurdity of the VISIBLE Act.
Calling what ICE does as enforcement encounters legitimizes that ICE is arresting and detaining immigrants, simply because they are undocumented.
Slotkin also states that when ICE arrests or detains immigrants it strengthens officer credibility if they aren’t covering their faces, which means if immigrants can look into the eyes of the ICE agents that are arresting and detaining them, it strengthens the credibility of the ICE agents.
The Michigan Senator also thinks that ICE agents not covering up their face would improve public cooperation. This one is interesting, since it suggests that people will more like be willing to cooperate in the arrest and detainment of immigrants if ICE agents don’t have their faces covered.
The last part that is in bold merely restates what was previously said about public trust and legitimizing what ICE does to immigrants.
I understand the intention behind the proposed legislation, with ICE agents not providing transparency or to limit the number of fake-ICE agents from taking immigrants. However, what I find most problematic and most distributing about the VISIBLE Act is that it is not calling for the actual abolishment of ICE. Do you think that immigrants will feel better or less terrorized if ICE agents are not covering their faces when they arrest them and take them to a detention facility?
It is important that we stop supporting politicians who merely want to make mild reforms to institutions that are inherently oppressive. Requiring cops to wear body cameras has not reduced the number of times that cops abuse or kill people they are targeting. In fact, since body cameras have been introduced, the number of people killed by cops has increased, according to mappingpoliceviolence.org.
Everything about this proposed legislation is not only wrong, it would help to strength state carceral violence. What we need is to embrace a more abolitionist framework into our efforts to resist ICE. This is exactly what Detention Watch Network staffer and longtime activist Silky Shah writes about in her amazing book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition.
Taking a more abolitionist approach to US immigration policy is also what Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE does. I encourage you to follow them on social media and get involved in their work.
It has been more than 21 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
“Completely Illegal”: Dr. Feroze Sidhwa on Israel’s “Outrageous” Attacks on Gaza Hospitals & Staff
In Gaza, Aid Is a Tracking Device Distributed by People With Guns and Drones
I Covered the Intifada. It’s Wrong to Say It Means Violence Against Jews
Gunfire Communication with “Zombie Hordes”: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the IDF
Analysis & History
The Hamas Response to Trump’s Gaza “Ceasefire” Proposal
“Freedom to Choose”?: Peter Beinart Slams Trump-Netanyahu Plan for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
From Guatemala to Gaza, genocide denial thwarts justice
Image used in this post is from https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/fueling-genocide/
Deconstructing Memes: Organized movements have been responsible for the rights people have in the US
In my latest installment of Deconstructing Memes, I dissect a recent meme that presents a very binary narrative about how rights were won in the US.
The dominant binary used in this meme is the Liberal vs Conservative binary, a binary that is not only over used, but one that in this case misrepresents the list of “wins” included in the meme.
Before I deconstruct the list, it is worth noting that the person whom the meme content is attributed to is Lawrence O’Donnell, who has a show on MSNBC and acted in the TV series, The West Wing, a show that many self-identifying liberal (especially white liberals) celebrated. For me it is instructive that the Liberal vs Conservative binary being used here comes from a white liberal who not only has celebrity status, but class privilege. Arguably, these traits – white, with economic privilege and someone who enjoys celebrity status – are how many people see liberals. For an interesting critique of how working class people see liberals, read the book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War, by Joe Bageant.
However, my main critique of this meme has to do with the list of “wins” that are all attributed to liberals. I want to look at each of these claims and to provide a more honest and often complex set of circumstances around how these “wins” came about.
Liberals got women the right to vote – Women organized for several decades to win the right to vote in the US all across the country, demanding that the US government adopt the 19th Amendment. I have written about this effort here in Grand Rapids, which began in the later part of the 19th Century.
The 19th Amendment in the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 304 to 89. It was a decisive victory, and the split among Democrats and Republicans was staggering. In all, over 200 Republicans voted in favor of the 19th Amendment, while only 102 Democrats voted alongside them. Subsequently, on June 4, 1919, the 19th Amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 56 to 25. Once again, the split among Democrats and Republicans was notable: eighty-two percent of Republicans voted in favor of the amendment while only forty-one percent of their Democrat colleagues concurred. Equally important is the fact that only white women won the right to vote with the passing of the 19th Amendment.
Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote – Actually, Black organizers were demanding voting rights for decades, often at great risk to themselves. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was adopted by the Johnson Administration primarily because Black people involved in the Civil Rights Movement/Black Freedom Struggle, were demanding voting rights, civil rights and economic rights, plus the Johnson Administration wanted to avoid further social unrest and believed that by giving Black people the right to vote that they would stop or lessen other demands. The Voting Rights Act was only possible because of the tireless efforts of those involved in the Civil Rights Movement/Black Freedom Struggle. See the 3 volumes by Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters, Manning Marable’s book, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006, and Elizabeth Hinton, America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s.
Liberals created Social Security, and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty – The FDR administration adopted social security, but it was primarily because the US labor movement was at its peak just after the Great Depression. As Jeremy Brecher notes in his book Strike!, organized labor was engaging in 1,000 strikes per year during the first FDR Administration, with numerous demands around wages, the right to organize, benefits, labor exploitation, even questioning the economic system of Capitalism. It is in this context that the Roosevelt Administration adopted New Deal policies, since workers were on the verge of undermining free market capitalism. Adopting New Deal policies like Social Security was a way to somewhat pacify the militant labor movement, since they were beginning to demand a larger anti-capitalist platform. This history is also well documented in Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States.
Liberals ended segregation – see my response to Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.
Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act – see my response to Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.
Liberals passed the Voting Rights Act – see my response to Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.
Liberals created Medicare – Medicare was adopted in 1965, within the context of the Civil Rights Movement, the labor movement and a growing women’s and anti-war movement that were all calling for an expanded social safety net. In addition, the creation of Medicare also necessitated 70 House Republicans and 13 Senate Republicans who voted to adopt Medicare.
Liberals passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act – People like Ralph Nader, his group Public Citizen and the growing environmental movement were the ones who pressured Congress to adopt the Clear Air Act in 1970. The House voted 374 to 1 in favor of the Clean Air Act and the Senate voted 73 – 0 in favor. This was a bi-partisan effort. The same was the case for the Clean Water Act, which saw a vote of 366-11 in the House and 74 – 0 in the Senate. Again, this was due to massive public support and years of grassroots organizing.
The bottom line is that the organized grassroots movements were the real reason for the policy changes in the US during the 20th Century, like all of the ones listed in this meme. Claiming that liberals were the ones who made it happen is not only inaccurate, it erases the history of a very diverse group(s) of people that organized around these issues, which included socialists, communists, and anarchists, along with people who identified as liberals and conservatives. Learning this history can help as be free from the liberal/conservative binaries that limit our imagination and feeds into the Red/Blue political bullshit.
Last weekend I wrote a post about the No Detention Centers Michigan protest that took place at the Geo Group’s detention facility in Baldwin, MI, which you can read here.
There were several white people who attended the protest who were not happy with those who were engaged in a disruptive action, nor were they happy with how the crowd safety team (which included me) handled the situation. In my July 5th article, I wrote:
I mention this, because there were several people who not happy with those that were involved in the disruptive tactic at the GEO Group protest on Friday. One white woman told me directly that she felt that what they were doing was “not what you do at a peaceful protest.” I responded by saying that disruptive tactics have been central to all social movements throughout US history and that just because disruptive tactics are often confrontational, they are completely appropriate.
In the past few days the same white women who were unhappy with those using disruption as a tactic, have been escalating their frustration by attacking No Detention Centers Michigan, GR Rapid Response to ICE and myself. I don’t much care about any attacks directed my way, but I do take issue with the attacks against No Detention Centers Michigan and GR Rapid Response to ICE. Both of these autonomous, grassroots groups have been doing amazing work in Michigan since 2018 and 2017, respectively.
So how do we make sense of the idea of a “peaceful protest” and how do we interrogate our own privilege and possible complicity during protests that the police or the state refer to as “peaceful?”
First, it is important to come to terms with the use of the word peace, which for many people means the absence of conflict. If we think about peace in terms of a protest, then we have to ask ourselves if there is no conflict. The very nature of a protest, whether we are talking about climate change, US militarism or police violence against black people, there is always an inherent conflict. People protest because some injustice has occurred, because they want to express some grievances, grievances often directed at the very institutions that are at the heart of the conflict. Therefore, we can conclude that a protest cannot be peaceful, since there indeed is a conflict.
Second, it is important that we frame the issue of ICE attacks against immigrants as a form of racism, White Supremacy and state sponsored violence against immigrants, and it is especially important that we frame it through the lens of power. Systems of power, like ICE, have the backing of the legal system, the political system and propaganda systems like news media, popular culture and schooling, all of which present a general narrative that the oppression of undocumented people is necessary. All of these systems of power protect and legitimize ICE and very function of ICE. In addition, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are just one clear example of structural violence, which we are conditioned to not think about. As Alex Vitale, author of the book, The End of Policing, states:
Well-trained police following proper procedure are still going to be arresting people for mostly low-level offenses, and the burden will continue to fall primarily on communities of color because that is how the system is designed to operate – not because of the biases or misunderstandings of officers.
Third, the presence of police at a protest, means there are people with guns, tasers, mace, clubs, tear gas, rubber bullets and a whole range of other high tech weapons. As anyone who has ever participated in a protest knows, it doesn’t take much for the police to use any number of these weapons. In fact, one could argue that the police are looking for a reason to use such weapons. However, even if they don’t use these weapons, there is always the threat of their use, which means that whenever cops are at a protest it CANNOT be a peaceful protest.
Fourth, calling a protest peaceful, when protests are anything but peaceful, is a way for the system(s) to dictate the narrative about what is happening. When the police say a protest was peaceful, they mean that those protesting obeyed their orders, did nothing to disrupt business as usual, and often it means that protest organizers cooperated or collaborated with the police. In fact, one could argue that if this happens, then it is not really a protest, instead it becomes a performance. Such forms of “protests” are almost always organized by white liberals to make other white people feel good about themselves, without having to interrogate systems of power and oppression.
If people want to denigrate groups like No Detention Centers Michigan or GR Rapid Response to ICE then they need to interrogate why they are attacking these groups. I would argue that attacking organizations that have a history of resistance against state violence ends up benefiting the state or other systems of power.
Additionally, No Detention Centers Michigan and GR Rapid Response to ICE both center the voices and lived experiences of the affected community, and work directly with groups like Movimiento Cosecha, and only do the work that groups like Cosecha are asking allies to do.
These are the things that I believe that white liberals need to interrogate. Otherwise, they end up doing the work of systems of power and oppression, whether or not they are even aware of it.
Last night, about 25 people from Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE went to the home of the Mayor of Grand Rapids in their campaign to get the city to adopt sanctuary policies. This action was a result of the cancelled City Commission meeting that was announced just hours after Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE posted information about an ICE Our of GR Rally at Calder Plaza.
The Sanctuary campaign initiated by the two groups began in early 2025, after they had general thousands of online demands and then presented those demands at a City Commission meeting in late January. Here are the demands they presented last night:
- Policies restricting the ability of state and local police to make arrests for federal immigration violations, or to detain individuals on civil immigration warrants;
- Policies restricting the police or other city workers from asking about immigration status;
- Policies prohibiting “287(g)” agreements through which ICE deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law;
- Policies that prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention;
- Policies preventing immigration detention centers in Grand Rapids.
- GRPD will not arrest people who GR Rapid Response to ICE mobilizes to prevent ICE from arresting and detaining members of the immigrant community.
- Policies that would prohibit the GRPD from using FLOCK camera technology that would be shared with ICE agents of other law enforcement groups.
While most people gathered in front of Mayor LaGrand’s home, 3 people went to his front door to present the demands and have a conversation with him. After repeated attempts to get the Mayor to open the door, those who showed up to his house realized that he was not going to answer the door.
Undeterred, those who showed up to the Mayor’s house continued to engage in chants, which got the attention of several neighbors and those who were on a nightly walk through the neighborhood. The response to what was being said was favorable and some people who were walking even decided to join the protest.
In addition to the demands for the City of Grand Rapids to adopt sanctuary policies, several people spoke about why these policies were important, specifically to address the high level of fear and the violence of family separation that ICE is inflicting in this city. One person talked about a Salvadoran family that went into Sanctuary after the father was taken by ICE while attending his scheduled appointment with ICE.
Another person, who has been involved in accompaniment work that GR Rapid Response to ICE began after the ICE raid at the ISAP office on June 4th, talked about the level of fear that exists in the immigrant community and how the GRPD has been colluding with ICE by harassing and threatening those who have been accompanying immigrants to their appointments over the past month.
The immigrant justice activists who converged on Mayor LaGrand’s house last night know that winning sanctuary policies will not be easy, but they clearly communicated their resolve last night. In addition, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are inviting people to come to the July 29th Grand Rapids City Commission meeting to once again present their demands for sanctuary policies in this City.
Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE will continue to practice immigrant solidarity, to fight for immigrant justice and to resist ICE violence in this city. The question is, what will Grand Rapids City officials do? The Trump Administration just increased the ICE budget by billions of dollars, which means that people and institutions need to make a choice about how to respond. There is no middle ground on this matter, it is either immigrant solidarity or complicity with ICE violence.
Here is a recording of the action at Mayor LaGrand’s house last night.
Philanthropy is just reputation laundering for the oligarchy.
It is that time of the year again, when GRIID posts about the various West Michigan Foundations from families that make up the Grand Rapids Power Structure. I started with the DeVos family, which has 5 different foundations. Now I want to look at the Van Andel family foundations.
The David and Carol Van Andel Foundation
GRIID has always begun our Foundation Watch work by looking at the foundations associated with the most powerful family in West Michigan, the DeVos family. Five weeks ago I looked at the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, then four weeks ago I investigated the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation. Three weeks ago it was the Dan and Pamela DeVos Foundation, and two weeks ago it was the CDV5 Foundation, which is the Cheri DeVos Foundation. Last week, I looked at the DeVos Family Foundation.
According to GuideStar, in 2023, the David and Carol Van Andel Family Foundation contributed $16,898,064 leaving them with $109,872,066 of funds left in their foundation account.
The David and Carol Van Andel Family Foundation made contributions to dozens of entities in 2023, but there are some clear categories of groups they contributed to, such as the Religious Right, Think Tanks, Education-centered groups, and social service entities, to name a few.
Before I dive into how the David and Carol Van Andel Foundation distributed their funds, I wanted to point out that David Van Andel is chairman and CEO of Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, along with numerous other business investments.
Religious Right
- Cascade Fellowship CRC – $100,000
- Mel Trotter Ministries – $1,500,000
Think Tanks
- Acton Institute – $73,500
- Grand Action Foundation – $1,000,000
Education-centered groups
- Ada Christian School Education Foundation – $1,000,000
- Calvin Theological Seminary – $40,000
- Grand Rapids Christian Schools – $300,000
- Hope College – $25,000
- Western Theological Seminary – $1,876,000
Van Andel-owned, created or connected groups
- Van Andel Research Institute – $68,800
Groups receiving Hush $
- Bethany Christian Services – $1,100,000
- Blandford Nature Center – $120,000
- Inner City Christian Federation – $120,000
- Kids Food Basket – $100,000
- Opera Grand Rapids – $165,000 (a representative of the David and Carol Van Andel Foundation sits on the Board of Trustees) https://www.operagr.org/board-of-trustees/
- Salvation Army – $50,000
It is instructive to see that in 2022, the David and Carol Van Andel Foundation contributed $1 million to the Grand Action Foundation, an organization that the Van Andel family has been involved in since it was founded, plus an organization that has convinced the City and the County to use hundreds of millions in public tax dollars to fund the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium. Not surprising, the new soccer team will be jointly owned by the DeVos and Van Andel families.
It is also not surprising that the David and Carol Van Andel Foundation contributed to Bethany Christian Services, which has reverted back to it’s more ridged and ideological stance on issues like only hiring Christian staff and taking an anti-LGBTQ position. Like the DeVos family, the Van Andel family doesn’t give money just for the fun of it, they use their foundation funds to strategically support the Christian and political right entities, especially in West Michigan.
I came across this image and the text that accompanies it the other day on social media. It appears to have been created by Karly Kingsley, a former chef and now writer and supposed influencer, who posted this message on June 10th on their Instagram page. I saw lots of people sharing this image on social media, which lead me to writing this post.
The image show four cops, in riot gear, who have just abused and are now standing over a civilian. The image is presumably from Los Angeles, where civilians, mostly from the Latine community, have been fighting back against ICE attacks on family members and neighbors.
The text reads:
The Obama administration deported over 3.16 million people. Biden’s passed 4.44 million. Not once did either need troops in the streets to do it. That’s all you need to know about what’s happening.
Wow! There is a lot to unpack with this statement.
First, the liberal social media influencer is acknowledging that the Obama and Biden Administrations collectively deported 7.6 million people during their two administrations, but somehow that is ok, because they never used the National Guard to respond to a public uprising. Let me be clear, the deportation of undocumented immigrants is harm, it is brutal, dehumanizing, it destroys families, and it causes deep trauma that will never go away.
Second, for Karly Kingsley, none of harm and trauma of deportation really matters, since the Obama, nor the Biden Administrations, never called in the National Guard to deal with those resisting ICE violence. In no way does the use of the National Guard by the Trump Administration make the harm done to immigrants by the Obama and Biden Administrations any less heinous.
Third, telling people that “this is all you need to know about what is happening” not only minimizing the brutal harm done to immigrant communities by the Obama and Biden Administrations, it also re-enforces the pathetic and sophomoric notion that the President’s we voted for aren’t as bad as the President you voted for. What is wrong with people? Are we in seventh grade? Do people actually want to hang their hats on the idea that no matter how much harm the President’s we voted for committed, it doesn’t compare to the harm done by Trump?”
Fourth, just to be clear, liberal and Democratic Presidents and governments have used the National Guard on civilians just as frequently as Republican Presidents and politicians have in this country’s history. Hell, during the 1960s, the Johnson Administration used the National Guard to suppress urban uprisings all across the US, when Black people took to the streets in response to police violence and systemic racism that their communities had been subject to for decades under Jim Crow policies. (See Elizabeth Hinton’s book, America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s.) Even more recently, Michigan Governor Whitmer and then Mayor of Grand Rapids, Rosalynn Bliss, both identified as progressive liberals, called in the Michigan National Guard to suppress the George Floyd uprising in May of 2020.
Lastly, this whole “Democrats are not as bad as Republicans” mantra is shallow and weak. If we want to have a backbone and be honest about what is happening, then we need to own what any administration or politician is doing instead of minimizing the harm being done and say, “well, they aren’t as bad as so and so would be.”
Resorting to the message of “we aren’t as bad as the Republicans” is not only intellectually inferior, it exposes the fact that the Democrats are fundamentally similar on many major issues, they are just not as extreme. The “we aren’t as bad as the Republicans” also demonstrates that the Democrats and Liberalism doesn’t have a vision or practice radical imagination.
As long as Liberalism continues to promote and perpetuate the idea of lesser evilism and refuse to acknowledge the brutal harm it condones, it will continue to lose, have unenthusiastic support or be the reason for people not wanting to engage in the political process.
It has been 21 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
Leaked Chats Show Pro-Israel Extremist Group Betar Organizing Street Confrontations
Internet Access Is a Lifeline for Us in Gaza — So Israel Attacked It
THEY WENT TO GET FLOUR WITH THEIR MOTHER IN GAZA. “SHE CAME BACK IN A WHITE SHROUD.”
THE ISRAELI PLOT TO EXTINGUISH THE JOURNALISTS DOCUMENTING GENOCIDE
Analysis & History
CHRIS HEDGES: PROFITING FROM GENOCIDE
Starvation and Profiteering in Gaza: Talking with Francesca Albanese
Trump Claims He Wants Ceasefire Deal “Next Week” as Israel Expands Attacks in Gaza and West Bank
The Devil in the Details of Trump’s “Final Proposal” for Gaza Ceasefire
Image used in this post is from https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/child-malnutrition/
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 