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.
9 of the top 30 political donors in the state are from West MI, but the DeVos family is number one on the list
With all of the data from the 2017-2018 election cycle now in, we can finally see who the big money contributors were. Many of the names on the list are familiar to most, especially if you in West Michigan.
In fact, according to a recent post from the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, 9 out of the top 30 donors during the last election cycle are from West Michigan.
- DeVos family $11.3 million
- Kennedy family $1.1 million
- Haworth family $915,000
- Van Andel family $885,000
- Jandernoa family $795,000
- J.C. Huizenga $762,000
- Secchia family $573,000
- Meijer family $567,000
- Terri Lynn Land & Dan Hibma $450,000
Many of the people on this list from West Michigan are also part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, in part, because of their own personal wealth, but also because of the organizations they belong to, organizations which often further their wealth and power.
Of course, the DeVos family is at the top of this list and has been for years in terms of political contributions from people residing in Michigan. The graph below, provides details of some of the larger contributions that the DeVos family made during the most recent election cycle, with a breakdown funding at the federal and stat level. Two of the larger PACs the DeVos family contributed were the Great Lakes Education Project (which Betsy DeVos founded) and the Michigan Freedom Network, which is run by DeVos political operative Greg McNeilly.
One can search on the database provided by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, under the heading Follow the Money.
Fulfilling the DeVos Agenda
However, while it is important to look at which candidates/politicians the DeVos family contributed to, it is equally important to look at how they voted. This is important, since the way that the politicians (who received funding from the DeVos family) have voted is completely in step with the ideological values of the most powerful family in West Michigan.
We know that the DeVos family supports charter schools and private schools over public education. We know that the Michigan legislators who have received funding from the DeVos family have voted for directing taxpayer money to charter schools, passed legislation to shift public school teacher pensions away from traditional pension funding to a 401K system.
We know that the DeVos family despises organized labor, so their funded politicians have voted to make Michigan a Right to Work state, have taken away benefits from public sector employees and have undermined unions across the state. In contrast, DeVos funded politicians have voted over and over again for policies that are beneficial to the business community, especially large companies that transfers more public money into the private sector.
We also know that the DeVos family funded politicians have voted to legally allow adoption agencies to prohibit same-sex partners from adopting, plus the same politicians passed legislation to allow for increased campaign contributions to candidates running for office in Michigan.
Lastly, it is important to mention that DeVos-backed candidates have been in favor of the Enbridge’s Line 5, which puts the Great Lakes at risk of contamination AND DeVos funded candidates have been absolutely complicit in the racist and ecological disaster that is occurring in Flint.
All of this is what DeVos political money buys in Michigan. So the next time you all want to celebrate ArtPrize, Start Garden, Boxed Water, AmplifyGR or any other aspect of the DeVos empire, remember what this family really represents.
Local News Coverage of the Press Conference held Friday on recent ICE arrest and detention of Brandon Reyes
On Friday, a Press Conference was held in the law offices of immigration attorney Richard Kessler, the lawyer representing Brandon Reyes and his mother, two of the most recent victims of ICE violence in West Michigan.
Those who spoke during the Press Conference were Richard Kessler, Gema Lowe (Movimiento Cosecha GR), Kathleen Underwood (Michigan United) and two of Brandon’s relatives who talked about the impact his and his mother’s arrest has had on the family.
The local news media present during the Press Conference were MLive, WZZM 13, Michigan Radio and El Vocero Hispano. As of this writing, only stories from MLive and WZZM 13 have been posted on their websites.
In addition, one thing we would encourage people to do is look at the entire press conference that was video taped by GR Rapid Response to ICE, at this link. It is always useful to compare what was actually said in its entirety and then compare it to the constructed news story.
We begin with the story posted on MLive and written by reporter Justin Hicks, with the headline One-time ‘Dreamer’ detained by ICE in Grand Rapids.
The article begins with some basics on what happen to Brandon Reyes and his mother on Tuesday, February 19. However, the article early on cites an ICE official, thus leading with law enforcement as the primary voice, even though the Press Conference was called by those who support Reyes.
The article then shifts to talking about a drinking while under the influence charge that Reyes had last year, a charge which he plead guilty to and had been fulfilling the consequences of that action. The MLive article spent three paragraphs on the alcohol-related charge.
Then the article does provide some background on Reyes, followed by the first comments made by those who called the press conference. Gema Lowe, with Movimiento Cosehca GR was quoted as saying, “It is inhumane for ICE to target and kidnap beloved members of our community when they are just trying to go to work, live their regular lives, and support their families.”
During the Q & A period of the Press Conference, Lowe was asked to clarify what she meant by ICE violence, which she did, as is reflected in the MLive article. However, what is interesting is that the reported appeared to have interpreted Lowe’s comment to mean that some sort of physical violence had been done. In other words, this reporter from MLive would not consider the arrest and detention by ICE as violence, despite the economic hardship and trauma that it causes for individuals and families.
The comments by Lowe were followed by other people who spoke at the Press Conference, first by Kathleen Underwood who has Brandon as a student at GVSU and worked with him in a volunteer capacity with Michigan United. Reyes’ cousins, Nelly Gudino and Ana Ramirez, then spoke with specifics about how the arrest of Brandon and his mother impacted their family.
The MLive article then quotes immigration lawyer Richard Kessler, who said, “2019 has been the “darkest hour” of his 38 years as an immigration lawyer.” This was an important comment made by Kessler, but it should be stated that this was the very first thing said during the Press Conference and would have provided a much different framing of the story, had MLive led with this comment.
From there the MLive article cites other ICE officials about the arrests that they make, stating:
“ICE deportation officers carry out targeted enforcement operations every day in western Michigan and locations around the country as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to protect the nation, uphold public safety, and protect the integrity of our immigration laws and border controls.”
Unfortunately, the MLive reporter did not question or verify the claims made by the ICE official about how these arrests “protect the nation, uphold public safety, and protect the integrity of our immigration laws and border controls.” By not questioning or verify the claims made by ICE, it is simply reported as fact.
WZZM 13 Coverage
The online post from WZZM 13 is headlined, One-time ‘Dreamer’ detained by ICE in Grand Rapids. The channel 13 story begins with the focus and intent of the Press Conference, which was people in the community were calling for the release of Brandon Reyes and his mother from ICE. This was in sharp contrast to how MLive frame the issue at the beginning.
The WZZM 13 story also makes it clear early on that the arrest of Reyes and his mother was one of 40 to 60 arrests that ICE has made in the past few days, in what are called by ICE “fugitive operations.”
The article then goes on to say that the Trump administration has engaged in efforts to eliminate DACA, a program that has allowed Reyes to remain in the country.
The article continues by talking about his driving while under the influence charge from last year, but finishes with mention of a petition that Movimiento Cosecha GR put together calling for a judge to allow Brandon and his mother to be released on bond and to rejoin their family.
These two stories as reported by local English language news media, provides a clear example of how media is constructed and why we cannot rely on commercial journalism to provide the public with complete coverage of crucial issues that affect our community, such as ICE violence against the immigrant community.
Will Capitalism Save communities of color? Start Garden and the deception of wealth creation
“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
Martin Luther King Jr. – from his Beyond Vietnam speech – April 4, 1967
Capitalism, and its current form of Neoliberal Capitalism, is very seductive. It offers promises of personal wealth and freedom from poverty, yet too often it has failed people miserably, especially in communities of color. However, despite this well documented history, such as in Manning Marable’s important scholarly work, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America, members of the capitalist class continue to promote “economic opportunities” for communities of color.
Take the example of Start Garden, their recent comments in the business press and the beginning of their second straight year of the 100 Ideas project. In a recent article from MiBiz, Co-Director of Start Garden, Paul Moore said:
“What the data is pointing to is we’re going to need to do a better job at creating on-ramps for women and minorities, and if we’re not doing that with any intentionality, there’s no reason we should expect to see anything change.”
What Moore and Start Garden believes is that if you can just offer more women and people from communities of color business opportunities, then they will have the same opportunities that men and white people have had. But this is a lie and has been so, since capitalism is by its very nature predatory and benefits only a small sector of the population. Charlene Caruthers, in her book Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, makes this observation:
Capitalism with Black in front of it won’t liberate our people. Capitalism is by definition tied to the subjugation of African-descended people. Our collective liberation will not come from models that rely on individual or small group wealth building.
However, this is exactly what Start Garden is doing – attempting to convince some people from communities of color that they can make it individually or create small pockets of wealth. And in many ways it makes sense. To criticize people of color for wanting to build wealth through capitalist means is just another way to practice white supremacy. What I am interested in doing is to challenge entities like Start Garden, which are funded by members of the billionaire class (the DeVos family), and the larger community about the very nature of these types of neoliberal capitalist projects.
Start Garden’s 100 Ideas project is a great example of how we can all be fooled into thinking about wealth and economics. They invite people to submit ideas and for that they will pay you just to submit an idea. However, if there are ideas that they really like, they will reward you with more money. However, as always with venture capitalists, the get to keep some of the profits you make, especially if your new business project does well.
But here is the thing. Start Garden was made possible by DeVos money, which as we know was built on the Amway pyramid scheme. The DeVos family became billionaires by convincing people that they could get rich by selling their products. It works, for a small percentage of people. There are a few who have benefited from this pyramid scheme, but most people are unable to live well, because that is the nature of capitalism…….the few benefit at the expense of the majority.
On top of the fact that DeVos wealth was created through a pyramid scheme, they have also spent decades and millions of dollars to support the Republican agenda of attacking workers, undermining unions, making Michigan a Right to Work state and pushing policies that transfers public money into the private sector.
This is all context. Then, Start Garden steps in and says, we want to help you potentially funding your ideas. The problem with the is that the DeVos family has spent decades promoting policies that have negatively impacted communities of color and now they want to offer “opportunities.” On top of all of that, Start Garden takes no risk, while presenting themselves as providing opportunities, whereby they can profit off of the creative imagination and labor of other people.
One additional fallacy about the lie of Start Garden’s entrepreneurial project and its attempt to create opportunities for people of color is that no where in their vision or philosophy do they acknowledge the history of how white supremacy and structural racism have devastated communities of color, nor do they advocate this the system of white supremacy should be dismantled.
If we look at the Black Radical tradition, we can see that there is a fundamentally different approach to how to work for collective liberation. Zoe Samudzi and William Anderson, in the powerful book, As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation, make this observation:
Our movements and our work need to avoid neoliberal enticements to corporatize or commoditize or otherwise become caught in the gears of capitalist accommodationism.
Towards the end of his life, Malcolm X also understood that capitalism could never be a solution to the liberation of his people. Malcolm said, “Most of the countries that were colonial powers were capitalist countries and the last bulwark of capitalism today is America and it’s impossible for a white person today to believe in capitalism and not believe in racism. You can’t have capitalism without racism.”
Malcolm X inspired black people to form the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The Black Panther’s, in their creation of the 10 Point Program identified capitalism as one of the problems. In point #3 they state:
WE WANT AN END TO THE ROBBERY BY THE CAPITALISTS OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES. We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of our fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.
There is a certain insidiousness about what Start Garden is promoting and their deliberate targeting of communities of color. Whatever people from those communities chose to do with what the Start Garden’s of the world are offering is their choice, but for those of us who are white and claim to be progressive or in favor of dismantling the system of white supremacy, we should not be seduced by what the DeVos-funded Start Garden project is offering.
People, Profits and the Grand Rapids Whitewater Project
There has been recent news coverage about the Grand Rapids Whitewater project, primarily around new funding efforts and the naming of a new CEO.
MiBiz ran an article on February 8 noting that $4.4 million in new funds have been pledged for the project, with $1.4 million coming from Kent County, $2 million from the state of Michigan and $1 million coming from the Cook Foundation. The Cook Foundation, interestingly enough, has a history of funding right wing Christian organizations over the years and Peter Cook (along with Rich DeVos) threatened to withdraw million for the GVSU health building on the corner of Michigan and Lafayette in 1995 after it was discovered that the university had made a promise to faculty and staff to grant domestic partner benefits. Peter Cook and Rich DeVos opposed domestic partner benefits.
This project is also seen as another public-private partnership, which essentially means that public money will be transferred to the private sector, with little or not say from the public.
Also noted in the MiBiz article was the naming of Steve Heacock as the new CEO of Grand Rapids Whitewater. MiBiz provided adequate information on Heacock stating:
Heacock formerly worked as chief administrative officer of Van Andel Institute and previously was a partner in law firm Warner Norcross + Judd LLP. He also has been involved in the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority and Grand Action and was a former chair of the Kent County Board of Commissioners.
Steve Heacock is the perfect choice to led Grand Rapids Whitewater, since Heacock is a political insider who has served the interests of the Grand Rapids Power Structure for decades. Such interests have primarily been economic interests, which is the primary focus of the river restoration project. The 2014 report put together by the Anderson Economic Group on behalf of Grand Rapids Whitewater, makes it clear that economic development is the main goal of the group.
The economic development aspect of the river restoration project will mean more businesses along the river, businesses that will primarily benefit the professional class, along with new entertainment venues and of course increased tourism. Such economic incentives are consistent with the history of who has benefited from the use and abuse of the river. At the peak of the furniture baron era, massive profits were being made by the captain of industry, while at the same time the pollution and contamination of the river was being committed by industrial capitalism.
The MiBiz article also states that the river restoration project is being dubbed the “River for All” project. Since this project is primarily an economic development tool, working class and poor people are not likely to be flocking to the restored river. This will not be due to signs posted saying, poor people not welcomed. However, the reality is that working class and poor people have less leisure time than those who are well off and while working class people enjoy the river for picnics they will not be the ones lining up to use kayaks or spend money at the new restaurant and entertainment venues that will pop up along the river.
