Next Week, the GVSU Hauenstein Center is hosting a lecture by former US General Wesley Clark.
In the GVSU promotional material I received in the mail, it states that Clark was a valedictorian at West Point and later a Rhodes Scholar. In addition, the GVSU mailer says that Clark was a 4 star general for 38 years in the US military serving as the Supreme Allied Commander with NATO and helped to write and negotiate portions of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.
This all sounds rather impressive, well, it’s impressive if you think that the US military is a humanitarian force. While Clark was the Supreme Allied Commander with NATO, he was responsible for the US?NATO bombing in Kosovo, which knowingly resulted in civilian deaths, actions that are considered in the World Court as war crimes. For those who would like a source on Wesley Clark’s involvement with war crimes in Kosovo, I would encourage you to read Noam Chomsky’s book, The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo or check out this interview with Chomsky discussing the same topic.
What is even more absurd than GVSU bringing former General Wesley Clark – a war criminal – to campus, is the topic that he plans to present. Again, according to the Hauenstein Center’s promotional material, Gen. Clark will present on the challenges of overcoming polarization in America. This lecture is part of the Hauenstein Center’s Common Ground Initiative.
So, GVSU is bringing a known war criminal to speak to the public and students about how the US can overcome the polarization that exists in the US. Interesting. First, how can someone who spent 38 years in the US military, who was directly involved in the bombing of civilians in Kosovo and who legitimizes the history of US military intervention all around the world, how can this person lecture us about how to overcome the current polarization in America?
Secondly, what is it about people who think we need to overcome polarization? I mean, I get it that people want to generally get along with others and the whole unity thing. It is interesting to me that quiet often when something tragic happens, people say that the most important thing for us to do now is to come together and show unity. Why?
For example, when the police kill another black person, people will often say that we need to come together as a community or a nation and demonstrate our unity. Not only do I find such a notion somewhat ridiculous, it dismisses the fact that the nation or the community is already polarized and it will remain so until we confront major systems of oppression.
Black people are killed by police because we have a system of white supremacy that infiltrates every institution. One could also argue that cops killing black people is also because of the economic systems of capitalism, hetero-sexism and patriarchy. Again, the country and our community is already deeply polarized and that is not going to change unless we dismantle these systems of oppression.
Look at the example of gun violence in the US. Last year, after the Parkland School shooting, people kept saying we need to come together as a county to make sure this doesn’t happen again. But here’s the ting……..there are a ton of businesses that manufacture guns who don’t care that those guns will be used to kill people. There are gun lobbyists who give lots of money to politicians to make sure that guns are not regulated too much. Then there are jails/prisons that employee a lot of people who get paid to house those with gun-related charges, along with “security” companies that make all kinds of gadgets to monitor the public, which also profits from a society that is deeply polarized.
Lastly, I’m not really interested in trying to figure out how we can be less polarized as a nation or a country. There will always be people and institutions that profit from the oppression and exploitation of other people. I’m more interested in being part of organizing people who will confront the systems of power and oppression that are the root causes of people not being able to live in peace. Instead of calls for a vague notion of unity, I’d rather have people who are willing to fight against oppression no matter what the risks are.
As we noted in our most recent post, there has been some pushback from the Grand Rapids Police Officers Association and retired GRPD officers on the decision to suspend with pay, Captain Curt VanderKooi over his racist profiling of Jilmar Ramos-Gomez.
At last night’s Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, this was the focus of most of the public comment, just like it was last week. People can watch/listen to those comments themselves, which begin around 37 minutes into the video provided by the city.
After watching the City Commission meeting, it seemed clear to this writer that the local news coverage of last night’s meeting demonstrated a bias in favor of the police and those supporting the police. What follows is a deconstruction of that news coverage.
The headline of the MLive article demonstrates a bias in favor of those who offered support for the GRPD during the public comment, Residents call for Grand Rapids to support police after captain put on leave over ICE incident.
After looking at the video of the commission meeting, I counted 10 people who spoke in support of the police and Captain VanderKooi and 10 people who were critical of the GRPD and VanderKooi, some calling for him to be fired. Thus, the headline should have read, Residents who spoke during the City Commission were divided over the suspension of Captain VanderKooi.
The first sentence in the MLive continues to demonstrates the pro-police bias, by stating:
A week after protesters shut down a city commission meeting demanding a police captain be fired, police supporters called on commissioners Tuesday to back the captain and offer greater support to the police department.
The MLive article cites two people who spoke in support of the GRPD and Captain VanderKooi, one (Johnny Brann) who said they will be starting a new group called, Voice of the Badge. No one who was opposed to police misconduct was cited in the story, which only said, that several protestors turned out Tuesday calling for VanderKooi to be fired. IN fact, if you listen to the public comment from those who opposed the racial profiling by VanderKooi of Ramon-Gomez, they had a great deal more to say than just calling for him to be fired.
Besides the biased demonstrated in the MLive article, the rest of the article simply was re-hashing the arrest of Ramos-Gomez and everything that happened afterwards.
The WOOD TV8 story was equally problematic, with how the reporter framed the story and the text version online, which ran the headline, Supporters criticize placing GRPD capt. on leave. The Wood TV 8 story begins with a comparison of how the previous city commission meeting was “interrupted by protestors,” to some context on why people were outraged over the GRPD’s role in assisting ICE. The channel 8 reported went on to say that while there were still calls for VanderKooi to be fired, the majority of those who spoke were critical of the suspension of Captain VanderKooi. Again, if one watches the public comment period from last night, this simply isn’t true. There were three pro-police voices and one critical of VanderKooi in the channel 8 story that aired last night.
The WZZM 13 story was much shorter and post this headline on their website, Commissioners ask for patience during police investigation. The channel 13 story included one pro-police voice and one who was critical of Capatin VanderKooi. However, like the headline of this story, the focus was primarily on what some City Commissioners had to say, citing two of them in the story.
The WXMI 17 story wasn’t much better, only citing one person who supported VanderKooi and Mayor Bliss. The online headline for Fox 17 was, GR Mayor: Wrongful detainment is an opportunity for growth.
The only other coverage of the city commission meeting last night was WOOD radio, which just re-posted the story from WOOD TV 8.
In addition to the pro-police bias in the local news coverage, none of the local news media chose to respond to the claims that the Grand Rapids City government is anti-police, a comment heard from several people during the meeting. There are ways to verify those claims. First, all of the current commissioners and the Mayor supported the last city budget, which allots a full one-third of the budget to the GRPD. Second, besides the GRPD itself, there is the Grand Rapids Police Officers Association, which always defends the GRPD and there is a group called Friends of GR Cops, which also support the Grand Rapids Police Department.
Now Johnny Brann and others want to create yet another group to support the police, the Voice of the Badge. As of this writing there is no online presence for this group. Also, with the news coverage of this issue in recent days, the local news media could be added to the “support the police” category.
Amidst ICE and Police violence against the immigrant community, most local news media centers the perspectives of cops
The news media continues to report on the incident involving the former Marine and US citizen, Jilamr Ramos-Gomez, and the role that the GRPD played in alerting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of Ramos-Gomez’s arrest.
Much of the news coverage has been generated because of the work that has been done by the ACLU, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE. This coverage escalated last week when these groups confronted the Grand Rapids City Commission on the racist, profiling actions taken by Captain Curt VanderKooi.
There have been several news stories since then that have centered around the reaction from the several Grand Rapids Police Officers, some retired and some with the police union.
On March 1st, MLive and other news agencies reported on a press conference hold by the police union who not only claimed that the suspension of officer VanderKooi was the city “cowering to mob rule,” but that the city put a stop to the GRPD’s efforts to arrest organizers of the May 1, 2018 march organized by Movimiento Cosecha.
Another example is a story that originally ran on WOOD TV8 on Monday night, where two retired GRPD officers added their voices in defense of the now suspended Captain Curt VanderKooi. One of those retired officers even went as far as to say that VanderKooi was not a racist and was in fact, “a role model for officers.”
What is glaringly absent from these most recent news stories are the perspectives of those who are organizing against ICE/Police violence against the immigrant community and the voices of immigrants themselves.
WOOD TV 8 even begins their story with the statement that “they reached out to two long-time officers” who worked with VanderKooi for a long time, thus making it clear that this perspective was sought out. However, there is no counter-balance to the story, since no one from the community who has been challenging the police/ICE collaboration was sought out.
It is important to note at this point that police officers are valorized in this society. This valorization takes place, in part, because numerous institutions make the claim that cops protect the rest of us at great risk. However, the news media and entertainment media also frame the function of law enforcement as necessary and benevolent. Therefore, it is not surprising that the voices of cops and ex-cops are centered over and above members of community that live in constant fear of law enforcement and those who are organizing to expose the collaboration between ICE and local cops.
What is even more interesting is that one of the retired cops who was interviewed in the WOOD TV8 story, Mark Mathis, is also still a member of the Grand Rapids Police Officers Association. He posted this statement about the WOOD TV 8 story on the police union’s Facebook page, a statement, which we are posting in full to demonstrate how the police union thinks about what happened with the arrest of Ramos-Gomez and the subsequent suspension of VanderKooi.
My thanks to Leon Hendrix for reaching out to get additional perspectives.
The News 8 version is my short take on the incident. Here is the longer one:
The real problem is that Special Interest groups and the City Government have joined forces. This incident is a vehicle being used to wall the GRPD off from it’s Federal law enforcement partners.
Captain Vanderkooi is happily being thrown under the bus to accomplish these goals.
First, his action that night was completely appropriate.
This incident involved a suspect setting fire at the biggest hospital in Grand Rapids. He burned a keypad, created lots of smoke, and caused alarms to go off. This was near lots of oxygen tanks and patients. He then tried to gain access to the helipad. This wasn’t a small event at the hospital.
Captain Vanderkooi is the head of the Detective Unit. While at home GRPD commanders get “shift summaries”. He would have been given the basics of the incident and the arrested person’s name.
Because of politics the City has already chosen to wall off street officers from the ability to contact some Federal partners. Captain Vanderkooi was the DESIGNATED person at the PD to make these contacts.
Does anyone think that arson at a major hospital combined with trespassing at an aviation facility isn’t a concern in 2019? Anyone?
Investigators are paid to investigate. Captain Vanderkooi is one of the best. The goal of any investigation is to gather information so that the puzzle pieces can be complete when it’s time to solve the mystery.
ICE doesn’t just deal with illegal aliens… they track all movement in and out of the country. My name is in their database. I just got back from Mexico and ICE both ran my information and added it to the database. It’s a huge lie that the ICE database is simply used by racist cops that hate Hispanic people.
The GRPD should have absolutely checked with our Federal partners to see if they could add any clarity to what was being investigated. Due to City rules Vanderkooi was the designated person to do it.
ICE’s database returned a response that caused ICE concern. ICE came down to talk to the arsonist — who promptly told them he was a Foreign National with bad intent.
Local charges were bumped down and ICE took custody of the guy. Turns out he lied. He was a citizen. ICE was provided proof of that and released him.
This has nothing to do with CVK’s appropriate contact with Federal partners. This has nothing to do with the needed ability to work together in the future.
No investigatory database is inherently evil. Information is good and contributes mightily to community safety.
No one would complain about any other database used in the investigation. No one would care if this guy was Bosnian. The faux outrage only exists to accomplish much larger goals.
Captain Vanderkooi, as the head of the DB, would see reports that have perhaps 20,000 Hispanic surnames over the course of a year. He contacts ICE a handful of times annually. Evidence of profiling or racism? Hardly.
The current victim is Vanderkooi. The next casualty is anyone at the PD that does anything this group doesn’t like. The ultimate victim will be community safety.
At the end of the day do we want our officers to cooperate with KCSD? With the State? With other States? With our Federal Partners?
Or is the real goal to have GRPD operate on a sanctuary island where 20 radical protestors call the investigatory shots?
I sure don’t… and anyone with the ability to reason should be very concerned.
News 8 link below in the first comment. Post has been made public…
Sorry to inconvenience you: Disruption, tactics and the power of Direct Action in Grand Rapids
At the beginning of the Zapatista Revolution in San Cristobal de Las Casa, Chiapas, Mexico on December 31st, 1993:
Tourist – “We have tickets to go whitewater rafting.”
Sub-Comandante Marcos – “Sorry to inconvenience you, but this is a revolution.”
Last week, members of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE disrupted the Grand Rapids City Commission by chanting, “Cops and ICE go hand in hand.”
This disruption resulted in the Mayor of Grand Rapids deciding to end the commission meeting, when those involved in the disruption refused to stop.To those who observed this action, it was clear that there were some people who came to speak to the commission during the public comment period, but were unable to do so because the meeting was adjourned.
There are some who might say that the disruption was rude and disrespectful, but to those who believe in the power of Direct Action and the tactic of disruption, it was clear that the action was effective.
Direct action means that people take collective action to change their circumstances, without handing our power over to someone else to do it, such as a boss or a politician. Direct Action is a broad strategy use by those involved in social movements to demand and simultaneously achieve the kind of changes that movements want.
Now, I doubt that anyone involved in the disruption at last Tuesday’s Grand Rapids City Commission took delight in preventing people from speaking during the public comment period. However, the use of the tactic of disruption was meant to do two things. First, it was meant to send a message to everyone present that the racial profiling that Captain VanderKooi engaged in was unacceptable. Secondly, disrupting the Grand Rapids City Commission was a tactical decision to disrupt business as usual, to say that we will not allow bureaucratic proceedings continue while the GRPD, and their cooperation with ICE, does harm to immigrants in this community.
The result of the tactic of disruption in this case was effective. First, it resulted in demonstrating the power of collective action to shut down the meeting. Second, it sent a clear message about why people were shutting down the meeting. Lastly, it resulting in generating a great deal of news coverage and larger community conversation around the issue of police racial profiling and ICE violence in our community.
Those who also took part in the Direct Action at City Hall last week, using the tactic of disruption were also well aware of the fact that their collective action was based on the example of numerous social movements that have existing throughout history and throughout the world. What follows are just a few examples of the use of direct action and the tactic of disruption from various historic social movements. These were not only effective tactics, but were necessary for achieving fundamental change in the face of repressive policies and systems of oppression.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott – African American activists refusing to move to the back of the bus was a tactic of disruption that definitely inconvenienced white passengers and cost the bus company money, but it eventually led to allowing African American bus riders to sit wherever they wanted to.- ACT Up Against AIDS – ACT Up would regularly use disruption as a tactic. In 1989, 5000 people went into the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City to disrupt mass to draw attention to the Catholic Church’s silence on the AIDS crisis in and their stance on abortion. They handed out condoms during the mass and literature on safe sex.
- Chicago Freedom Movement – In 1966, Dr. King and thousands of other civil rights activists organized non-permitted marches in Chicago with the goal of ending slums. This movement shut down streets, which disrupted traffic, they marched in all white neighborhoods and they march to Real Estate offices to protest housing discrimination. They used the tactic of disruption to bring attention to the issue and to win some housing for poor people.
- United Farm Worker Grape Boycott – Beginning in 1965, the United Farm Workers joined the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (led by Filipino labor organizers) to boycott grapes. They used the tactics of marches, fasting and disrupting business as usual at grocery stores that sold grapes grown in California. This campaign got international attention and it eventually did win better pay and the fight against the use of pesticides that farm workers were exposed to.
- 2001 Protest against the FTAA in Quebec – In the spring of 2001, tens of thousands of protestors came to Quebec City, Canada to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA was a proposed trade policy, like NAFTA, for the entire Western Hemisphere. Protestors caused so much disruption to the FTAA proceedings, which resulted in police using a tons of tear gas. The tear gas got into the ventilation system of the convention center where government leaders were meetings, so much so that they had to delay the meeting. The FTAA was eventually defeated because wherever the heads of state met, they were confronted by thousands of protestors.
- 2017 Protests Against the Trump Administration Muslim Ban – In airports across the US, hundreds of thousands of protestors shut down business as usual, sometimes delaying flights, to protest the “Muslin Ban.” This protest even took place at the Kent County Airport, where hundreds of people flooded the airport and disrupted passengers and airline companies.
These are just a handful of examples of how Direct Action in the form of disruption can be a powerful tactic to stop business as usual, bring attention to a critical issue and win real change that is because of the collective action of movements, instead of simply appealing to politicians.
It was in this tradition, that people chose to disrupt the Grand Rapids City Commission last Tuesday.
Last Thursday, Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, along with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL), announced a new federal program called the Education Freedom Scholarship in a speech she delivered.
According to DeVos, “The policy will make a historic investment in America’s students, injecting up to $5 billion yearly into locally controlled scholarship programs that empower students to choose the learning environment and style that best meets their unique needs.”
In addition, DeVos wrote an opinion piece for USA Today, as another way of promoting this new plan to push an education agenda that she has been backing for the past 20 years.
More importantly, the Secretary of Education and her department have created a stand alone website, specifically dedicated to the Education Freedom Scholarships. The site provides several fact sheets with the intent of trying to dismiss any criticism of the policy. In the speech DeVos gave on February 28th, she made it a point to say, “So, you’ll hear that our proposal is an attack on public education. But beware: that’s fake news!”
Even if Betsy DeVos uses the Fake News ploy, we should not be fooled by what this policy will do to further erode public education across the country. It should be noted that these kind of tax credit scholarship programs are already used in 18 states to provide students with the opportunity to attend schools other than their nearest public school. These programs allow people and corporations to donate to a designated scholarship granting organization (SGO) and be reimbursed in the form of a tax credit. With the DeVos plan, states would designate the eligible SGOs, but the federal government would fund the tax credit reimbursement, up to $5 billion total.
Betsy DeVos has been directly involved in getting these tax credit scholarship programs in the states in the graphic above, through a network of organizations that mirror groups in Michigan like the Great Lakes Education Project and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Across the country, the State Policy Network, which brings together groups that primarily push for policy changes at the state level.
For years, the State Policy Network think tanks have join ALEC in pushing a broad education agenda to privatize public schools, including pushing for-profit online schools, for-profit and other charter schools, using taxpayer dollars for vouchers to for-profit schools, and even so-called “parent triggers” to allow a group of parents to close a public school for current and future students, and turn the school into a charter school or require a voucher system that takes away from traditional public schools.
In the graphic below, you can see some of the think thanks that the State Policy Network partners with the push these so-called School Choice policies.
Again, it is important that we recognize that what the new Education Freedom Scholarships policy would do is not totally new, but it would mean that there would be matching federal funds for states which would want to adopt the “school choice” plan being pushed by Betsy DeVos.
The encouraging news is that teachers, students, parents and communities are mobilizing across the country as a counter to the privatization/charter school push, with teacher strikes that have mostly resulted in victories for public education. These campaigns must be supported by a broad sector of the population and by other movements for social justice, especially since the future of public education is connected to so many efforts to bring about greater equality, justice and freedom.
Kent County’s ICE Hold Policy, the White House and the Sheriff Department’s quick dismissal of any Sanctuary claims
The Kent County Sheriff’s Department continues to be in the news. This time Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the White House are both accusing the Kent County Sheriff’s Department of releasing “criminal aliens” in recent weeks.
According to an ICE Press Release dated February 28:
Deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) have arrested three criminal aliens in western Michigan over the last several weeks after they were released from Kent County Sheriff’s custody with an active immigration detainer in place.
“The release of criminal aliens back on west Michigan streets continues to pose a serious threat to our communities,” said Rebecca Adducci, ERO field office director for Detroit, which covers the two-state region of Michigan and Ohio. “ICE remains committed to arresting and removing criminal aliens in the interest of public safety and national security, despite local decisions to not honor detainers and jeopardize the safety of its citizens.”
This statement was shared by the White House as well, according to an MLive story that was originally posted on March 1. The statement s from ICE and the White House are related to the case of former US Marine Jilmar Ramos-Gomez. The fallout of the Ramos-Gomez case forced the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to alter their policy around ICE holds, where they now require a judicial warrant to hold immigrants in the Kent County Jail for ICE.
However, while ICE seems to be calling out the Kent County Sheriff’s Department, immigration lawyers and lawyers with the ALCU and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center have communicated to Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE that Kent County seems to still be cooperating with ICE in ways that conflict with the new judicial warrant requirement policy. A group of lawyers will be meeting with County officials this coming week to find out exactly what is happening.
The other issue that was raised in the MLive article and the ICE Press Release has to do with the issue of Sanctuary Policies. The ICE Press Release states:
Sanctuary Policies Put Public Safety at Risk
- These dangerous policies leave ICE with no choice but to increase enforcement in neighborhoods and workplaces to locate and arrest these persons while they are at-large—
- increasing the likelihood that other individuals previously not targeted for arrest will be taken into ICE custody.
- It is safer for everyone if we take custody of an alien in the controlled environment of another law enforcement agency as opposed to visiting an alien’s residence, place of work, or other public area. Arresting a criminal in the safety, security, and privacy of a jail is always the best option.
- When law enforcement agencies don’t honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat. When ICE Fugitive Operations officers have to go out into the community to proactively locate these criminal aliens, regardless of the precautions they take, it needlessly puts our personnel and potentially innocent bystanders in harm’s way.
- Moreover, tracking down our priority fugitives is highly resource intensive. It’s not uncommon for our criminal alien targets to utilize multiple aliases and provide authorities with false addresses. Many do not have a stable place of employment.
These claims by ICE are ill-informed and the Trump administration has made it clear since they took office that communities which declare themselves as Sanctuary Cities will be punished. To be clear, Sanctuary Cities is merely a decision by local municipalities to say that they will not cooperate with ICE agents to apprehend undocumented immigrants, since it is not their role to enforce federal immigration policy.
Kent County Sheriff LaJoye-Young took issue with ICE calling the County’s policy a “Sanctuary Policy.” IN the MLive article, the Kent County Sheriff is quoted as saying:
“We are not a ‘sanctuary’ department. I have no intention in being a shield for someone to avoid being held responsible for criminal violations to include criminal immigration violations.”
To this writer, such a statement by the Kent County Sheriff, continues to reflect that they will continue to cooperate with ICE and that those who are undocumented are considered criminal. The fact that Sheriff LaJoye-Young was so quick to dismiss any accusations that the County is a Sanctuary demonstrates that she will cooperate with federal authorities when it comes to those who are undocumented. This reality is affirmed by the fact that in the past few weeks GR Rapid Response to ICE has been overwhelmed with new cases of ICE arrests, detentions and even a few likely deportations.
Grand Rapids Police Union goes on the defensive, attempts to present City officials as cowering to immigration protestors
In a clear attempt to divert attention from the racist practices of cops like Curt VanderKooi, the Grand Rapids Police Officer’s Association held a press conference yesterday to claim that Grand Rapids City officials are cowering to the will of immigration protestors.
The Grand Rapids Police Officer’s Association first criticized the GRPD’s decision to put Captain Curt VanderKooi on administrative leave, but spent most of the press conference time criticizing city officials for not allowing the GRPD to arrest people who did not obey the police during the May 1, 2018 march organized by Movimiento Cosecha GR, according to a story by WOOD TV8.
According to a prepared statement used during yesterday’s press conference, the Grand Rapids Police Officer’s Association (GRPOA) stated:
Furthermore, it has become perfectly clear to all members of the Grand Rapids Police Command Officers Association that over the past two years the elected officials and appointed leadership within the City of Grand Rapids will dismiss any actions by members of the Grand Rapids Police Department that are in compliance with established laws, policies, and recognized best practices in law enforcement and will instead cower to any “mob rule” behavior of any organizations that raise vocal opposition.
More importantly, the GRPOA is making the ridiculous claim that Grand Rapids City officials are in collusion with Movimiento Cosecha.
As an example of this reality, we were previously made aware of the collusion between our elected and appointed officials and several of the groups currently calling for the termination of Captain VanderKooi. On May 1, 2018, during a large protest, leaders of Movimiento Cosecha GR intentionally overran a police position for the second year in a row. Warrants were sought, sworn to, and issued by a judge for the arrests of two individuals. Shortly thereafter, the Acting City Manager and the Mayor became involved and the warrants were squashed. There is no clearer example that our city leadership would rather appease these groups who intentionally violate the law to purposely disrupt businesses and residents in Grand Rapids while endangering the lives of our officers, the general public, and their own protestors. Having known about this obstruction of justice, of which the current City Manager has also been notified, we are only left to believe that support for our personnel while acting with great restraint and being overrun by law breaking individuals does not and will not exist.
This is a rather outlandish claim on the part of the GRPOA, for several reasons. First, as someone who has been directly involved in the work of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE, there is no collusion between these groups and the City. On the contrary. When these groups pressured the city in October of 2017, to adopt what were called the Equal Service Policy, the city altered the language of this policy at the eleventh hour to exclude the GRPD from the policy.
Second, it has been our experience over the past two years that the GRPD has been closely monitoring the actions of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE. Whenever there is an announced action on social media, the GRPD sends numerous officers to harass and threaten members of these two groups who have made in clear in word and practice that their efforts are non-violent.
Third, in terms of the actions of the May 1, 2018 march, where the GRPOA claims that people overran a police position, the GRPOA omits some of the facts. While it is true that the march did not follow the GRPD-determined route, it is also true that the GRPD and Kent County Sheriff’s Department presence during the May 1, 2018 march was the real threat. Their use of horses was threatening and in several instances put those marching non-violently at risk. GRPD officers in cruisers have also demonstrated a lack of concern for people non-violently protesting by hitting them with their cruisers or threatening to run people over if they were not compliant.
Lastly, the GRPD has demonstrated over the past two years that they have been both cooperating with ICE, thus leading to the separation of families and the GRPD has been racially profiling motorists, which also has led to immigrants ending up in ICE custody because they do not have driver’s licenses, which the state of Michigan denies them.
GRPD protects the status quo
Towards the end of the GRPOA statement yesterday, they claimed there group, “is hopeful that the silent majority of residents who support the daily efforts of the Grand Rapids Police Department to keep them safe will communicate their support to our elected officials and our city management.”
I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who support the daily efforts of the GRPD, but those efforts are primarily meant to defend and protect the status quo. Whenever, residents stand up and challenge systems of power and oppression in this community, the GRPD is always there to defend those systems of power and oppression. Not surprisingly, this is the history of policing in the US. Any time social movements have sought to challenge power – the abolitionists, the labor movement, the suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the farmworkers movement, the various anti-war movements, the LGBTQ movements, etc – the police have always been there to protect power and privilege.
I am not at all surprised by the statement from the Grand Rapids Police Officers Association. I am also not surprised that they attempted to get arrest warrants for people who were not compliant during the May 1, 2018 march. What I think is important for those who are involved in the current immigrant justice movement, is that we need to be extra vigilant of the oppressive nature of any law enforcement agency and we need to pay extra attention to how vulnerable the immigrant community is in this political moment.
Unfunded liabilities, austerity measures and neo-liberal economic plans: What the West Michigan Policy Forum wants to do to public sector employees
On Monday, the West Michigan Policy Forum posted on their Facebook page an article by the Michigan-based news source Bridge.
The Facebook post included the text you can see here on the right, which affirms the West Michigan Policy Forum’s position that public sector health care benefits and pension are an “unfunded” and should be done away with.
The West Michigan Policy Forum (WMPF) has made the elimination of public sector employee benefits and pensions a priority since 2017. The WMPF, along with other neo-liberal capitalist groups succeeded in eliminating public teacher pensions in 2017 and made it the focus of their bi-annual conference this past fall, when hundreds of their members met in Grand Rapids.
The Bridge article is entitled, A $18B debt is coming due, and it’s haunting small town Michigan. The premise of the article is that with the cost of public employee health care benefits and pensions, in communities all across the state have less money, “for everything that makes a city livable, from police and fire protection to parks and recreation and roads.”
The Bridge reporter makes the assumption that money cannot be generated or diverted from other sources and that things like police budgets are absolutely necessary. For example, in Grand Rapids, the Police Department uses up one third of the current city budget and one could certainly argue that their behavior in recent years has been highly questionable at keeping the most vulnerable communities safe. Another way that Grand Rapids could save a great deal of money would be to reduce or eliminate subsidies to developers who primarily build high cost housing that benefits the professional class.
This is a major flaw in the article, since it assumes that everything that municipalities spend their money on currently is absolutely necessary. The article also ignores the fact that revenue sharing from the state has been significantly reduced or eliminated in some cases and is tied to communities adopting more strict austerity measures.
So, the question is, why should public sector employees have to give up their current health care benefits and pensions, when many of them have dedicated decades to the service of their community and have always expected that these benefits would be in place for them when they retire?
What the West Michigan Policy Forum is pushing for and what some municipalities have already adopted is to shift the burden on to the workers, reduced health care benefits, make public sector employees pay for a larger amount of the health care and to shift any pension plans to the speculative market in the form of a 401k. In this scenario, we would be leaving people’s health care and pensions to a volatile market. In addition, this push to relieve municipalities from the responsibility of paying for their employee benefits and pensions, in reality is just another attack on public sector unions. This has been the plan of the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Policy Network at the national level, along with groups like the West Michigan Policy Forum at the state level.
Lastly, it must be pointed out that many of the members of the West Michigan Policy Forum contributed collectively nearly $17 million in the last election cycle to fund candidates who support these kinds of austerity measures that also undermine public sector unions.
Community groups confront GR City Commission over GRPD’s role in ICE violence, call for cop to be fired!
About 40 members of the public, including representatives from Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE showed up to the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting last night, in part as a response to the newly released documents that were obtained from the GRPD by the ACLU and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC).
The documents provide conclusive evidence that Jilmar Ramos-Gomez was racially profiled. In addition, the documents show that the GRPD officer who contacted ICE was not even on the job, instead he saw a news story and contacted ICE.
Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE were calling for Captain Curt VanderKooi, a member of the GRPD, to be fired from the police department because of the racist action he took in collaboration with ICE. The two groups even have an online petition campaign to pressure the city to fire VanderKooi.
However, in preparation of the public outcry, the City Manager invited the act-Police Chief to get up and speak, or rather to read a statement, which basically justified the GRPD’s role in contacting ICE, leading to the arrest and detention of Jilamr Ramos-Gomez.
The acting-Police Chief then read an apology from Captain Curt VanderKooi, who claims he regrets using the language that he did.
This was a complete PR stunt on the part of the City of Grand Rapids, in an attempt to head-off the public outrage that was evident, even while the acting-Police Chief was reading the canned statement.
Amy Carpenter, with Movimiento Cosecha GR, then came forward and asked, since the acting-Police Chief was given an opportunity to address the issue of GRPD’s complicity with ICE to do harm to Jilmar Ramos-Gomez. The Mayor said no, so members of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE stood up and began chanting “Cops and ICE go hand in hand” and “Let us speak.” There was some back and forth between the Mayor and the public about how unfair it was to allow the acting-Police Chief to speak on the issue that dozens from the public came to address. It seemed unfair and unjust to those who were in attendance, since allowing the acting-Police Chief to speak set the tone for the entire evening.
Once it came time for public comment,virtually everyone got up to speak about the treatment of Jilmar Ramos-Gomez and the GRPD’s involvement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Several people got up and demanded that Captain VanderKooi should be fired, that the City should not use one cent of resources to support ICE and to support the Driver’s License Campaign being organized by Movimiento Cosecha GR.
Mary Alice Williams, a former City Commissioner, also spoke and said that she stands with the immigrant community and to say that Captain VanderKooi is not a racist just because of the language that he used, but more importantly because of the fact that he called ICE about Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, which was nothing short of racial profiling.
Deirdre Cunningham said that they suffer from PTSD and yet they were never arrested because of the color of their skin. They also called for the the firing of Curt VanderKooi.
Lindsay Rosa, a local social worker, who spoke to how Captian Curt VanderKooi has a history of this kind of racist behavior and has profiled many immigrants in the past. Rosa shared several stories about how VanderKooi has treated many immigrants that she has directly worked with.
Jose Flores, a current GRPS School Board member, spoke out against racial profiling and police abuse and demanded that the City do better to serve the public. Flores confronted the City Manager and demanded that the city either suspend or dismiss Captain VanderKooi.
Phillip Snyder said that whatever we say it doesn’t matter, since the City Commissioners are only concerned about not upsetting the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce and other members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure. He not only demanded that Captain VanderKooi be fired, but that the City of Grand Rapids should become a Sanctuary City.
Alex Kelly addressed the issue of police harassment and threat of violence during Movimiento Cosecha GR marches and other actions. Kelly made it clear that the GRPD, often with involvement with the Sheriff’s Department, serves only to intimidate and threaten members of the immigrant community and their allies.
Hillary Scholten, a lawyer with MIRC, also spoke and addressed how the acting-Police Chief’s comments at the beginning of the meeting were selective and inaccurate. She was followed by two lawyers from the ACLU, one asking, “what does it take for the GRPD to hold their officers accountable.”
Miriam Aukerman, also with the ACLU, said that the behavior of the GRPD was both unfair and a form of racial profiling. Miriam then went on to dismantle the claims that the GRPD officer acted in an effort to stop terrorism. She ended by saying, “that the time is past for pious words, we need real action.”
A little girl got up and said that Captain VanderKooi got her friend deported and that he should be fired.
Someone from the group Equity PAC spoke about the internal affairs review and how the GRPD found there was “nothing wrong” with what happened to Jilmar Ramos-Gomez. He said that he stands with Movimiento Cosecha GR and that the city needs to be accountable for what the GRPD is doing.
There were also several members of the African American community who stood in solidarity with Movimiento Cosecha GRa and called for the termination of Captain Curt VanderKooi.
One young Latino man got up to speak and pulled out his phone, then said he was calling ICE on one of the City Commissioners, because she didn’t look white. He ended by says that the GRPD collaboration with ICE is just sick.
Lorena Aguayo-Marquez, also with Movimiento Cosecha GR, said that it was a joke for the police to investigate themselves in regard to the case of Jilmar Ramos-Gomez. “I don’t want to have to carry a passport in my own community and I don’t want to live in fear of police and ICE violence.”
Amy Carpenter, with Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE, then read a resolution that both groups were demanding that the city adopt as a clear action they can take. The resolution is included below.
At this moment several dozen members and supporters of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE stood up and moved to the front and once again began chanting, “Cops and ICE go hand in hand.” This went on for several minutes, until the Mayor hit the gavel and ended the meeting.
(Photo credit to John Rothwell)
Resolution
We, the undersigned elected city commissioners, do hereby recognize our responsibility to our immigrant neighbors.
Whereas –
• Municipalities all over the country are ending their contracts with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) because of public outcry over the terror and violence wrought by ICE;
• Our immigrant neighbors, who are an important part of the social, cultural, and economic fabric of our city, are living under the threat of terror and violence from ICE;
• Families are being separated in our city of Grand Rapids with the involvement of the Grand Rapids Police Department;
• and whereas we as commissioners have a responsibility to provide moral leadership in Grand Rapids as our duty to the electorate;
We do hereby resolve the following:
• We will end all GRPD cooperation with ICE;
• We will not allow for any city resources to be used for the purposes of ICE’s work or to detain our immigrant neighbors based on their immigration status;
• We publicly support the Driver’s Licenses for All campaign and call for the State of Michigan to make driver’s licenses available for under-documented immigrants again.
From food insecurity to food justice: An uncomfortable conversation for ending hunger and poverty in West Michigan
“The major problems confronting activists committed to food justice revolve around mass incarceration, labor exploitation, and immigration.”
The quote above comes from the recent book, Food Justice Now: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle, by Joshua Sbicca. Sbicca challenges those of us who claim to be about the work of Food Justice, by forcing us to step outside of the silo of food insecurity and to look at how larger systems of oppression are the real cause of hunger and food insecurity.
The problem, too often with people who grapple with food insecurity issues, is that we try to approach the issue by first thinking about the current food system and where we can make adjustments within that system to address things like access to food, hunger, food waste, etc. However, taking such an approach often results in a continuation of that same food system, with some mild reforms.
For example, take the recent issue of snow days and food insecurity. MLive ran an article entitled, The dark side of snow days: Food insecurity. The article focused on how many children would not be able to get the food provided to them by the group Kids Food Basket (KFB), because there was no school. The issue was also highlighted in a recent column by Kids Food Basket CEO Bridget Clark Whitney, where she talks about how the community came together to make sure that during the snow days that children were still able to access the food that KFB provides on a daily basis. Indeed, it is phenomenal how so many people stepped up to make up the food bags, those who transported the food, the coordination and all the community partners that were involved to pull it all off.
However, even when we see these acts of charity taking place on a regular basis, I am left feeling uneasy about how we are address the issue of child hunger. Considering all the effort that is put into what KFB does – the fundraising, recruiting volunteers, the partnerships with schools and putting together the 8,000 sack lunches that KFB puts together on a daily basis. This is a tremendous amount of work and coordination. But if we step back from all this effort, we are still left with the hard reality that 25% of the children living in West Michigan live in poverty. This means that the food charity work that KFB is engaged in is a growth industry, but it also means that it is ultimately a false solution.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that 8,000 children receive sack lunches on a daily basis, but this shouldn’t be the end goal. The end goal should be to eliminate poverty. Now, eliminating poverty is no easy solution and in order to do so, we need to understand the reasons why there is so much poverty in West Michigan.
Poverty in West Michigan is the result of numerous systems of power and oppression. Poverty exists because people do not earn a livable wage. Imagine if the children whom KFB serves lived in homes that were receiving a living wage. However, we know it is not just about people receiving a just wage/living wage, we know that communities of color have higher rates of poverty. In this instance we need to acknowledge that the system of White Supremacy also contributes to perpetuate poverty by privileging white people at the expense of communities of color.
Lack of a living wage and White Supremacy are still not enough to understand poverty. Let’s say that a family member ends up in the Prison Industrial Complex, which means that a primary income earner is now in jail or prison. How do families survive this dynamic and still make ends meet. How do families navigate the trauma of having a parent in jail/prison and still function in an economic system that is based on exploitation?
What about housing issues? West Michigan is in the midst of a housing boom, but that doesn’t mean that everyone benefits. There are thousands of families in the area that cannot afford the current rental rates and are unable to buy a home, especially with increased property values.
On top of all of this, you also have a political and economic class in West Michigan that not only has tremendous wealth, but they collectively work to pass legislation that make life for working class and communities of color rather difficult.
We know that is 2016, Grand Rapids had the largest wealth gap in the state of Michigan. We also know that there are over 600 millionaires living in Kent County at the same time that 1 in 5 children are living in poverty. These disparities are not a coincidence, rather the are directly related to each other. You can not have a small minority of people making so much, without the exploitation of the many.
This brings us back to Kids Food Basket and the issue of food insecurity. How do we honestly address the issue outside of the food insecurity silo? What the author of Food Justice Now is suggesting is that instead of making food the focus of our conversation, that we shift it our focus to include a more comprehensive approach to addressing other forms of injustice and systems of power and oppression.
If the goal of any group is to eliminate hunger or poverty, what might they do in the short-term and the long-term. Here are some proposals.
Short-term Goals
While still engaging in food charity work, organizations need to adopt policies or points of unity that acknowledge that there are numerous systems of oppression at work that results in poverty and hunger. What if the mission statements from food charity and food justice organizations acknowledged that until we end White Supremacy, the economic system of Capitalism, mass incarceration, colonialism, patriarchy and other systems of oppression, we will continue to have poverty and hunger.
Next we need to make it clear that in order to end poverty and hunger, we need to support things like, the right of workers to form unions, a living wage for workers, an end to structural and systemic racism, equal pay for women, and an end to the commodification of housing, food and health care. What if groups addressing food insecurity were proposing things like community budgeting, a redirection of government spending on militarism and policing and put that money into the hands of communities to meet basic needs like housing, health care, education and good nutrition. A great example of groups that address these issues is the Movement for Black Lives, which has a very clear vision and platform for how to achieve justice for the black community, including an invest-divest policy and community control.
We could also look at the plan developed by the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, a 10 point program, which does include food justice within a larger framework and vision.
Long-term Goals
Once we have more comprehensively accepted what it will take to end poverty and hunger, we then need to work on dismantling the systems of oppression and power that are the root causes. Of course, no one individual or organization can do this. We need to form coalitions and build movements that address these issues and begin to dismantle them.
What if a group like Kids Food Basket were to work with Movimiento Cosecha GR and various labor groups to demand a minimum of $15 an hour for all workers in Kent County. This would not only provide more livable wages for families, but it would radically increase the wages of immigrant workers who do most of the food related work in this community – as migrant farm workers and restaurant workers.
What if Food Charity and Food Justice groups challenged the massive wealth gap in Kent County and called for a redistribution of wealth from the 600 millionaires that made their wealth off the backs of poor and working class people.
What if Food Charity and Food Justice groups worked with a coalition of other groups to call for massive reparations owed to the Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities in Kent County?
What if Food Charity and Food Justice groups called for a massive reduction in military spending and redirected that money for food and health care for everyone in Kent County?
If the goal of any organization that deals with food insecurity is to end food insecurity, hunger and poverty, then these are the kinds of things we will need to work on if we really want to end hunger and poverty. If not, then we will continue to do the same things we are doing now, which might make people feel good about themselves, but it will not do a damn thing to actually end hunger and poverty in our community.
Lastly, I want to say that I write these words with a recognition that I too am complicit in the ongoing hunger and poverty of people if I am not working on dismantling the systems of power and oppression that are the root causes. I am not blaming people or organizations, rather I want to challenge all of us to honestly grapple with what it is that we need to do to realistically end hunger and poverty.
