Liberals, Conservatives and the defense of ICE violence
The issue of immigrants and immigration policy have been a rather contentious issue for most of US history. However, the recent actions by the Trump administration to separate immigrant families, especially at the border, has put Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) front and center.
There has been a great deal of organizing in response to ICE in the past 12 months, around the country and in the Grand Rapids area. Locally, the GR Rapid Response to ICE group has been hosting monthly trainings designed to mobilize people to prevent ICE from arresting, detaining or deporting people, along with a wide variety of direct support to immigrants who have been impacted by ICE.
In addition, there is a recent campaign to get Kent County to end their contract with ICE, a contract they have had since 2012. There have been demonstrations at the June County Commission meeting, along with an action at the July 4th parade in East Grand Rapids, plus a petition campaign to end the contract.
With all of the attention centered around the harm that is being done through ICE, it is no surprise that there are lots of sectors publicly defending ICE, both liberal and conservative sectors. Let’s take a look at two examples, one from a conservative think tank and another from a liberal politician.
A Conservative Defense of ICE
The first example comes from the Acton Institute, which posted an article about ICE last week, entitled, The Left’s populist pushback.
The article, written by a third year university student, not only makes a weak argument about the “populist” response to ICE repression, the article demonstrates the author’s lack of understanding about what ICE does and how it impacts the immigrant community.
First, the Acton writer seems to think that the push to abolish ICE is being led by the group Democratic Socialist of America (DSA). While DSA chapters around the country have been active in actions against ICE, they are not the sole entity behind the growing movement. All across the US, there are anarchist groups, socialists, DSA groups, immigrant-led groups, religious groups and numerous autonomous groups that are not attached to any one political philosophy, which are organizing to resist ICE repression.
Second, the Acton article is rather vague when it comes to anything critical of ICE policies and practices. Nowhere in the article does it mention any hard facts about how ICE has been arresting and detaining immigrants, often followed by their deportation. The actual harm done to individuals and families has been devastation, such as the report released by the ACLU in May of 2018, documenting widespread abuse of immigrant children in detention.
Third, the Acton Institute article calls upon its readers to “respect the rule of law” and that if there are abuses being committed by ICE, then there are proper ways to go about making changes to the law.
Lastly, while the Acton article doesn’t overtly defend Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, it does endorse the administration’s criminalization of immigrants and compels its readers to trust that the rule of law will serve the greater good.
A Liberal Defense of ICE
The second response is written by Kent County Commissioner Jim Talen, which you can read at this link. Talen, who is a Democratic Commissioner, is responding specifically to the End the Contract camapign that Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE have initiated. Talen writes:
The Sheriff has assured me and others of several policies related to how they handle immigration-related issues:
• The Sheriff currently only holds individuals for ICE for whom there is a warrant for a criminal offense. The Sheriff does not hold people who have been detained by ICE for only an immigration violation.
• When someone is arrested for a criminal offense and booked at the jail, their information, including fingerprints and citizenship, is entered (by law) into a national database that is accessible to all law enforcement agencies in the U.S., including ICE. The Sheriff does not specifically notify ICE of a person’s immigration status but ICE is able to see who is at the jail and request that the person be held for up to 72 hours.
• Kent County Sheriff’s Deputies do not arrest or detain people solely for immigration violations.
Such assurances from the Sheriff are bogus and misleading. First, if a local law enforcement agency stops someone for a faulty brake light and then discovers that the person has no drivers license, they can be arrested and taken to the Kent County Jail, where ICE has the option of putting a hold on them. For Commissioner Talen, this is a criminal offense. The reality is that this is simply a policy matter in Michigan, which currently does not allow those who are undocumented to obtain a drivers license, even though that was previously the case. People should not seen as criminal simply because state or federal policy is outdated and unjust.
Second, by stating that the Sheriff’s Deputies do not arrest or detain people because of their immigration status is just a way of avoiding the point I just made about people being stopped and then arrested because they are driving without a license.
Third, we know, based on the study done about racial profiling in Grand Rapids, that law enforcement disproportionately stops black and latino/latinx motorists. This type of racial profiling, does not explicitly target people because of their immigration status, but it doesn’t matter, since those drivers who cannot obtain a drivers license are at greater risk of being pulled over by cops. The fact that cops or deputies don’t asked their immigration status is irrelevant, since their arrest put them in contact with ICE. Therefore, people’s immigration status DOES become the issue.
Commissioner Talen then goes on to say this:
A benefit to County taxpayers from having the contract is that it protects the County in the event of a lawsuit by having the Department of Justice defend it. There are a pair of existing lawsuits against Kent and Allegan Counties for detaining undocumented persons. I have been told that Allegan County, which does not have a contract with ICE, has spent over $100,000 on its defense so far while Kent County has been defended by the DOJ and has not incurred significant local cost.
Really, the fiscal argument? people should be allowed to sue if the justice system does not serve them. More importantly, the argument here omits a major fiscal reality. The people who are picked up by ICE or end up in detention because ICE put a hold on them while in the Kent County Jail, are costing immigrant families hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Those who are put into detention by ICE are often the primary income earners, so immigrant families are suffering because they no longer have income and must rely on charity or alternative means of support. If the people who are being detained by ICE are eligible for bond, then families must come up with $5,000 – $7,000 for bond. This puts an even greater financial burden on immigrant families, many of whom are already burdened by the cost of living in this community. The fact that Commissioner Talen argues that this saves taxpayers money is also not true, since the immigrant community, even those who are undocumented, pay taxes in Kent County.
In the end, Commissioner Talen fails to acknowledge the harm and trauma being done to the immigrant community, he justifies and supports the county’s contract with ICE and he fails to acknowledge the campaign to end the contract with ICE. The best he can come up with is, “This is a complex and ongoing issue of significant importance to our community.”
As the old labor song asks, “which side are you on?” In the case of Commissioner Talen and the Acton Institute, both are on the side of oppression and state violence.
Graphic by Jason Flannery
A visual depiction of the Grand Rapids Power Structure
Grand Rapids Power Structure is bringing Jeb Bush to town for bi-annual policy conference in September
The West Michigan Policy Forum is one of the key groups in the area that makes up the Grand Rapids Power Structure, as we documented in Part IV in our recent series.
The West Michigan Policy Forum (WMPF) is an outgrowth of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. Founded in 2008, the WMPF has had a tremendous influence on state policy in Michigan. Several of the key members are part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure and have advocated numerous policies that have been adopted at the state level, such as cuts to business taxes, making Michigan a Right to Work state and eliminating public sector pensions.
For their bi-annual conference this coming September, it would appear that the focus of the conference and the policies they want to see adopted in the state are directed at undermining public education and creating a larger “talent” pool. To assist them in crafting policies that would help the WMPF achieve their goals, they are bringing former Florida Governor Jeb Bush as one of the keynote speakers in September. Here is how the WMPF announced Bush’s visit as a speaker in September:
Florida is one of the few states that has actually shown student improvement in K-12 education in recent years. Last year more than 86,000 Florida students graduated with job-ready-industry certifications, preparing them for work in high demand fields. The West Michigan Policy Forum (WMPF) today announced that former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush will speak at the biennial West Michigan Policy Forum Conference on Monday, September 24 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel.
During his eight years as governor, Bush introduced a suite of education reforms called “The Florida A+ Plan for Education.” The reforms included bringing transparency and accountability through specific school measurements that parents could understand. Schools in Florida are now graded A-F tied to student performance.
Bush will help headline a series of discussions and policy initiatives during the WMPF tied to improving Michigan’s ability to grow, attract and retain talent.
There has been plenty of documentation on how Bush undermined public education in Florida and adopted the very “education reform” policies that Betsy DeVos and the national organizations she has been involved in, have been promoting for the past two decades.
In 2015, an article on Alternet reflected the Bush war on Education and the ACLU chapter of Florida in 2015, also provided a substantial critique of Bush’s education policy.
A reporter for the Miami Herald noted in 2015, that Jeb Bush “dumbed down Florida’s schools and even the Jeff Bezos’-owned Washington Post has acknowledged just this year that the Trump administration’s education platform is essentially the same as what Jeb Bush adopted in Florida.
In addition, to the general undermining of public education policy that Jeb Bush will discuss while at the West Michigan Policy Forum in September, he will address, “improving Michigan’s ability to grow, attract and retain talent.”
This push for students to be developed as “talent” has been the focus of numerous groups in Grand Rapids, such as Believe 2 Become, which produced a major report on the theme in 2017, entitled, Workforce Opportunity in West Michigan:Connecting a Qualified Workforce to High-Growth Opportunities.
The group Talent 2025, has also been promoting the general idea of students as talent, with an emphasis on the collaboration between the business community and educators. In fact, Talent 2025, has developed a short list of next steps in order to reduced the gap between school completion and career readiness, as you can see here on the right.
As we have done in previous years, GRIID plans to attending the 2018 West Michigan Policy Forum conference and reporting on what the organization will make as their focus for the coming year.
Increased surveillance and and intelligence gathering are tactics the GRPD is using to “win over the community”
The Grand Rapids Police Department has been reeling for over a year now, because of public outrage over numerous incidents where cops pulled guns on black youth. These incidents have highlighted how local police departments deal with public resistance to their treatment of communities of color.
In addition to the numerous incidents of GRPD violence against black youth, there was also the report that came out last year about how the GRPD engages in racial profiling of black and latino/latinx motorists. All of this has resulted in the black and immigrant communities protesting the policies and practices of the GRPD, especially at City Commission meetings and community forums.
On the defensive, the GRPD has been working hard to: 1) find ways to ease community concerns about their actual role (protecting power and maintaining business as usual), and 2) engage in a variety of tactics to convince the public that the police department really does care about the community.
In recent weeks, the GRPD has been hosting programs and begun a series of tactics to try to win public confidence and to get the public to assist the police in monitoring behavior, primarily in communities of color.
In late June, the GRPD began hosting a series of forums, that were organized by a paid contractor to attempt to build trust between the community and the GRPD. Policing at the Speed of Trust is what these forums have been called, where participants have a 1 on 1 session with a member of the GRPD, “where attention is directed toward objectives instead of suspicion about others’ intentions, according to a City of Grand Rapids announcement.
The entity that the City of Grand Rapids contracted with to conducted these Speed of Trust sessions with the GRPD is Franklin Covey, a corporation that works in 150 countries around the world and with most of the companies listed in Fortune 500. Franklin Covey also works with local municipalities, specifically with Government/Law Enforcement.
There is no mention on the City of Grand Rapids announcement about how much they spent to contract with Franklin Covey and the decision to host forums that has people pair up with cops is brilliant, since it gets people to think about cops as individuals instead of as a structure that uses force to control people.
Another recent initiative from the GRPD is their Gun Violence Door Hanger Initiative. This project is designed to have police officers hang information in English and Spanish, information that lets people know how to contact the police or Silent Observer. The door hangers have been used in neighborhoods where recent gun violence has occurred, with the hope that residents will assist the GRPD in sharing information about potential suspects. The Director of Silent Observer stated, “These door hangers remind residents that in order to help police stop, solves and prevent crime, they need to share what they know with police or Silent Observer and can do so in the privacy of their own home.” Such programs are a form of what police historian Kristian Williams calls counter-insurgency.
“Pacification is best thought of as a massively enhanced version of the community policing technique that emerged in the 1970s. Community policing is centered on a broad concept of problem solving by law enforcement officers working in an area that is well-defined and limited in scale, with sensitivity to geographic, ethnic, and other boundaries. Patrol officers form a bond of trust with local residents, who get to know them as more than a uniform. The police work with local groups, businesses, churches, and the like to address the concerns and problems of the neighborhood. Pacification is simply an expansion of this concept to include greater development and security assistance.”
Having the public channel information to the police is a form of counterinsurgency that helps the police target communities that are heavily policed and to gather information about dissidents or potential dissidents that question the legitimacy of community policing.
One addition program that the GRPD is promoting is the Voluntary Camera Registration Program. This program, “allows residents and business owners to let the police department know that they have a camera on their property. These camera locations will be added to a database only accessible to law enforcement. Having a database with known locations of surveillance cameras will make it quicker for law enforcement to obtain video footage that may help to solve a crime.” In other words, the GRPD wants to increase their ability to monitor the public without their knowledge of this type of surveillance.
Of course, all of this costs money, but nowhere on the City’s website can we easily find out how much the taxpayers are spending to implement such programs.
If the City of Grand Rapids really want to build trust between the GRPD and the community, then the GRPD needs to stop using a disproportionate amount of violence in the black and immigrant communities, stop using intimidation tactics, harassment and the increased levels of surveillance of people who are speaking out against police abuse. I for one don’t think that is what the City of Grand Rapids will do, since the GRPD’s function is to spend the bulk of their efforts and resources to police the black and immigrant neighborhoods and to protect the system of power and privilege that exists in this city.
DeVos Family is largest political donors in 6 of the 14 Congressional races in Michigan
There are still nearly 4 months before the November 2018 elections. This means that the campaigns will get uglier over the coming months and the amount of money contributed and spent will be astronomical.
However, let us be clear that the majority of money that has been contributed and will be contributed in the remaining months of the 2018 election cycle, is money that comes from the wealthiest families and industries. This is the case all over the country.
Right here in Michigan, we can see that the money coming in for the 14 separate Congressional races is also coming from the wealthiest families. If we are looking at the wealthiest families in West Michigan, then we need look no further than the DeVos Family, which has been the largest political contributor in Michigan for years.
Of the 14 Congressional races the DeVos Family is a major contributor in 6 of those races. There are some races that will not be close and some races that will certainly go Democratic (and have for years), so the DeVos Family strategically spends their money on races that are likely to result in a won for the candidates they are backing.
What follows is data from the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, specifically for the six Congressional districts that the DeVos Family is making major contributions:
- 2nd Congressional District Bill Huizenga DeVos Family Contribution $13,500
- 3rd Congressional District Justin Amash DeVos Family Contribution $13,500
- 4th Congressional District John Moolenaar DeVos Family Contribution $13,500
- 6th Congressional District Fred Upton DeVos Family Contribution $27,000
- 10th Congressional District Paul Mitchell DeVos Family Contribution $13,500
- 11th Congressional District Klint Kesto DeVos Family Contribution $5,400
Total DeVos Family Contributions in the Michigan Congressional Races: $77,400
Someone recently asked me why I have it in for the DeVos Family. Any family that can buy elections, but political access and impose public policy on society that fits their ideological worldview should be exposed and resisted, not matter who they are. It just happens that the DeVos Family is at the top of the list from West Michigan. GRIID will continue to expose them and work with anyone who wants to resist their oppressive politics.
On Friday, MLive reported that there is a group that is legally challenging the Michigan Ballot Initiative for an increase in the state’s minimum wage.
MLive reported that the group Michigan Opportunity, is asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to not allow the One Fair Wage campaign initiative to be on the ballot this fall. The One Fair Wage campaign is calling for a $12 an hour minimum wage in Michigan.
The MLive article states:
“We firmly believe that the Michigan One Fair Wage petition, financed almost exclusively by out-of-state interests, has willfully violated Michigan’s Constitution and … election law to achieve the special interest ends of their financiers,” Michigan Opportunity committee spokesman Justin Winslow said in the release.
The MLive article also cites someone with the One Fair Wage campaign:
“Michigan One Fair Wage will be intervening in the lawsuit to defend the petition and will be responding to the challenges filed with the Board of Canvassers,” said Mark Brewer, legal counsel to the Michigan One Fair Wage.
The MLive article doesn’t provide any background for either Justin Winslow, the group Michigan Opportunity or Mark Brewer.
According to the campaign finance requirements, which you can find on the Michigan Secretary of State office, the group Michigan Opportunity received $100,000 from the Michigan Restaurant Association in April to fund their effort to defeat the One Fair Wage campaign. The MLive article does say that Michigan Opportunity, is “an opposition group with ties to the Michigan Restaurant Association.”
However, upon further investigation, saying Michigan Opportunity has ties to the Michigan Restaurant Association is somewhat misleading. MLive does quote Justin Winslow from the Michigan Opportunity group, but fails to mention that he is also the President of the Michigan Restaurant Association and has been since 2015.
Prior to that position, it is important to note that Winslow has served as, “chief of staff for Sen. John Pappageorge, R-Troy, leading appropriations and legislative strategy. He also served as legislative director for Sen. Tony Stamas, R-Midland, and director of external affairs for Sen. Shirley Johnson, R-Troy.”
On the other side, it should be noted that Mark Brewer, the person cited in the MLive article, as legal counsel to the One Fair Wage campaign, is the former head of the Michigan Democratic Party. As with so many of the ballot initiatives, they are highly partisan.
Lastly, it should be noted that there has been a national campaign to make $15 an hour the federal minimum wage. The current minimum wage in Michigan makes it impossible for most people making minimum wage to afford housing with the current market rate for housing.
Grand Rapids Power Structure: Part X – Movements for Reform or Movements for Collective Liberation?
Over the past few months we have been investigating the Grand Rapids Power Structure, beginning with a discussion about its framework in Part I; the most powerful family in Grand Rapids, the DeVos Family, in Part II and in Part III we looked at other members of the most powerful members of the private sector. In Part IV, we looked at the private sector organizations that have power and which individuals sit on the boards of those organizations.
Five weeks ago, we looked at the next level of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, the local government, in Part V, and four weeks ago we investigated the role and function of the media, within Grand Rapids and how it serves power in Part VI.
Three weeks we began to look at how various institutions act as a buffer for systems of power against systemic change, first looking at institutions of higher learning in Part VII and in Part VIII we looked at how Religious Institutions act as a buffer against systemic change in Grand Rapids.
Last week, we looked at how Non-Profits play a role in acting as a buffer for systems of power and against systemic change, in Part IX.
Today, in Part X, we will look at which groups are working to just reform the current system of power in Grand Rapids and which are working to dismantle it and create new, autonomous forms of self-governance and collective liberation.
Reformism in Grand Rapids
There is a whole litany of groups working on issues from a reformist perspective in Grand Rapids. Many of these groups are advocating for electoral reform or supporting particular politics through the electoral process. While I think that voting can be a useful tactic in bringing about some form of social change, historically it has not created the kind of changes necessary for systemic and structural transformation.
And yet, we see a number of groups mobilized around elections and voting in Grand Rapids, those endorsing ballot initiatives, those endorsing individual candidates and those adopting what are often referred to as progressive political values. And while individuals within those groups may have a deeper critique of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, most of these groups will spend a great deal of energy and resources that will NOT, in any significant way, challenge the current system of power in this area.
Voting can be seen as a form of hard reduction, but it is often not a source of transformative justice or collective liberation. This should be clear in West Michigan, considering how much influence that the Grand Rapids Power Structure has on influencing public policy and buying candidates in Parts II, III and IV. It is not really possible to compete with organized money, unless you have organized people who are willing to take risks and engage in transformative politics.
Last week, we discussed the limitations of the non-profit sector, with their reliance on foundation funding, often foundations run by those within the Grand Rapids Power Structure, plus their are the limitations of what non-profits can do politically. Grand Rapids has hundreds of non-profits, even those that claim to engage in grassroots justice work. However, those non-profits still operate within a reformist framework and do not threaten the current power structure in Grand Rapids.
Then there are groups that exit, which are not non-profits, yet often act like one. These groups engage in reformist politics, by attempting to work within the boundaries, which the system of power has determined to be legitimate and respectable.
Take for instance, the group GR Homes for All. This is a group that adopts the principle that having a home is a right and not just for those who can afford one. However, the politics of the group, which is primarily led by those who have secure housing, works around the margins to make change. GR Homes for All, recently got the Grand Rapids City Commission to adopt a rental application fee process, which doesn’t punish those applying to rent in the Grand Rapids market. This is beneficial for those who rent, but it doesn’t challenge the sector that has the real power in the housing market, namely landlords, property management companies and the real estate industry in Grand Rapids. Until the housing justice movement is led by those who are most vulnerable, those who are being priced out of the housing market and those who are most impacted by gentrification, then any efforts the group engages in will not result in challenging those with the most power.
Another example of a group involved in a more reformist approach to critical issues is the Grand Rapids Water Protectors. This group, in many ways, grew out of the movement working in solidarity with the indigenous struggle at Standing Rock in 2016 & 2017. It was rooted in the idea that all water is sacred and that anything – oil pipelines, fracking – that was a threat to water should be resisted.
The Grand Rapids Water Protectors does do some good educational work around water issues and is involved in the campaign to shut down Line 5, the Enbridge Oil Pipeline, that runs through Michigan. However, the group does not advocate for direct action to shut down Line 5 and hasn’t really engaged in other forms of resistance in the Grand Rapids area, especially the kind of resistance that would threaten the local power structure. Like many of these groups, the Grand Rapids Water Protectors has the potential to use direct action and transformative politics as a means to achieve its goals, but that has not been the case so far.
Movements that Challenge Power in Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids does have a rich history of people and movements being involved in direct action, the kind of action that challenges power. There are the examples of the 1911 Furniture Workers Strike, the Socialists who resisted during WWI in Grand Rapids, the Central American Solidarity Movement, the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement to the various forms of black resistance to White Supremacy over the years, as has been documented in Todd Robinson’s book, A City Within a City.
There have also been movements that challenged US imperialism during the Vietnam War and the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with anarchist and autonomous environmental groups in recent decades in Grand Rapids. And while these movements come and go, they have offered a glimpse of the potential for lasting resistance and a challenge to reformism in the area. Even though these movements didn’t “win,” they were a real threat to the business as usual approach to politics and they engaged in direct action as the primary tactic used in their varying strategies.
However, the most substantial resistance to power in Grand Rapids in recent decades has been from communities of color. The indigenous community, the black community and the latino/latinx communities come to mind, in terms of those who have posed the largest threat to the system of power in Grand Rapids.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the black community, which challenged forced busing, fought to maintain their own community schools and those who resisted police brutality, housing injustice and unemployment are a few examples of the kind of resistance that was threatening to the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
Maybe one of the best examples of a group/movement that not only challenges the existing power structure in Grand Rapids, but engages in transformative politics that seeks to achieve collective liberation, is Movimiento Cosecha GR.
Movimiento Cosecha GR is a chapter of a national immigrant-led movement that seeks to win respect, dignity and permanent protection for all immigrants. Movimiento Cosecha GR is not a non-profit and it does not seek to reform immigration policy, rather they work to create justice for the immigrant community.
Cosecha GR has its own power analysis, which it often presents during trainings and introductions for people who come to their meetings. Cosecha GR’s theory of change evolved out of the efforts to reform immigration policy since the 1980s, where politicians and political parties kept using immigrants and the Latino/Latinx community in order to get votes, while never transforming immigration policy.
One example that Movimiento Cosecha GR gives was in 2005-2006, when legislation was put forward by Congressman Sensenbrenner that would further criminalize those that were undocumented and anyone who would assist them. This proposed legislation was was met by massive mobilizations across the country from the Latino/Latinx community. In Grand Rapids, some 10,000 people marched in the streets to protest the proposed legislation. Then the Democratic Party was able to convince the immigrant community to support Barack Obama in the 2008 election, with the promise that comprehensive immigration reform would occur.
The Latino/Latinx community voted big for the Democrats, yet no real movement was happening around immigration. Instead, the immigrant community began to take matters into their own hands, particularly young immigrants to forced the Obama administration to adopt a policy for undocumented youth, who are generally referred to as Dreamers. Not satisfied with the some political promises, these same immigrant youth then began to demand protection for their parents and extended family members, since they too deserved to stay in this country. This is the context in which Movimiento Cosecha was born, out of a political struggle that realized the immigrant demands were not going to be met until they began to force politicians to meet their demands. It’s what Cosecha GR refers to as, “we don’t dance with politicians”……..meaning we don’t play the cozying up to politicians in order to ask for political favors.
Therefore, Movimiento Cosecha GR uses popular education and direct action tactics to mobilize immigrants and allies to win dignity, respect and permanent protection for all immigrants. They use short term and long term campaigns, such as boycotts, strikes, marches and other forms of direct action to achieve their goals.
What the group in Grand Rapids has done in the past 18 months has been impressive, in terms of how many people have been mobilized, how many actions they have engaged in and how it has received attention from the local power structure. The local law enforcement agencies, particularly the GRPD, have responded with increased monitoring, the targeting of some organizers, intimidation and an attempt to control the larger mobilizations over the past 18 months.
Movimiento Cosecha GR has engaged thousands of people through the boycotts and strike they have organized during May Day, with workers refusing to go to work and families keeping their kids out of school, to the Wal-Mart boycott and the Turkey boycott last year.
Current Movimiento Cosecha GR is involved in a statewide campaign to get drivers licenses for all and the end the contract that Kent County has with ICE. The action that Movimiento Cosecha GR organized (along with GR Rapid Response to ICE) on June 28th, was a clear demonstration of their effectiveness and how the system of power feels threatened by what they are doing.
Movimiento Cosecha GR also practices transformative politics and collective liberation because they; 1) are a movement led by immigrants, 2) they utilize direct action as the primary strategy for change, and 3) they don’t cozy up to politicians or dance with political parties, instead they force systems of power to accept their demands. If we are to challenge the Grand Rapids Power Structure, this is the kinds of transformative politics we need to engage in. We all can learn from Movimiento Cosecha GR.
It is no secret that in West Michigan, christian missionary work is just like breathing air. We don’t think about it, it is just part of the dominant cultural reality.
In fact, Grand Rapids was built upon the work of christian missionaries, which were part of the settler colonial project to remove or assimilate indigenous communities living along the Grand River.
With some 800 churches in Grand Rapids, and hundreds more in surrounding communities, christian mission work still dominates the local landscape. Some christian groups do mission work in urban core areas, others go to impoverished areas around the country, while others make it a point to leave the US and spread the “good news” about their religion……..and how wonderful American and Americans are.
In fact, christian missions is just an extension of christian hegemony, which is the theme of an important book by Paul Kivel, entitled, Living in the Shadow of the Cross. The Christian Hegemony Project defines christian hegemony as:
The everyday, pervasive, deep-seated, and institutionalized dominance of Christian institutions, Christian values, Christian leaders, and Christians as a group.
One recent example of christian hegemony was a story that was reported on WOOD TV 8 a few days ago, about some christian missionaries who just got back from Haiti, after fleeing violence. The channel 8 story frames the issue as the missionaries got out safely, despite the dangerous situation they were in. WOOD TV 8 reported:
Roads were also blocked around the resort in Carries where the Lowell missionaries were staying. The group was ready to head home Sunday, but hunkered down in its secure hotel after the airport about an hour away closed.
Channel 8 mentioned that the christian missionaries were from a church in Lowell (Impact Church), who were partnering with a group in Grand Rapids called Starfysh. Impact Church is a Wesleyan Church and Starfysh appears to be non-denominational.
What is instructive about the channel 8 story is that they never question why people from Lowell are in Haiti, not do they question what they are actually doing with the people of Haiti. Christian mission work is so normal that the news media doesn’t need to ask these basic questions, because, of course the mission groups are there to “do good.”
The group Starfysh does make it a point to say on their website that they are non-political. “We do not take positions on Haitian politics nor do we attempt to influence political discourse.” The fact is, the organization’s very presence in Haiti is political, whether they like it or not, and they are operating in a long standing tradition of US policy that has been essentially punishing Haiti ever since they won independence in the early part of the 19th Century. We pointed this dynamic out in a short video in 2010, after a Bush/Clinton ad was being used to collect money after the 2010 earthquake.
By not questioning the motives of the christian mission group, channel 8 is essentially normalizing white saviorism, making the presence of white christians from Lowell in Haiti, like it was just another day in the life of white christians.
We can not accept, nor assume, that white christian missionaries are ever involved in anything that is in the best interest of the people they claim to be helping. It is urgent that we come to terms with this reality and begin to provide a different narrative around the role of christian hegemony and white saviorism.
On June 22nd, we reported that the US House of Representatives had passed a version of the 2018 Farm Bill, which punished those who are food insecure, by requiring them to work a certain amount of hours per month in order to receive food assistance.
Recently, the Senate passed a similar version of the Farm Bill, that not only continues to subsidize agribusiness, the Senate version also requires those on food assistance to work.
Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, the Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry, led the charge to pass a bi-partisan bill. The announcement on Senator Stabenow’s website suggests that the 2018 Farm Bill is great for Michigan farmers and great for Michigan’s economy.
The reality is that the bill is great for agribusiness in Michigan. Those who stood with Stabenow in Michigan at a recent press conference, are entities within the agribusiness sector, such as the individual large-scale farms, the Michigan Vegetable Council and the Michigan Rural Water Association. At the federal level, you can see in the chart on the right, the agribusiness corporations that have contributed the most in the past year to lobbying Congress to pass the Farm Bill.
Most of these businesses and farm associations and their members are recipients of massive taxpayer subsidies and most of them grow mono-crops on a large scale. Small farmers and farmers that practice sustainability benefit at all from the US Farm Bill.
The Senate version of the Farm Bill may not be as harsh on food assistance recipients, but it will still require people to find jobs, go to job training and participate in a monitoring program in order the continue receiving food assistance.
According to Food and Water Watch, the Senate Bill is not as punitive as the House version, but it still it still perpetuates an unjust and unsustainable food system. They state in a recent post that there are two areas that really need improvement:
• Commodity Crops – The Senate bill maintains the approach of the last farm bill when it comes to commodity crops like corn, soy and wheat by emphasizing subsidized crop insurance as the primary farm safety net. Missing is any discussion of the real reforms we need, including restoring grain reserve programs that could be used to provide stability for farmers and rein in overproduction of these commodity crops that end up as cheap feed for factory farms.
• Factory Farms – For several Farm Bill cycles, large-scale factory farm operations have been eligible to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from a program called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to subsidize equipment or facilities to manage the massive amounts of manure they generate. By allowing factory farms to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize their manure management, EQIP funds have helped corporate agribusiness consolidate the livestock industry. The Senate bill would continue to allow this practice, as well as increase the size of loans to farms that the USDA will guarantee. These guaranteed loans serve as another subsidy to factory farms, which can convince banks to lend them money to expand or build new facilities, with taxpayers taking all the risk.
However, the group Food First, says that the Farm Bill not only needs improvement, it does nothing to promote farm justice. In a recent statement, Food First wrote:
Every 4-5 years, the U.S. Farm Bill bounces back and forth between the House and Senate chambers of the U.S. legislature as progressive NGOs engage in lobbying efforts to support social programs like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), Beginning Farmer and Rancher Program, the Conservation title, and now, the Farm Stress program.
None of these issues—important as they are to millions of people—address the crisis of U.S. agriculture. None break the agrifood monopolies’ stranglehold on our farmers, farmworkers, food workers, and consumers, or the negative impact the Farm Bill has on the global food system. None call for parity, the foundation for an equitable farm and food policy. What is missing, according to the authors of this Backgrounder, is farm justice.
The document that Food First is referring to, can be found at this link.
Yesterday, I was invited to present on media literacy with a group of students who were working on a project about restorative justice through the Restorative Justice Coalition of West Michigan.
The students had a goal of making video(s) about how restorative justice works and its importance.
The 2 hours I spent with students was delightful, in that these were students who were inquisitive and had lots of opinions about media. I began the session with a media literacy exercise that is in 2 parts. The first part had 9 Marvel movie characters that the students needed to identify. The second part was a picture of the 9 US 
Supreme Court Justices, even though one of them was dead and one of them justice announced they were retiring from the bench.
The exercise was meant for students to talk about why they were able to identify the Marvel characters and not the Supreme Court Justices. One students stated that he recognized the Marvel characters because they do have a moral compass and can teach people about self sacrifice. This student also stated that the Supreme Court Justices make decisions without public input, so since this student had no agency in determining how the justices would decide, he had little interest in who they were. It was a most excellent observation about the limitations of our political system.
We then looked at some basic principles of media literacy and talked about how all media is constructed, the cumulative effect of media consumption, how everyone navigates media images & messages differently, gender representation, body image and how advertisers develop brand loyalty.
We then began to talk about and look at examples of racial representation in the media – news stories, films, advertisements, video games and various online sources. It became clear to the students that communities of color were being stereotyped in media, with unfair representation, with an overt emphasis on the criminalization of being black in the US.
The criminalization of black and brown people in media, both entertainment and news media, is one of the manifestations of White Supremacy in our society. The negative representations of people of color normalizes the biased perceptions that white society has about black and brown bodies and solidifies their belief that punitive actions must be taken against these communities in order the keep them safe. The media’s role in fostering a fear-based reaction from white people is then reflected in the types of policies that are passed, especially when it comes to policing and the prison industrial complex.
One way that this all plays out in society is through the so-called War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is understood within the black community as a war on their community. We discussed a statistic from 
the group Critical Resistance, which does prison abolition work, that demonstrates how the criminal justice system is so bias against black people when it comes to the issue of illegal drugs. This one sentence (seen here to the right) got a strong reaction from students, with some of them calling this an outrageous.
This same sentence and the statistics it contained also demonstrated to the students that the criminal justice system was not interested in anything remotely like restorative justice. In fact, one student named exactly what the statistic demonstrated, which was that the criminal justice system was punitive.
The 2 hour session concluded with us looking at some possible video messages that the students could produce in the next few days. We talked about the War on Drugs, policing in the black community, the City of Grand Rapids budget for the police, racial profiling by the cops and the current Kent County contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), all of which were punitive measures by systems of power.
