On Friday, MLive reported that Gov. Whitmer was looking at changes around the work requirements for those receiving Medicaid.
“Michigan expanded its Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act. A new Michigan law requires able-bodied Healthy Michigan Medicaid recipients to work an average of 20 hours of work per week, or 80 hours per month. Recipients need to comply with this for at least nine months per year, starting in 2020, with some exemptions.”
Governor Gretchen Whitmer wants to convince the Michigan legislature that requiring people on Medicaid may not be necessary and that most states don’t require it under the Affordable Care Act.
This decision on the part of Governor Whitmer comes just days before the kickoff to the national campaign known as Medicare for All. There are grassroots groups all over the country that will be hosting “barnstorms” this week, an effort that is being coordinated by National Nurses United (NNU). You may recall that National Nurses United was pushing for a Single Payer Health Care System when Obama ran in the 2008 election. Obama the candidate had voiced support for a Single Payer System, but once he became president, his advisors thought that pushing for a Single Payer System would be too much.
However, the reality is that based on most polling, at least two-thirds of Americans favor a Single Payer System or Medicare for All. According to a recent article on Common Dreams, over 30 million Americans are uninsured and two-thirds of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Millions of people across the country are having to chose between heating their homes, buying groceries or paying for health care.
In Grand Rapids, there will be a meeting on Medicare for All, on Wednesday, February 13, from 6:30pm – 8pm at CWA Union Hall, located at 3281 Kentland Court SE in Grand Rapids. The Facebook event states in the description:
Over 70% of Americans want #MedicareForAll, but politicians won’t pass this bill without public pressure. Find out how you can mobilize your community to win #MedicareForAll. Put #PeopleOverProfit, and cover everyone regardless of income or health condition. EVERYBODY IN. NOBODY OUT.
This type of organizing is in sharp contrast to what elected officials like Gov. Whitmer are doing, which only protects the existing health care system. If people want to have just policies like Medicare for All, then they should rely on grassroots efforts and social movements, not on the empty promises of elected officials.
Betsy DeVos Watch: Cheerleading for Trump and School Choice
After the State of the Union address on Tuesday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos took the opportunity to thank President Trump for his comments about “education freedom” and her own call for expanding School Choice in a statement released the same day.
We decided this would be a useful opportunity to do a simply deconstruction of what Betsy DeVos had to say, which you will find here below.
Consumers Energy Super Bowl message was a shallow PR stunt designed to distract us from all the money the company makes from dirty energy
On Super Bowl Sunday, viewers in the Lower peninsula of Michigan saw a 90 second message from the CEO of Consumers Energy, Patti Poppe. The message was both an apology and a thank you to businesses and residents of Michigan, since the company asked people to turn their thermostat down.
Such a statement from the CEO of Consumers Energy should be seen as a shallow PR move, especially considering what Consumers Energy represents. Consumers Energy is a company that has been profiting off of the public for decades, while manufacturing energy that has caused a great deal of harm to public health, to environmental devastation and to climate change.
While Consumers Energy likes to show that they have a diversified energy portfolio, the company has primarily manufactured energy through coal, which has been one of the worst forms of energy that humans have ever used.
However, the company takes no responsibility for their role in destroying the environment, harming human health and adding to the climate change crisis. In fact, Consumers Energy now likes to talk about how they are a responsible corporation that embraces the Triple Bottom Line – People, Profit and Planet.
This was Patti Poppe’s message to those who gathered at the Econ Club of Grand Rapids in December. Local talking head Rick Albin did a short interview with Poppe before her Econ Club talk, where Albin said, “you are always looking at what is best for Michigan.” This type of uncritical thinking is what we are used to with the news media in West Michigan. Of course, the CEO of Consumers Energy would not be challenged at the Econ Club lecture, because the people who attend such functions share the ideological principles that Patti Poppe does, which of course is that Capitalism is Wonderful.
The Consumers Energy CEO commercial during the Super Bowl did generate a fair amount of Michigan news coverage, but it focused on what Patti Poppe had to say and less about the company. Sure, there was some criticism around residents having to turn down their thermostats, but the criticism was limited and narrow in scope.
According to Salary.com:
As President and CEO, CMS and Consumers at CMS ENERGY CORP, Patricia K. Poppe made $6,862,295 in total compensation. Of this total $1,100,000 was received as a salary, $1,144,000 was received as a bonus, $0 was received in stock options, $4,263,888 was awarded as stock and $354,407 came from other types of compensation. This information is according to proxy statements filed for the 2017 fiscal year.
Imagine if people knew that the person who asked us to turn down our thermostats makes nearly $7 million a year.
Another relevant question for the news media to ask would be how much the company spends on lobbying and political contributions. According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network Consumers Energy spent the following amounts on lobbying in Michigan during the past four years.
2015 $311,117
2016 $230,820
2017 $225,651
2018 $129,314 (for January – July)
At the federal level, Consumers Energy has spent $4,119.558 on political contributions since 1990 and $23,073,752 on lobbying since 1998, according to OpenSecrets.org.
There was going to be a ballot initiative in 2018 for Michigan that was energy related, but Consumers Energy and DTE Energy struck a deal with the ballot organizers in the Spring of 2018 to keep the issue off the ballot. The deal would require both Consumers Energy and DTE Energy to commit to relying on 25 percent renewable energy by the year 2030. While some may see this as a positive step, it is grossly inadequate levels for renewable energy use, especially considering what the global climate scientific community has been saying. For instance, the US Global Change Research Program, which published its Fourth National Climate Assessment, makes the following statement in their summary of findings:
Communities, governments, and businesses are working to reduce risks from and costs associated with climate change by taking action to lower greenhouse gas emissions and implement adaptation strategies. While mitigation and adaptation efforts have expanded substantially in the last four years, they do not yet approach the scale considered necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health over the coming decades.
In 2012, there was another ballot initiative called 25 by 25, which was calling for 25% renewable energy production in Michigan by 2025. Consumers Energy spent money to defeat the ballot initiative.
Therefore, it seems pretty clear to this writer, that the message from the CEO of Consumers Energy was a shallow PR stunt designed to get the media and the pubic to focus on turning down our thermostats instead of critically assessing what the real function of Consumers Energy is……to make as much money as possible while harming human health, destroying ecosystems and making climate change inevitable.
Group that spent the most to oppose Voters Not Politicians ballot initiative is run by a DeVos operative
As the dust settles on the 2018 election, data continues to come out about which groups funded what ballot proposals.
The Michigan Campaign Finance Network does an amazing job of following the money in Michigan electoral politics and their most recent article has some interesting analysis about who was behind the 2018 Michigan Ballot initiatives.
What I found most interesting is that the group that spent the most money opposing the Voters Not Politicians ballot initiative, was the Michigan Freedom Fund. The entity created by the Michigan Freedom Fund, designed to defeat Voters Not Politicians, was Protect My Vote.
You can see from the graphic here that the Michigan Freedom Fund was the largest contributor to this effort. The President of the Michigan Freedom Fund is Greg McNeilly, who also happens to be the Chief Operating Officer of the Windquest Group. The Windquest Group is one of the DeVos family’s business entities.
McNeilly, while he ran Dick DeVos’ failed gubernatorial run in 2006, once boasted how political donations are the most protected form of speech:
“Political speech is the most protected form of speech, and we need more people participating at higher levels. We should applaud anyone who is leading on that dimension and try to encourage greater participation in our great American experiment.”
Such a statement reflects McNeilly’s allegiance to the DeVos family fortune.
However, the main issue her, with the new data from the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, is that the group that spent the most money to defeat Voters Not Politicians was a group that was essentially created by DeVos family money and is run by their most trusted political operative, Greg McNeilly. This is just the most recent example of how DeVos money infects electoral politics and promotes anti-union, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and pro-business policies in the state. Remember that, the next time you are tempted to think that the DeVos family does so much good for West Michigan.
Systems of Oppression, the GRPD and Celebrating Black History Month
Systems of oppression and power always make it a point to appropriate the images and messages of revolutionary politics. Corporations, political parties and other structures that have power over people often claim to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History Month.
Such appropriation is often seductive and subtle, but it is appropriation none the less.
Then there are entities like the Grand Rapids Police Department, which are not so subtle, which also claim to celebrate Black History Month. On February 1st, the GRPD posted the following text and image on the Facebook page – here on the right.
There are just so many things that are fundamentally wrong with the GRPD claiming to celebrate Black History Month. Such a claim is insulting and offensive. The text says they want to, “recognize African American Pioneers in the area of Law Enforcement throughout the month.”
It’s as if Black History Month can be reduced to celebrating anything as long as it involves African Americans. Well, lets take a closer look at the significance of the GRPD claiming to celebrate Black History Month.
First, the text also includes a rather innocuous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Systems of power and oppression have their own agenda and will use people like Dr. King to support their agenda. Quoting Dr. King doesn’t mean much these days, especially since those who often engage in oppression are the first to quote the civil rights leader.
If we look at the totality of Dr. King’s life and work, we clearly see that he was in favor of challenging systems of oppression and power and that includes police departments. It is insulting and offensive for the GRPD to quote Dr. King when we know that for decades the police intimidated, harassed, infiltrated, arrested, beat and even killed those involved in the Black Freedom Struggle.
Then there is the image that the GRPD uses, an image which includes a few Black entertainers, but mostly Black people who have been at the forefront in the fight for justice and liberation.
There are two people from the 19th century abolitionist movement, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Both Tubman and Douglass were targeted by police, security agents and other enforcement entities of the state. In fact, those who were involved in the Underground railroad were seen as an enemy of the state.
Then you have the images of Dr. King and Malcolm X. Both of these men were part of the larger Black Freedom Struggle and both of them were personally harassed, wiretapped, targeted and arrested by law enforcement. Both of these men were assassinated and while we can debate who specifically pulled the triggers in the killing of Malcolm and Martin, it is clear that local law enforcement and the FBI were either involved or complicit in their deaths.
The image of Muhammad Ali might seems rather innocuous, since many saw him as merely an athlete. However, Ali, apart from his involvement in the Nation of Islam, was a draft resister and a dedicated activist/organizer against the US war in Vietnam. Ali refused his induction into the US military and was promptly arrested by cops for doing so. In addition, while Ali was stripped of his boxing title, he spent the better part of two years traveling around the US, speaking at college campuses, churches and civic institutions against the US war in Vietnam. He did this all under the watchful eye of the FBI and local law enforcement, since anyone involved in such activities was considered an enemy of the state.
Then there is the reality of politics and oppression in Grand Rapids. The GRPD excessively patrols in Black neighborhoods and disproportionately monitors and arrests Black people in this community. We are all familiar with the more high profile cases in recent years, but we may not be as familiar with the daily activity of the GRPD to harass and intimidate the Black community.
The fact that the GRPD wants to highlight “African American Pioneers in the area of Law Enforcement,” just underscores how insulting their celebration of Black History Month is. Having African American cops intimidating, harassing and arresting Black people doesn’t make it any less oppressive than having White cops do it. All cops serve the interests of the state, which ultimately means it serves the interests of those with power.
The Acton Institute invites AmplifyGR to talk about what they are doing in Grand Rapids and there is no mention of who created the non-profit
On January 24, the far right think tank, the Acton Institute, hosted a presentation by Ashanti Bryant, the education project manager for AmplifyGR.
Bryant’s presentation lasted only 30 minutes, which was followed by a Q & A session. However, throughout the entire event, whether it was the introduction give by an Acton representative, the presentation or the Q & A, not one word was mentioned about how AmplifyGR came about two years ago. To some this might not seem like a strange thing, but consider the following. The DeVos family has contributed millions of dollars to the Acton Institute over the past 25 years and Betsy DeVos sat on their board of directors at one time, along with her mother Elsa Prince. Betsy’s son, Rick DeVos, now sits on the Acton board. With all of the connections to the DeVos family, it would seem that at an Acton Institute event, there would be some mention of the connection between the most powerful family in West Michigan and AmplifyGR. Unfortunately, the connection was not made.
You can watch the presentation by Ashanti Bryant at this link, but it wasn’t very compelling, especially since he basically read a powerpoint presentation. However, I watched the presentation and found it instructive enough to share some analysis of what Bryant had to say. Before doing so, it is important to point out that Ashanti Bryant’s background in education is as follows. Bryant used to be a principal at Grand Rapids Christian Schools and he has been a consultant to both private and charter schools.
Purpose Built Communities
Ashanti’s presentation centered around Purpose Built Communities, the model that AmplifyGR has been pushing since its creation 2 years ago. The AmplifyGR Education Director began by quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, offering up two quotes that were both fairly innocuous.
Bryant then talked about concentrated poverty, plus gave national and regional statistics. He also spoke about the history of racial segregation in housing and education and cited Richard Rotherstein’s book, The Color of Law.
The AmplifyGR Education Director then talked about the 49507 zip code in Grand Rapids and referenced Todd Robison’s book, A City within a City: The Black Freedom Struggle in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Up to this point, the information that Bryant shared was solid and relied on great sources, but then came the punch line. There was no call for racial justice, for an end to White Supremacy or for reparations for the African American community in Grand Rapids. Instead, Bryant suggested that the way to overcome all of this historical racism in Grand Rapids was what AmplifyGR was promoting, the Purpose Built Communities model.
However, unlike the Purpose Built Communities model that has been used around the country, with an emphasis on housing, education and wellness, AmplifyGR has added a fourth component, what they call jobs and entrepreneurialism. Within this model, Bryant said that there needs to be a backbone organization, an organization that can act as an anchor for the implementation of the Purpose Built Communities model. You guessed it, AmplifyGR is the backbone organization in this case.
In many ways the Q & A portion of the presentation was the most revealing. A white guy told a story about a wealthy person wanting to move back into an area of Detroit that had suffered from disinvestment and then said that this guy was being accused of gentrification. Bryant’s response to this comment was, “We at AmplifyGR avoid using the word gentrification. We believe in a diversity of incomes living together, but we prefer to call it investing in the community.”
In response to the question about job and business creation, Bryant said that AmplifyGR plans to bring 1,000 new jobs to the area. As of today, there are 4 new businesses and 100 new jobs created, according to Bryant, but he never qualified how well those jobs paid.
The only education question that was asked had to do with whether or not AmplifyGR was pushing Charter Schools as an education solution. Bryant said that in their model, they partner with three education centers, with Heritage Academies, GRPS and Hope Academy. Both Heritage Academies and Hope Academy are Charter Schools and the GRPS is Charter School friendly.
Bryant was then asked how AmplifyGR did community engagement. He said they started out doing town hall meetings, but then said he would not recommend doing town hall meetings, since he just provided people with an opportunity to vent frustrations. Bryant said they now host resident meetings, which are small and allows AmplifyGR the opportunity to focus on the Purpose Built Communities model. Of course Bryant would say don’t do town hall meetings, because AmplifyGR was called out repeatedly during the three town hall meeting that were held in the summer of 2017.
The last question had to do with how AmplifyGR was utilizing the private sector for their work. Bryant mentioned that Rockford Construction was involved early on. Unfortunately, Bryant failed to mention that Rockford Construction had purchased dozens of properties in the Boston Square and Cottage Grove areas in 2017, spending millions without resident input.
So, you have an AmplifyGR presentation at an Acton Institute event and there is no discussion about the millions of dollars that the DeVos family has contributed to the Acton Institute, not the fact that the DeVos family created AmplifyGR and bankrolled the purchase of dozens of properties in the AmplifyGR target area, without resident input. But that’s ok, because they are in that neighborhood to “help.”
On Tuesday, the Senate voted on S.1 also known as the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019.
Like a great deal of legislation, S. 1 contains several items in it, including Title IV – Combating BDS Act of 2019. The bill specifically states:
Nonpreemption of measures by State and local governments to divest from entities that engage in certain boycott, divestment, or sanctions activities targeting Israel or persons doing business in Israel or Israeli-controlled territories.
The bill was introduced by Senator Marco Rubio and it passed by a margin of 76 – 22. Michigan Senator Gary Peters voted against the bill, but Senator Debbie Stabenow voted for it.
The 76 Senators that voted for the bill, essentially bowed to pressure from AIPAC and Christians United For Israel (CUFI).
The ACLU has taken a public position on this matter, not because it has anything to do with Israel, but because of the anti-free speech nature of the bill. The ACLU has stated:
The bill at issue here, S. 1, would not criminalize boycotts of Israel on its own, although Congress has attempted to do that as well. Instead, it would encourage states to create laws that violate the First Amendment. These state laws would require government contractors — including teachers, lawyers, speech pathologists, newspapers and journalists, and even students who want to judge high school debate tournaments — to certify that they are not participating in such boycotts. In other words, they would make people choose between their livelihood and their First Amendment rights. In cases going back to the McCarthy era — when the government required employees to swear that they were not members of the Communist Party or engaged in “subversive” advocacy — the Supreme Court has made clear that the government cannot impose such a choice on its citizens.
The First Amendment dangers posed by these anti-boycott laws are even greater because their sponsors have made it crystal clear that they are designed to silence a particular viewpoint that is critical of Israeli and U.S. policy. As the name declares, the Combating BDS Act and the state anti-boycott laws it seeks to entrench are explicitly directed at a particular political viewpoint critical of Israeli government policies as well as U.S. support for those policies. This violates the core principle of the First Amendment — that the government cannot dictate to its citizens which causes they can and can’t support.
Beyond the defense of the First Amendment, what Senator Stabenow and the other 75 Senators who voted for S.1 essentially voted against the rights of Palestinians and their fight against Israeli Apartheid. For more information on the BDS campaign, check out the BDS Movement site here.
The Trump administration is calling for a coup in Venezuela. US policy towards Venezuela has going supporting both a hard and soft coup in that country since Hugo Chavez became president in 1999.
In 2002, there was a coup attempt that was supported by the US, an attempt that failed. The 2002 coup is well documented in the film, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. With the current coup attempt, the US is calling for the overthrow of President Maduro to be replaced by opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
US foreign policy towards Venezuela has been to undermine the Bolivarian Revolution that began with Chavez, but continues to be embodied by civil society in Venezuela. This US effort to thwart and independent and autonomous Venezuela began with President Clinton and continued with Bush, Obama and now President Trump.
We thought it was important to provide some solid analysis/links for what is happening right now in Venezuela, some online resources that have provide excellent information on US/Venezuelan relations in recent decades and a few book titles that provide important historical information specific to US foreign policy and Venezuela.
There has been some really good independent reporting on the US coup in Venezuela. First, The Intercept provides a great podcast on the coup, with several long-time observers of US foreign policy in the region.
The Real News Network also has two good video news analysis pieces on the US coup in Venezuela, one with the editor of the online resource Venezuela Analysis https://venezuelanalysis.com/ and a second video featuring a historian on US/Venezuelan relations.
The Washington Office on Latin America has an excellent FAQ on the current situation in Venezuela and CounterPunch has a solid analysis piece that was posted yesterday, entitled, Trump’s Coup in Venezuela: The Full Story
Democracy Now also did interviews yesterday with long-time journalist and Latin America affairs expert Allan Nairn. Two weeks ago, the media watchdog group, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting did an interview with Alexander Main, who is the director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Then there is an excellent article in The Nation by Greg Grandin, who has written several books on US foreign policy in Latin America. Grandin responds to a propaganda piece that recently appeared in the New York Times.
Another piece we want to mention is also from CounterPunch and provides an interesting piece on how some of the Democratic Presidential hopefuls have responded to the US coup in Venezuela.
For an excellent online resource on Venezuela, we recommend the site https://venezuelanalysis.com/, which has been tracking US efforts to undermine that country since 2003.
Lastly, here are a few book titles that we recommend if you want to big picture on US foreign policy in Venezuela and Venezuelan politics.
The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela, by Eva Golinger
Bush Versus Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela, by Eva Golinger
Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Miguel Tinker Salas
We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution, by George Ciccariello-Maher
Belknap Neighborhood continues to feel the effects of gentrification
The Belknap neighborhood is no stranger to outside interests with money coming into that northeast side area and wanting to change the makeup of that community.
In the 1990s, there was a major push on the part of Spectrum Health to transform the area to what is now know as the Medical Mile.
Just a few years ago, when GVSU announced it wanted to expand their presence near their Michigan Street facility, the most recent wave of gentrification hit the area.
In the Spring of 2016, the Grand Rapids City Commission approved a major condo project, in what was to be known as the Coit Square Project. The site If the River Swells, provided an important analysis of the Coit Square Project, primarily through a class lens.
Then in the Fall of 2016, the physical changes to the neighborhood could be seen with the demolition of some 20 homes in order to make way for the new GVSU building. We took pictures of the demolition at the time and raised questions about the demolition as a form of displacement.
The neighborhood continues to be a target for gentrification, with the most recent example being a project that would demolish nearly another dozen homes. According to Grand Rapids Planning Commission documents from January 10, 2019, the east side of Coit NE, between Fairbanks and Trowbridge, would be leveled for a new housing development project (highlighted here in blue).
This new project is being proposed by RJM Properties, which had begun a project in 2014 known as the Clancy Street Lofts and is now billed as the “Gateway to Belknap Apartments. These apartments run between $1,000 – $2,500 a month.
The new RJM Properties project would include 43 – 50 housing units for sale, as is indicated in the Planning Commission document here:
The units will cost $169,900 – $329,900 for 1 and 2 bedroom units; the 3 bedroom units will have a base price of $499,900. So these new units will run between $175,000 to more than a half a million, which clearly means that there target demographic for these housing units as the professional and business class. However, in the GR Planning Commission documents it does state that RJM Properties, “is actively working to devise a plan that would help make it possible for us to allocate 2 units for affordable low-income ownerships.”
While some will applaud this new project as further evidence that Grand Rapids is a thriving city, it is for this writer a clear indication that Grand Rapids continues to be a city that celebrates wealth at the expense of poor and working class residents.
Movements and Moments: How we are winning the Fight Against the ICE in Kent County Part II
Last week, we posted Part I of this story, providing an analysis of what Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE has been doing to fight the presence of ICE in Kent County.
In Part I, we focused primarily on the campaign to end the contract between the Kent County Sheriff’s Department and ICE. We framed the fight as taking advantage of moments to build the anti-ICE movement, specifically by bookending the national outrage over immigrant children in cages in June of 2018 and the decision by the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to change their policy on holding people at the jail for ICE.
Last Thursday, Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE declared that the change in policy by the Kent County Sheriff’s Department, wherein, they would require a judicial warrant in order to hold people in the jail for ICE. This effectively made the contract meaningless, since it gutted the essence of the contract between ICE and Kent County.
What we wanted to reflect on today is what happened at the Kent County Commission meeting last Thursday and why we should never rely on systems of power to initiate the kind of change we are calling for……..collective liberation.
“Silence is the Voice of Complicity” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Roughly 20 people who have been involved in the effort to end the contract between ICE and Kent County, attended the Kent County Commission meeting last Thursday to provide one last opportunity for commissioners to publicly declare that they supported an end to the contract with ICE.
However, before public comment was provided, the Kent County Sheriff did speak to why she made the decision to require ICE to provide a judicial warrant if they wanted the county to hold people. This outcome, as we noted last week, is the direct result of 7 months of constant pressure being applied by Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE to the Kent County government, using a variety of tactics, culminating in the national news coverage of the ICE detention of a US citizen and former Marine.
Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE wanted to provide the commissioners and the county administrators one last opportunity to save face and to publicly declare their support for a formal end to the contract with ICE. Several members of both groups spoke during public comment and they brought with them a copy of an oversized resolution that they could sign and thus, publicly declare a call for the formal end to the contract.
The commissioners were invited to sign the document. There was nothing but silence from that elected body. There are several things I want to look at based on the reaction from the commissioners.
First, those of us who were involved in this campaign to end the contract have been coming to the commission meetings since June of 2018. We have shared with them dozens of specific examples of how immigrant families have been separated because of ICE actions in Kent County and we discussed the trauma that this harm has inflicted. More importantly, there have been numerous immigrants, some who have been impacted by ICE violence, who spoke directly to the Kent County Commissioners, yet the commission failed to act.
Second, after last Thursday’s Kent County Commission meeting, one commissioner did approach members of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response, but not on the matter of signing the letter or thanking the groups for the dedication and commitment to fighting this injustice. Instead, the county commissioner scolded the group for not standing during the prayer and the pledge of allegiance, which happens at the beginning of every commission meeting. At one point, this commissioner even referred to this behavior as that of a rebellious teenager. This was just another example of West Michigan Nice and White Privilege. Those of us who do not stand during the prayer or the pledge of allegiance do so out of a deep conviction, not because of some adolescent rebellion. Christian prayers should NEVER accompany government functions, since it is a clear violation of the separation between church and state. In addition, not standing for the pledge of allegiance is related to not wanting to follow blind nationalism, not wanting pledge to the same state, which condones the violence and harm done to the immigrant community by ICE. Standing or not standing for ceremonial formalities is irrelevant. The County Commission claims they represent the people and their concerns, but it seems that this only happens when they determine that those concerns are worthy of their time.
The third, and final point, I want to make here about what happened at the Kent County Commission meeting last Thursday, is that it further demonstrated why our collective theory of change puts faith in the power of people/social movements and not in systems of power like the Kent County Commission. We won without their approval or their commitment to reducing harm against the immigrant community. We won because of the collective efforts and commitment by a social movement that doesn’t rely on systems of power, but on the radical imagination of people, the demonstration of solidarity with the immigrant community and the revolutionary love that we have with each other.
The Fight Against ICE continues…….
While we took a moment to celebrate the end of the contract between ICE and Kent County, we know that the struggle continues. ICE is deeply embedded in our community and we plan to fight them until they leave the county. You can see from the map below, the various ways that ICE operates in Kent County, where their offices are, which companies have contracts with them and other relationships.
Just last Saturday, some 30 people braved the cold weather to publicly denounce the law firm (Honigman LLC), which is representing Immigration Centers of America, the for profit private company that builds detention facilities across the county for ICE. This effort kicked off a new statewide campaign to prevent the construction of a new ICE detention facility in Ionia. We invite you to join us in this ongoing fight against ICE in Kent County. Just go to the Movimiento Cosecha GR and the GR Rapid Response to ICE Facebook pages to get information about upcoming actions and how to get involved.
La Lucha Sigue!!!
