For more than two decades I have been writing about the Grand Rapids-based Acton Institute, an organization that essentially sees christianity and capitalism as compatible.
The DeVos family has been a major donor to the Acton Institute since its founding, along with other members of the Grand Rapids power structure. Several of the DeVos family members have also sat on the board of directors and Betsy DeVos’s mother, Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, is a current member of the board.
The Acton Institute’s founder, Rev. Robert Sirico, has debated against liberation theology on numerous occasions, sometime debated Bishop Thomas Gumbleton from Detroit. The Grand Rapids organization has even funded Exxon/Mobil to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars to deny climate change.
Their positions are often very reactionary and contrary to most justice-based principles, but I found myself particularly disgusted with a recent blog post from the Acton Institute, entitled, 5 Ways the church can help the poor.
I don’t really want to argue theological points or biblical exegesis. There are plenty of people who are more qualified than I who can take on that task. However, what I do think is important to point out in the callousness with which the Acton Institute blogger demonstrates their utter contempt for those who are experiencing poverty.
I want to simply present each of their 5 ways that the church can help the poor and offer up a brief response to each.
The first way the church can help the poor is by teaching “God’s big picture,” which essentially means that the poor should put their faith in the afterlife, since this world is temporal. The Acton writer states, “The poor need to know that poverty is not forever when you’re in Christ.”
Wow, this is the exact same argument that the evangelical community in Guatemala (which was influenced by US-based churches) was making in the 1980s during the years when the army was massacring tens of thousands of indigenous people. People were witnessing the murder of their family members along the disappearance and torture of their neighbors. In the midst of these heinous crimes, the evangelical church was telling those most impacted by the violence to not put much faith in this world, but the next.
The second point the Acton writer makes is that the church should teach the poor about the current job market, with an emphasis on vocational job training, since “Not everyone is going to college.” The poor need to learn their place, by taking jobs that are low paying and in the service sector.
The third way that churches can help the poor is by allowing their buildings to be used by the poor. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea in principle, but then the writer clarifies this point by saying so the poor can fill out job applications, a place for students to do homework or for community development groups to hold meetings. Of the 5 ways the church can help the poor, this is probably the least objectionable, but it still is written from an extremely patronizing place.
The fourth way for the church to help to poor, according to the Acton writer, is to partner with other groups to do personal finance training. Ok, so the problem with the poor is not that many of those experiencing poverty have to work two jobs in order to barely make ends meet or to constantly have to decide whether to pay utility bills or buy groceries. The problem with the poor is they just don’t know how to manage money.
Lastly, the fifth way that the church can help the poor is by using financial resources to help them in “times of crisis.” However, the Acton writer makes it clear that this doesn’t mean “we just hand out benevolence.” Instead, the church should employee people on a temporary basis and become their boss. This, of course, is important because people will just end up being dependent on benevolence and not take any initiative to take care of themselves.
Jesus H Christ, what a load of bullshit. I mean, not only are each of these five suggestions demonstrate nothing but contempt for those experiencing poverty, there is no acknowledgement of the wealth gap in the US or the massive subsidies to the rich in tax breaks and corporate welfare. In fact, there is no mention of the structural violence caused by the economic system of capitalism, since it all comes down to individual behavior.
Not that I was expecting anything different from an organization that is essentially apologists for capitalism, but I was somewhat amazed at the lack of compassion or sense of justice that the Acton writer displayed.
The Corporatization of Rental Properties in Grand Rapids
Over the past decade, Grand Rapids has seen a shift in the housing market as it relates to rental properties.
First, the cost to rent in Grand Rapids has gone up considerably and in many cases the cost has doubled in the post 10 years. Many tenants we have spoken to have said that they can no longer afford the monthly rental costs, which averages between $800 – $1,000 per month. We are not talking about most of the newer development projects across the city, where rental costs are even higher, we are talking about the cost of rent in neighborhoods that have been around for the past 75 – 100 years. A neighborhood organizer with West Grand Neighborhood, which is on the near westside, said at a Grand Rapids Homes for All event last July that she has seen rent double in the past five years for working class families that can no longer afford to live in that neighborhood.
The second major factor impacting rental properties in Grand Rapids has been the shift in ownership. What has been happening in Grand Rapids, like in many cities across the country, is that larger property management companies are buying up property as investments in the changing housing markets. Just a few decades ago, more of the rental properties in Grand Rapids were owned and operated by local landlords and property management entities. Now we are seeing the emergence of corporate landlords. Companies, often based outside of Michigan, are buying up properties throughout Grand Rapids because of the profitability in the housing market.
For instance, while working on some research for the Grand Rapids Tenant Union, we came across numerous properties in the Garfield Park neighborhood area that are owned by property management companies in Texas, Colorado, California and Illinois. One company in particular, stood out, a company called RDG Fund – 5 LTH LLC.
RDG Fund – 5 LTH LLC, according to the Grand Rapids City parcel map lists the company as based out of Chicago. The business was registered in Illinois by William Rudnick, who has two other businesses registered under his name in Chicago. Rudnick works for DLA Piper, which is a global law firm representing Fortune 500 companies. RDG Fund – 5 LTH LLC owns at least 6 rental properties in the Garfield Park neighborhood area.
Another rental property we came across while doing research, was listed as being owned by People Space LLC. The address for People Space LLC is 838 Cherry St Se in Grand Rapids, which happens to be the address of American Realty. However, unless people knew where to look, People Space LLC seems to be a stand alone small business, when in fact, they are part of a company that manages roughly 250 properties in the greater Grand Rapids area.
These are some of the complex forces that are behind the gentrification of Grand Rapids and these are the obstacles that working class individuals and families are facing when attempting to rent in the area.
Earlier we mentioned that we were doing research for the Grand Rapids Tenant Union, which is part of the group Grand Rapids Homes for All. The Tenant Union has only been around for a few months and is attempting to organize those who rent to fight against the rising cost of rent and the corporatization of the housing market in Grand Rapids.
The Grand Rapids Tenant Union meets monthly and is open to anyone who is a renter in Grand Rapids. They work on promoting renters rights and demonstrating the kind of power tenants can have when they are organized and unified to fight for housing justice in Grand Rapids.
Their next meeting is tomorrow night, Thursday, March 16 at 6pm at the Garfield Park Neighborhood Association. For more information go to this link. If you are unable to attend this meeting, you can contact the Grand Rapids Tenant Union by sending an e-mail to info@grhomesforall.com.
Senator Peters sits with US Army Research Director, is Silent on Trump Proposed Military Budget when President addressed Congress
A few weeks ago, President Trump presented before a joint session of Congress his proposed budget for the US military. The proposed budget was a $54 billion increase from the previous year, which was roughly $600 billion.
There was not a great deal of resistance to this announcement from the Democrats, mostly because the Democratic Representatives and Senators are just as tied to the military industrial complex as are their Republican counterparts.
Take Michigan Senator Gary Peters, for example. Peters sits on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, just like his predecessor Carl Levin. And just like Carl Levin, Senator Peters is equally committed to protecting private military contractors, especially those based in Michigan.
Just days before President Trump told a joint session of Congress that he plans on increasing the US military budget, Senator Peters was in Sterling Heights, Michigan, visiting the military contractor BAE Systems.
In a Press Release from February 23, Senator Peters stated:
“I am proud that Michigan workers at companies like BAE Systems and its suppliers are developing solutions to meet the challenges of the future of warfare. As a new member of the Armed Services Committee, I am committed to supporting these manufacturers so they can continue to supply our service members with the best equipment and vehicles.”
To further demonstrate his commitment to the military industrial complex, Senator Peters was seated next to Dr. Paul Rogers, Director of the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC).
According to a news release on the day of President Trump’s address to Congress, Senator Peters said:
“TARDEC is leading groundbreaking research that keeps our military at the forefront of new technological developments that improves safety for our service members, supports Michigan’s leading role in the transformation of mobility and drives our growing defense manufacturing sector. I’m honored to have Dr. Rogers as my guest for the President’s address to recognize TARDEC’s innovative work that will ensure our service members are prepared for the next frontier of warfare.”
In a statement from Senator Peters, responding to the President’s address to Congress, Senator Peters is silent on Trump’s proposed increase in US military spending. His statement was vague overall, but no surprise that someone as entrenched in the military industrial complex as Senator Peters had nothing to say about the US military budget, a budget that is the largest in the world.
In an example of solid journalism, Grand Rapids Press reporter Jim Harger’s article in Thursday’s paper, investigates the property management company Eenhoorn LLC’s efforts to push low-income tenants out in favor of making larger profits.
However, it should be noted that the GR Press article was the not the first to report on this matter. Nick Manes, writing for MiBiz had written about the very same topic two month’s earlier. Courthouse News Service also reported on the issue in early January of this year, thus making the Grand Rapids Press story seem a bit late.
John Smith, a lawyer with Legal Aid of West Michigan, has taken the case of Kari Thompson, a tenant who moved into loft apartments at 26 Sheldon Blvd SE in downtown Grand Rapids.
The Grand Rapids Press article states:
According to a paper trail unearthed by Smith and other Legal Aid lawyers, Eenhoorn bought ownership control of the properties and loaned them money backed by mortgages. The entities that held the mortgages took the properties back through a legal process called “deed in lieu of foreclosure” when the properties fell behind on the mortgages.
The foreclosures allowed Eenhoorn to get out of the final 15 years of its 30-year obligation to provide low-income housing at the properties, said Smith, who discovered the foreclosures while representing a low-income and disabled resident of The Lofts, a downtown Grand Rapids apartment project at 26 Sheldon Blvd. SE.
Kari Thompson is the plaintiff in a case against Eenhoorn LLC, where Thompson filed a complaint about how they were treating her. You can read the 28-page case file here.
Eenhoorn LLC has engaged in the same practice at other properties they own in at least three states, according to the lawyer with Legal Aid of West Michigan. On top of that, Eenhoorn has demonstrated that it puts profits over people, when a HUD audit revealed that the property management company was engaged in “Equity Skimming.”
It should also be noted that the lawyer representing Eenhoorn in this dispute, is Nyal Deems, the former Mayor of East Grand Rapids and now working for the law firm of Varnum. In addition, Deems was the face of the One Kent Coalition, a private sector group that was attempting to change the structure of government in West Michigan, a change that would benefit those involved in the campaign, such as Dick & Betsy DeVos, Peter Seechia and others that make up the local power structure.
While Eenhoorn has engaged in this kind of tactic against other working class tenants in the past, the recent case can be directly tied to the dramatic change in the housing market in Grand Rapids over the past decade.
We have heard from numerous tenants and from community organizers that rent has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, making it impossible for people to afford the increased rental costs. Many people have been forced to leave Grand Rapids and move to Kentwood or Wyoming, where the housing market is not as expensive as it is in Grand Rapids.
Another technique that landlords and property management companies have been encourage to pursue is to convert their apartments into Vacation Rentals or Airbnb. A workshop was offered at the recent Rental Property Owners Association held in Grand Rapids at the convention center in February. Landlords and Property Management companies know that they can get top dollar in the current market, thus leaving out thousands of working class families and individuals like Kari Thompson.
It has been a few months now since the November election and we have witnessed a tremendous amount of activity centered around opposing the person of Donald Trump.
The opposition to the new president is refreshing in some ways, but this is a pattern amongst liberal and progressive circles. Liberals and progressives tend to get activated when their party is not in power.
We are seeing this same dynamic in West Michigan with lots of marches and increased attendance at public meetings held by local members of Congress. Again, seeing people become more engaged is refreshing, but to what end? What does all this activism mean and what will it do to dismantled systems of power?
Tomorrow, there will be an event entitled Surviving the Trump Apocalypse, hosted by One Michigan Alliance and David LaGrand. One Michigan Alliance is a Democratic Party front group and David LaGrand is a Democratic politician. The agenda for the day, and the strategy of the organizers, is as follows:
- Canvassing Door-to-Door and Volunteering for Campaigns
- Indivisible Resistance Tactics
- How to Become a Candidate Yourself (or help a friend)
- Legislative Update and the Year Ahead with Representative David LaGrand and others
The strategy, as evidenced by the agenda, is purely centered around electoral politics or what Noam Chomsky refers to as the quadrennial strategy. Every four year (or two if you prefer) a tremendous amount of energy and money is expended on trying to get politicians and political parties elected. So lets look at how the electoral system works and if that has really furthered our ability to resist systems of oppression.
Elections have always been influenced by centers of power and money. As the first Chief Justice of the United States, John Jay always said, “those who own the country, ought to govern it.”
More specifically, we know that billions of dollars are spent every four years on elections, which is itself a system that has been designed to keep power in the hands of those who own the country. It’s not that the electoral college is flawed or the delegate system is flawed or even the how Presidential debates are flawed. But the fact is, they are not flawed, because the electoral system was designed this way.
Look at the trajectory of partisan politics since the last great American period of revolutionary movements, between the 1950s and the mid-1970s. Since then all politics has shifted further to the right, regards of what political party we are talking about. The reason why it has shift is because there has not been enough popular resistance to this shift, especially since most of our energy has been spent on getting “our people” elected.
This is a failed strategy, a losing strategy and a strategy that will not promote an end to systems of oppression or create collective liberation.
The way we resist, the way we build grassroots power, the way we practice liberation is not by appealing to politicians or those in power. We create power and practice liberation when we practice collective. autonomous movements for radical social change. This has always been the case. The abolitionist movement was not about appealing to politicians, it was a movement of slaves engaging in self-emancipation. The resistance to slavery and white supremacy took on the form of people who were enslaved killing their masters, revolting, uprising and creating the underground railroad because those enslaved were not going to wait for politicians to decide their fate.
The labor movement, especially from the 1870s through the 1940s, was a movement that sought to democratize the workplace, by giving workers power to determine the conditions of which they wanted to work in. Some of these unions, not all, also believed that capitalism needed to be overthrown and replaced with a different kind of economic system.
The same can be said about so many other movements throughout US history. They didn’t bother to appeal to those in power, they took matters into their own hands. These movements made demands of those in power and made damn well sure their were consequences.
If we are serious about resistance, why would we want to keep perpetuating the same kind of systems that we know do not lead to greater freedom, equality and justice? Look at the difference between those who fight systems of oppression compared to those who put their energy into electoral politics.
Resisting Systems of Oppression:
- Black people resistance police brutality, the prison industrial complex and neo-liberal capitalism = Black Lives Matter
- Communities of Color fighting the arrest, detention and deportation of immigrants and white supremacy = Immigrant Justice Movement
- Indigenous people fighting against pipelines and fracking are fighting for environmental justice and climate justice = Standing Rock and Idol No More
- Communities in resistance around the world fighting US imperialism and war = The Zapatistas, Palestinians, the Arab Spring, the Landless People’s Movement in Brazil and Via Campesina – just to name a few.
We are in desperate need of having a political vision that thinks way beyond electoral politics. We need to develop strategies from liberation movements from around the world and within the US, like the ones we just mentioned. We need to stopped settling for the lesser of evils or as political writer Paul Street names it, the more effective evil. We need to stop thinking about trying so damn hard to be pragmatic and start practicing liberation collectively.
Lets us listen to the words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass, someone who knew a few things about collective liberation and direct action:
Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Rolling Stone Magazine article on Betsy DeVos cites numerous West Michigan sources, including GRIID
In an article entitled, Betsy DeVos’ Holy War, Janet Reitman does a thorough job of reporting on and investigating Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education. 
There are several West Michigan sources cited in the article, like the President of the Acton Institute, Rev. Robert Sirico, along with some community organizers and Grand Rapids School Board member and a local public school teacher.
Reitman cites lots of good background material, such as the book Amway, the Cult of Free Enterprise and Russ Bellant, who has been tracking the religious and political right in the US and Michigan for almost 30 years.
I spoke with Reitman for almost two hours on the phone and exchanged dozens of e-mails over a three-week period, as the Rolling Stone Magazine writer was uncovering as many of the local angles as possible. GRIID is cited in the story and the comments she uses are fairly reflective of the conversation we had.
What is important about the article is its broader articulation around the role that reconstructionist christian values influence the DeVos family politics. An important contribution into our collective understanding of the DeVos family and the values they embrace and impose on the public.
Last week, Rapid Growth Media ran a piece about new grocery store efforts in Grand Rapids. The article, discusses food deserts and the variety of responses that people are involved in. Unfortunately, the article and the new grocery stores will only perpetuate food insecurity in Grand Rapids.
There are several misconceptions that people have about those who experience food insecurity. The first misconception is the very language we use to try to describe the problem – food deserts.
The article states, “Calvin College defines food deserts as large continuous areas within urban areas where healthy and balanced food stores are difficult to access.” While it is true that people living in certain urban neighborhoods are limited in where they can access their food, the definition of food deserts is highly problematic.
Sociologists have been using the term food deserts since the 1970s, but the term is misleading in two ways. First, a desert is a thriving ecological system that provides plenty of food for the lifeforms that make up those ecosystems. Secondly, food deserts fails to convey the historical, economic and political dynamics which led to neighborhoods being food insecure.
The food system in the US has been evolving over the past 100 years and a large reason why there are limited food options available in many urban neighborhoods is because there has been a consolidation of grocery store chains that has led to large hyper-markets like Meijer or Walmart that require lots of land to accommodate the volume of food they carry and lots of parking since we are a car-dependent society.
The fact that grocery store chains exist are based on economic and political factors that made small, family-owned grocery stores obsolete, because they could not compete. These smaller stores could not compete, especially after the 1960s, when larger stores began to dominant the market, utilizing massive municipal subsidies, building near highways and other major road systems, investing in massive advertising budgets and appealing to the white population that was fleeing urban areas because of increased racial tensions, resulting in White flight.
On top of this, the highly subsidized food system began to promote and expand the amount of unhealthy food items, items that were highly processed and cheap to produce. Many of these products were not sold by smaller, family-owned stores.
However, increasing food insecurity not only means limited grocery store options, it means limited or no options for farmers markets or the use of urban land for neighborhood-based food growing. Too often, the term food deserts is limited to whether or not there are grocery stores, which excludes all other other ways that people can access food.
So, instead of food deserts, a term that would more accurately depict the limited food options in certain urban neighborhoods could be called food apartheid.
Food apartheid would more honestly reflect the social, economic and political forces that made the decisions that resulted in some urban neighborhoods having reduced food options. Food apartheid also is more honest because it reflects that the decisions about where people in urban spaces could access food was made by a small number of people, with no real input from the public, and it was a decision that primarily benefited white suburbanites while punishing communities of color.
What is happening now in cities across the US and in Grand Rapids, is that white people are flocking back to downtown and core urban neighborhoods and displacing people of color and working class white families.
In reading the Rapid Growth Media article it becomes clear that where all the “new” urban grocery stores that are featured, are in neighborhoods that are being gentrified. The downtown market, the Grand Central Market, Martha’s Vineyard, the new Meijer store on the near westside and the prosed grocery store that will be part of Diamond Place on Michigan near Medical Mile are all in areas where new development projects are displacing working class families and communities of color.
The upwardly mobile and disproportionately white professionals moving into these neighborhoods are now demanding more food purchasing options. In addition, these new grocery stores that are feature in the Rapid Growth article will actually not reduce “food deserts,” they are merely re-centering healthier food stores in increasingly white-dominated neighborhoods.
Thus, the new grocery options in urban Grand Rapids are not only not changing the food system, they are participating in the gentrification of neighborhoods that once were working class and communities of color dominant.
On Sunday, one of the two major business publications in West Michigan, ran a front page article headline, As Betsy DeVos takes Cabinet post, family to continue community engagement.
The MiBiz article presents Betsy DeVos and the rest of the DeVos Family as, “inextricably woven into the community.” This is not an inaccurate statement, rather a statement from a certain perspective. Those of us who write about local politics might call it a process of population management or social control.
We use those kinds of terms, especially since the DeVos Family through the organizations they are apart of (West Michigan Policy Forum, GR Chamber of Commerce, Great Lakes Education Project, Grand Action, etc) and their foundations as a way to influence local, regional and state politics that reflects the values they embrace – anti-working class, homophobic, neo-liberal capitalist, hyper-conservative christian and white supremacist values. These are evidenced by the organizations they are part of. The foundations also perpetuate these values, but also provide major funding sources for the non-profit sector in West Michigan as a means of censoring these groups from even thinking about challenging those values.
The MiBiz article spends a fair amount of time talking about the ways in which Betsy DeVos has had to divest from certain areas, particularly areas related to education. There is a link in the article to the 108-page document from the US Office of Government Ethics.
Related to Betsy DeVos having to remove herself from being part of some of the family holdings, MiBis cited Remos Lenio, partner at investment banking firm Tillerman & Co. in Grand Rapids. Lenio, has a person connection to the DeVos family and is said to share the DeVos Family’s desire to make Grand Rapids into a “Christian Wall Street.”
None of the DeVos Family members are cited in the MiBiz article, instead we hear from two of the DeVos Family operatives, Greg McNeilly and John Truscott. McNeilly, who ran Dick DeVos’ failed campaign for the Governor of Michigan in 2006, continues to work as a DeVos operative, when he became the Windquest Group’s Chief Operating Officer in 2012. McNeilly also runs one of the DeVos state policy front groups, the Michigan Freedom Fund, which lobbies for policies that represent the DeVos Family’s conservative christian values and neo-liberal capitalist interests.
John Truscott used to work for former Governor John Engler as his Press Secretary. In addition to being a spokesperson for the DeVos Family, Truscott is a founding partner of Truscott Rossman, a public relations agency based in Michigan, which has clients such as the Van Andel Institute, CWD (Cummings, Weirda & DeVos), Experience Grand Rapids and the City of Grand Rapids.
Towards the end of the article is states which boards that Betsy DeVos has had to step down from, but the MiBiz piece suggests that there are no major changes to what the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation does in the community.
However, the MiBiz article does not provide any analysis of what the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation has provided money to since it’s inception. They simply quote John Truscott who says, “No major changes are expected from Dick and Betsy’s foundation. While she does not have a role in the foundation while serving as Secretary, the family will continue to help people and make a significant philanthropic impact.”
I guess what Truscott means by helping people is to fund all kinds of groups that attack public sector workers, working class families, the LGBT community, women’s reproductive rights and to support Religious Right groups in Michigan and across the nation.
According to the most recent year available on Guidestar for the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation (2013), here are some of the “charitable” organizations they contributed to: 
- Acton Institute $250,000
- Alliance for School Choice $250,000
- Bethany Christian Services $25,000
- Endeavor Global Inc $162,500
- Foundation for Excellence in Education $100,000
- Great Lakes education Foundation $200,000
- Mackinac Center for Public Policy $50,000
- Northwood University $200,000
- Pregnancy Resource Center $20,000
- Right to Life Michigan $25,000
- Willow Creek Association $1,000,000
In the end, the MiBiz piece not only fails to scrutinize the DeVos Family, it only cites DeVos Family operatives as it relates to what their businesses and foundation are involved in. Considering this article appeared in the business press, it is no surprise then that MiBiz ends up coddling the most powerful family in West Michigan.
Nearly two weeks ago, the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan hosted a forum with some elected officials and Grand Rapids City staff to address concerns from the Latino/a community about immigration policy and law enforcement.
A few days ago, Michigan Radio interviewed Grand Rapids Police Chief David Rahinsky about that forum and his take on how local law enforcement should respond to the most recent concerns over immigration status.
The interview is instructive and should raise concerns amongst the immigrant community and those who stand in solidarity with them. While Rahinsky implores the immigrant community to not be afraid to call the GRPD, he makes some statements that would not reduce the level of fear the immigrant community has of law enforcement agencies.
In response to the question of what constitutes a sanctuary city, Rahinsky said, “If an agency arrests someone who is here illegally and books them into either their municipal facility or their county facility, I believe we have an obligation to notify our federal counterparts in ICE of that arrest.”
This statement is consistent with what the Grand Rapids Chief of Police has said in recent months in that he still believes that his officers have an obligation to cooperate with ICE. There are no clear parameters of what it means to be a sanctuary city, but one thing that has been fairly consistent is that local law enforcement will NOT cooperate with ICE officials.
Something else that Rahinsky said, which should give us cause for concern, was this response to a question of how he can get the immigrant community to trust the police.
“Conversely, if you are a criminal and you are here illegally, we are not offering safe haven. We are not neglecting our role in law enforcement. We are just making a clear line of demarcation in terms of people who need our help and the criminal element.”
Such a statement does not reduce the fear that people will feel, especially since the line between criminal behavior and those who come to the US as undocumented is not very clear when it comes to police interpretation. The current administration and many people in the community already see those who are undocumented as having engaged in “criminal” behavior.
There are efforts underway right now by immigration lawyers and immigration justice advocates to get the city of Grand Rapids to adopt clear guidelines and policies that will minimize the possibility of people who are undocumented ending up at the Kent County Jail. The Kent County Sheriff’s Department has made it clear that they WILL fully cooperate with ICE officials and notify them when those without documentation are booked into the jail.
What was noticeably absent from this Michigan Radio story were immigrant voices. The article would have been fundamentally different had their been immigrant voices talking about their reality and their lived experience of being afraid of law enforcement agencies.
Lastly, it should be stated that we must come to terms with what the function and role of law enforcement agencies is, which is not focused on community safety. The bottom line function of police department is to protect power and privilege. When Chief Rahinsky says he wants people to not be afraid to call them, he wants us all to believe that the GRPD’s role is to protect people. The GRPD might, in some instances, protect people from further harm, but their primary function is to protect power, which does not include the most vulnerable in our community – people of color, immigrants and the working class poor. The sooner we come to recognize this the more we can imagine and practice how to keep our communities safe without relying on police departments, but relying on each other.
Indigenous Activist/Scholar Winona LaDuke says Making America Great would be growing 8,000 varieties of corn
Last night Indigenous Scholar/Activist Winona LaDuke spoke to a crowd at the GVSU downtown campus as part of the annual Women and the Environment event.
This was no lecture. It was a series of story tell and truth bombs.
LaDuke began by saying that in her tradition there are two paths; one that is scorched, where devastation has occurred and one that is less worn and green, because it is a path that fewer have taken.
The Native activist also pointed out the need to reflect on the future. “We should always be looking to the future and asking, what will we look like and who will be in charge?”
That future depends upon us and what we chose to do. LaDuke said that right now, there are places near her home on the White Earth Reservation where you can still drink from the lakes. This is the future that we can have.
Winona then showed a slide of a canoe that had many people in it, saying, “We are all in this together. Sitting Bull said lets put our minds together to see what future we can make for our children.”
Another slide she presented to the audience had a statement we have all become familiar with over the past year, Making America Great Again. However, what she meant by this is when we have 8,000 varieties of corn that are being grown, corn that is nutrient rich and resilient. She said that American was great when we had 50 million buffalo and when had a billion passenger pigeons in the sky.
The next slide she showed spoke volumes. There were two photos, one with Sitting Bull and the other was of Col. George Armstrong Custer. Under Sitting Bulls image it said Organic and under Custer’s image it said GMO. The slide needed no explanation.
LaDuke then talked about how Enbridge had proposed a pipeline through her reservation, the Sand Piper, right through their wild rice harvesting grounds. She said they forced the state of Minnesota to hold public hearing and to get the government to require an Environmental Impact statement. Winona said, “We rode on (on horses) the route of the proposed pipeline for 4 years and then Enbridge pulled out!
After that Enbridge bought 28% of the Dakota Access Pipeline. LaDuke then reflected on the realities of North Dakota, about how many people have left the state and how depopulated it was. She said that the Sierra Club has one person for all of North Dakota and the ACLU has one person for both North and South Dakota.
Initially the pipeline was scheduled to go near the city of Bismark, which of course said no. So what they did was to put it through Standing Rock. North Dakota then became militarized. She showed a slide with a Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicle, an MRAP that you can see in the upper right corner. LaDuke said that the militarization of Standing Rock also included the use of water cannons, pepper spray, and sound machines that would disorient people. Winona then said, “Standing Rock was our Selma moment.”
There are currently 750 people are facing charges because they dared to stand against the pipeline at Standing Rock. 8LaDuke said there was a survey done in North Dakota and 82% of the jury pool believes that Water Protectors are guilty. “Maybe what we need are Freedom Riders to go to North Dakota to sit in the court rooms,” LaDuke said, with yet another reference to the Freedom Movement of the 60s.
The speaker then said that we suffer from Ecological Amnesia, which is when we don’t remember what we once had.
“Our economy is based on consumption. All we do is consume. We are like a T-Rex, consuming like crazy and leaving nothing but destruction behind.”
LaDuke then made the link to our consumption of fossil fuels and how that related to addiction. Someone once told her that they would rather have oil delivered on a railway instead of pipelines. LaDuke responded by saying, “Would you rather have some heroin delivered by pipeline or rail? The problem with being an addict is that you end up doing bad things. Being an addict is like going to your drug dealer to get policy written. This is how much influence the oil companies have over policy.”
Forever the economist, LaDuke then breaks down the money spent on defending the pipeline at Standing Rock and how that money could have been spent on renewable energy and retro fitting people’s homes.
She talked about the Dine solar project and about the need for all of us to work on a local food economy. She told the story of when she was studying at Harvard and her father came to see her and said, “I know you are a really smart person, but I don’t want to hear about your philosophy unless you can grow corn.”
LaDuke concluded her comments by giving some examples of how we fight back and how we make the changes we want to see in our communities.
She said that what justice looks like for Standing Rock is getting wind turbines, solar power, supporting local food, energy efficient homes, a new hospital for the people. This is what the people need. Not a pipeline.
LaDuke showed slides of what they are doing in their community. Here is an image of a project, where artists have been coming to paint homes in such a way as to celebrate their history and their resistance.
Here is a picture of solar panels that are connected to her home and how so much of this could be done with people. In the end she said, “be passionate about what you do. Find out what your gifts are and utilize them. Live your life intentionally and with integrity.”
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 