Last week, Grand Rapids celebrated its 175th anniversary as a city. WXMI 17 ran a story about the city’s birthday, the TV station omitted significant aspects of this history and the founding of this city.
The channel 17 post states at one point:
While the area around the Grand River was the home of the Hopewell Indian tribe for thousands of years, the first permanent white settler was Isaac McCoy, a Baptist minister who arrived in 1825.
This sentence suggests that Indigenous were no longer living in this area, and then white settlers just arrived.
Whitewashed history
As a foundational framework, it is vital that we come to terms with the fact that Grand Rapids, like virtually all US cities were founded on what Native scholar Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz calls Settler Colonialism. Settler Colonialism in West Michigan is the result of a larger White Supremacist strategy that included legal means (treaties), forced relocation, spiritual violence (role of churches) and cultural imperialism, most radically seen with the policy of putting Native children in boarding schools with the goal of, “Killing the Indian, Saving the Man.”
We know that hundreds of Native children from the Three Fires Nations were taken and put into boarding schools by settler colonialists, many of which were run by Christians. In these instances Native children were denied the right to speak their own languages and practice their own spiritual traditions. Most of the removal of Native children from their communities happened in the later part of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th Century.
However, on the matter of Christian missions attempting to make converts of Native communities in the 1820s and 1830s along the Grand River, it is less clear on whether or not this could be defined as a form of genocide. How much free will did Native people have on choosing another religion? Was the adoption of Christian beliefs a form of assimilation into the dominant culture and was it tied to larger socio-economic issues like food and land?
It should come as no surprise that right after the 1821 Treaty of Chicago was signed, the first christian missions came to what is now West Michigan. The Baptist Church established a mission in 1824, under the leadership of Isaac McCoy, and Catholic missions were begun in 1833 by Fr. Frederic Baraga.
One of the things that lured missionaries to the area after the signing of the Treaty of Chicago, was a provision in the treaty which allowed funds for people to work as teachers of blacksmiths amongst the Native people along the Grand River. The government treaty called this, the “civilization fund,” a phrase that underscores the settler colonial mentality. However, whatever tensions existed, they were most useful in pushing Native people out of the area as more white settlers colonialists came to the area. This increase in settler colonialists, along with greater desire for land and settler colonial expansion, resulted in a new treaty being drawn up, the Treaty of Washington in 1836. This treaty turned over an additional 13,837,207 acres of land to settler colonialism’s expansionist desires.
It seems that all along, the goal with relations of Native people along the Grand River were to take the rest of their land. Whether or not there was direct complicity with the early Christian missions to this land takeover is not relevant, the fact remains that they did nothing to resist such an effort.
What the City of Grand Rapids says about the 175th anniversary
On the 175th anniversary of the founding of Grand Rapids, the City also posted an announcement about a party they are having in June.
The City’s announcement also states:
The celebration kicks off with an opening prayer by members of the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, the original Indigenous peoples of Grand Rapids. and a proclamation by Mayor LaGrand, recognizing the city’s founding on May 2, 1850. Grand Rapids City Commissioners and federal, state, and local elected officials will be on hand to hand out cupcakes as part of a festive “We Serve You” moment of gratitude.
Wow. So, the city is using Indigenous people for their event, the very same people that the City founders stole the land from. Is this just some weak attempt to omit the brutal history I mentioned earlier? Does the city really think that by using Indigenous people in this way is a form of guilt washing for white people?
To make matters worse, they are inviting politicians to come and hand out cupcakes? What the hell is that? Do they really think that people are so gullible, that they believe these politicians serve the public. Politicians serve those with the real power, the wealthy individuals, businesses and institutions that dictate what happens in this city.
Grand Rapids is nothing more than a playground for the rich and powerful, which get whatever they want. Grand Rapids is a deeply racist city, which practices gentrification, housing injustice, and gives the GRPD carte blanc to suppress and repress any effort to demand justice. Grand Rapids is more committed to expanding capitalism and maintaining business as usual, than it is to centering the most marginalized and practicing justice. This is the legacy of not coming to terms with Settler Colonialism.
Editors Note: The fact that Episode #5 aired on Tuesday night, while white people and other police apologists are still defending Schurr, and the GRPD has been arresting people who are supporting the Lyoya family at the court house.
Episode #1 affirmed stereotypes about Black people, thus perpetuating structural racism. The episode also demonstrated that this TV series will be a highly constructed show with the GRPD dictating the narrative about who they are and what they do.
Episode #2 once again centered on a criminal case involving Black people, where Police Chief Winstrom said people who don’t want to talk with cops suffer from “generational mistrust.”
In Episode #3 follows the case of a Black person charged with a shooting, which further normalizes the white supremacist belief that Black people are inherently deviant and violent. In addition, the Black woman who was charged with the shooting experienced domestic violence from the man she shot. The GRPD uses this opportunity to talk about Domestic Violence and how there is a new Domestic Violence court. However, police and domestic violence cases are problematic, as cops don’t know how to deal with domestic violence, plus they often perpetrate more harm in domestic violence cases, which is discussed in this toolkit.
Episode #4 was essentially about drug dealers and drug users in the Heartside area of Grand Rapids. Every one of the dealers and users were Black people, so this episode continues to perpetuate racial stereotypes and present the GRPD as compassionate saviors of the unhoused.
Episode #5 begins with another shooting, on Cesar Chavez Avenue near downtown GR. Two Black men were killed in the shooting. The two suspects are twin brothers, who are also Latino. One of the twins was also hit with a bullet and he ends up at the hospital, while the other twin drove away. The GRPD picked him up later at his house.
The GRPD brings the brother in for questioning, but he refuses to talk and they let him go, since they really don’t have enough information to hold him. We then hear Chief Winstrom’s voice and he says what happened was “outrageous”. Winstrom then says to the camera, we need answers and we need them quick.” All the racist bullshit that this show perpetuates aside, the writing for this show is do damn awful.
Back at the GRPD headquarters, cops watch video of what happened, video from the area, because Grand Rapids is a highly surveilled city.
The GRPD then brings in the mother of one of the shooting victims and shows her the video from the parking lots of the shooting. Why the hell would they do that and do it on camera. This is such an invasive scene and is an example of trauma porn.
Next, the GRPD calls in one of the twins and is baiting him with questions so he would admit to wrong doing.
The episodes then cuts to a different shooting, just to emphasize how shootings are bars are “common.” The cops provide all the commentary and pontificate about what is happening.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker gets involved and provides his own commentary, talking directly to the camera.
One of the homicide detectives then starts talking about how this “can’t be self-defense, it’s murder…..and we have to call it that.”
Another cops starts looking at video footage from the other shooting, the one outside of the Metro Bar. Everyone who has a guns in the footage, as either Black or Latino/Latinx people.
The homicide detective then decides to ask Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker for another meeting, in the hopes of convincing him that this was an “execution.” For several minutes, the GRPD cops are arguing with the Kent County Prosecutors office, attempting to ingest some drama here, but it is clearly a constructed dialogue.
The next scene shows more video footage of the shooting at the Metro Bar, which leads to suspects and eventually the arrest of – you guessed it – another Black man.
Back again at the GRPD headquarters and two homicide detective are smiling because Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker is going to file charges against the shooter from the beginning of the episode. One of the homicide cops says, “this is very exciting.”
In the final minutes of the episode, the GRPD shows up to the suspects home, with more than a dozen heavily armed cops, compelling the Latino suspect to give himself up. He does give himself up, while walking backwards with numerous rifles pointed at him. The scene cuts to the Kent County Jail, where he is being booked in and the cop tells him the judge hasn’t set bail yet.
Chief Winstrom gets the final word while the credits are rolling to say that the end result was justice. Simple as that. Winstrom gets to decide when justice happens, because it’s his show. However, after 5 episodes, the only thing that changed is that there were Latinos included as part of those committing crimes in Grand Rapids. I’m still waiting for the episode showing how the GRPD monitors community organizers and organizations to suppress any form of dissent against those challenging systems of power and oppression.
On May 1st, there was an interview posted on the C-Span site, where a C-Span reporter had a brief interview with Rep. Hillary Scholten about tariffs and US immigration policy.
Rep. Scholten’s response on tariffs was to essentially blame President Trump, with no strong analysis on why what Trump did was bad for people. I’m more interested in the comments from Scholten regarding US immigration policy, which begins about 5:40 into the interview.
Rep. Scholten’s initial comments were to talk about her history of working on immigration issues and her tenure with the Department of Justice. Scholten said several times that she knows the law and how to defend the rights of immigrants.
The 3rd Congressional Representative then pivoted to talking about how the first Trump Administration did not adhere to the “rule of law.” Scholten points out that the Trump Administration is deporting US citizens and children with cancer. The Congresswoman also said that her constituents were contacting her and saying enough.
The C-Span reporter then said, “You were one of the many Democrats that supported the Laken Riley Act. What led you to make that decision?” Scholten responded by talking about the Ruby Garcia case, where she was killed by her boyfriend. However, voting for the Laken Riley Act isn’t about people to violence to other people, it is about criminalizing those who are undocumented. When people commit violence, it has nothing to do with their immigration status, it simply has to do that they did harm to someone.
What is really at issue here is that politicians want us to buy into the idea that we should fear immigrants – especially undocumented immigrants – and equate immigrants with increased crime.
Fortunately, the facts can dismantle the mantra of “undocumented immigrants are criminals.” The National Institute of Justice wrote in September of 2024, “An NIJ-funded study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety estimated the rate at which undocumented immigrants are arrested for committing crimes. The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.”
The American Immigration Council compared crime data to demographic data from 1980 to 2022, the most recent data available. The data showed that as the immigrant share of the population grew, the crime rate declined. In 1980, immigrants made up 6.2 percent of the U.S. population, and the total crime rate was 5,900 crimes per 100,000 people. By 2022, the share of immigrants had more than doubled, to 13.9 percent, while the total crime rate had dropped by 60.4 percent, to 2,335 crimes per 100,000 people. Specifically, the violent crime rate fell by 34.5 percent and the property crime rate fell by 63.3 percent.
The Migration Policy Institute wrote in October of last year, “A growing volume of research demonstrates that not only do immigrants commit fewer crimes, but they also do not raise crime rates in the U.S. communities where they settle. In fact, some studies indicate that immigration can lower criminal activity, especially violent crime, in places with inclusive policies and social environments where immigrant populations are well established.”
In an NPR story from March of 2024, it states: “Some of the most extensive research comes from Stanford University. Economist Ran Abramitzky found that since the 1960s, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born people.”
In a Brennan Center for Justice article from May of last year, they write: “When looking specifically at the relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime, researchers come to similar conclusions. Numerous studies show that undocumented immigration does not increase violent crime; research examining crime rates in so-called sanctuary cities also found no discernable difference when compared to similarly situated cities without sanctuary policies. One study that focused on drug crimes and driving under the influence found that unauthorized immigration status was associated with reductions in arrests for those offenses.”
Rep. Scholten then ends her response to the question about her stance on immigration policing by say that during the 2024 election, the American people spoke pretty loudly about wanting more to be done about immigration enforcement. This true, but what many Americans wanted was to prevent people from coming to the US, especially if they were undocumented. If you look at Rep. Scholten’s political ads from last fall, you can she that she took a very pro-militarize the border approach, which I deconstructed.
In the end, Rep. Hillary Scholten did not condemn the Trump Administration’s mass deportation executive order, in fact she didn’t even mention it. Rep. Scholten only stated that she was incensed by US citizens being deported, along with children who have cancer. Rep. Scholten’s weak response exposes where she really stands, which is to criminalize undocumented immigrants and militarize the US/Mexican border.
I don’t usually like to post about myself, since I prefer to write about movement work in this community. Granted, I am part of some of that work and have been for more than four decades. Today’s post is meant to reflect my thoughts and feelings about the GRPD, especially in the past week.
In my post from last Friday, where I talked about how the GRPD acted during the Cosecha May Day march, I left out some information, which at the time didn’t seem as relevant. However, after thinking about it and having to deal with cops attempting to repress the actions of those involved in movement work, I really need to say some things.
First, during the first day of the Schurr trial, our friend and comrade Ky was arrested. While waiting for Ky to be bonded out last Tuesday, we came to find out that their bail was denied and they are still at the Kent County Jail until they go before a judge on May 7th. Ky has been targeted by the GRPD, like many local organizers, so I invite you to listen to an interview I did with Ky almost a year ago.
The day after I posted the interview with Ky, I wrote a post entitled, The criminalization of dissent in Grand Rapids. In that article I wrote:
It would be understandable, in light of the increased GRPD repression, for people to pull back on direct action. However, we also know that if we are committed to systemic change and collective liberation, we cannot afford to lessen our resistance. We do need to take care of each other and protect those that are the primary targets of this repression, but we must not diminish our resistance, no matter the cost.
Going back to the Cosecha May Day march that happened last week, where I mentioned that the GRPD threatened everyone with arrest if we walked in the streets and those driving in vehicles at the front or rear of the march.
However, after I communicated this information to Cosecha organizers, one of the GRPD bike cops approached the motorhome that was originally slated to to in front of the march. I immediately walked over and asked the cop what he was doing. He responded by telling me to calm down. I responded by say, “Don’t tell me to calm down. Cops and ICE are arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants whenever they want to, so don’t don’t me to calm down when you are trying to get inside a vehicle that you damn well know is being driven by immigrants.”
You can see the picture of this GRPD cop at the beginning of this article, the one with the shitty smirk on his face.
Later in the May Day march, just after we disrupted traffic at the Wealth and Division intersection, the GRPD pulled myself and another police liaison off to the side “to talk”, when suddenly several of the GRPD bike cops put their bikes and bodies between us and the 150 marchers. You can see one of the GRPD bike cops pictured here who was part of the barrier between me and the rest of the marchers. Fortunately, I was not arrested, but this demonstrates how they are willing to threaten and arrest people who disrupt traffic for a few fucking minutes. A GRPD Captain was one of the cops who was “talking” to me, but the same GRPD bike cop with the shitting smirk was also present, with the same stupid smile on his face.
Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon, where I was downtown with 30 – 40 supporters of the Lyoya family, we were waiting to hear if the jury had made a decision. The whole time that those demanding Justice4Patrick were present, the GRPD and the Wyoming PD were present, most on bicycle. Sure enough, one of the GRPD bike cops was the same guy with the dumb ass grin on his face.
Not only has the GRPD been on high alert during this trial, they have increased surveillance, placed more cameras in the down, put up more barricades by the GRPD headquarters and overtly threatened to suppress any dissent. But damn, their TV show says they have regained the community’s trust!
The GRPD arrested at least 2 more people after I left the protest in support of the Lyoya family at the 61st District Court House. The charges are most likely bogus, but these latest arrests just underscores the point of this point…….the criminalization of dissent!
I have been monitoring the local news since the Schurr trial began on April 28th. There have been over 60 combined news stories from the four daily Grand Rapids commercial news outlets – MLive, WOODTV8, WZZM13 and WXMI 17.
However, despite the heavy saturation of news coverage, there has been no significant reveals in terms of information about the day that now ex-GRPD officer Schurr shot Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head, while sitting on top of him.
More importantly, local news reporters have not talked about the larger, more systemic issues regarding police killings in the US. According to mappingviolence.org, the police in the US have killed 387 people in 2025 (through April 20th). In fact, there has not been a single day in 2025 that the police have not killed someone in this country.
Other important facts are:
- Black people are 2.8 times more likely to be killed by cops than white people.
- 1260 people were killed by cops in 2024, which is the highest number in any given year since 2013.
- Most killings began with police responding to suspected non-violent offenses or cases where no crime was reported. 154 people were killed after police stopped them for a traffic violation.
- 119 people were killed after police responded to reports of someone behaving erratically or having a mental health crisis.
However, maybe the most alarming statistic from mappingviolence.org is the fact that in 2024, in which cops killed 1260 people, cops were only charged with a crime in 9 of those cases.
Now, it is true that the lawyers representing Schurr have gone out of their way to delay the trial or to have the trial dismissed by higher courts. Schurr’s lawyers even trial to have the trial dismissed last week, say that people were negatively biased because of the videos of Schurr shooting Patrick Lyoya.
However, lawyers who defend cops prefer to go to trial because of two major factors. First, the laws in the US are ridiculously biased in favor of cops, making it very difficult to charge them with crimes. In fact, when violence is do against cops, the punishment is way more severe than in regular assault cases. Thus, the police and their powerful unions have the law biased in their favor.
The second reason has to do with the fact that policing in the US is so normalized that we rarely can find criticism of it, especially within the dominant commercial news media. In addition, our collective view of policing has been manufactured because of all the movies and TV shows about cops since the invention of TV, where police are lionized as the good guy. To the degree that entertainment media has shown corrupt and racist cops, it is always framed through the few bad apples narrative.
This leads me to my last point, which is how often are police convicted of murder. Based on the recent data, it would appear that police are prosecuted for murder in less than 2% of fatal shootings. This is a very small percentage, considering how many people are killed by cops every year.
Then there is the matter of having all white or majority white jurors, as is the case with the Schurr trial. While there is no hard data to demonstrate that all white or mostly white juries will let cops off the hook, historically it has not been good for families seeking justice.
I know that these are structural and systemic issues around police killings. I don’t want to down play or be dismissive in any way over the eventual outcome of former cop Christopher Schurr’s killing of Patrick Lyoya. However, until we address the systemic violence of policing in the US and how little that cops are even charged with crimes when killing people, communities, especially BIPOC communities, will continue to be brutalized by policing in this country.
As Alex Vitale notes in his book, The End of Policing, “The reality is that the police exist primarily for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and tightly managing the behaviors of poor and nonwhite people; those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements.”
Editor’s note: I have been working with Fountain Street Church and looking at a substantial amount of archival materials they have. Today’s post is only possible because Fountain Street Church has provided me access to their archives and they want this information to be public and available to the community. I will be hosting the archival material on the Grand Rapids People’s History Project site, but also posting here on GRIID. This is the first in a series of posting from the archival material at Fountain Street Church.
On May 17, 1967, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Black Power advocate, Stokely Carmichael, spoke at Fountain Street Church to a standing room only crowd. Carmichael, would later change his name to Kwame Ture, gave a lecture at Fountain Street Church, which you can read in its entirely here.
A Fountain Street Church representative made some opening remarks and then introduced Carl Smith, a local Black organizer, who then introduced Carmichael/Ture. Carmichael/Ture begins speaking on page 4 of the 25 page transcript.
A reporter from the Grand Rapids Press wrote up an article about Carmichael/Ture’s speech (linked here).
There was a second short article in the Grand Rapids Press, which acknowledged that Carmichael had meet with roughly 350 members of the black community at the First Community Church AME. People at that meeting addressed dissatisfaction with community conditions, with public education and with the Campau Housing Project in particular. Carmichael did encourage high school students from Central, South and Ottawa to get organized and become part of SNCC.
The irony was that just 2 months later, police officers in Grand Rapids pulled over and abused several young black students, which erupted into a 3 day rebellion in July of 1967. Many of the people involved in this rebellion were black high school students.
Excerpts from Kwame Ture – aka – Stokely Carmichael’s speech at Fountain Street Church on May 17, 1967.
“Now, I think that black people have to see their fight for liberation as being a fight within this country and that we have to and that we have to begin to move to understand that we have no fight in Vietnam. My enemy is not the Vietnamese. It’s the Jim Clarks, the Wallaces, the Maddox.”
“It is obvious to me that the war in Vietnam is being fought in the interest of the industrialists, in the interest of the capitalists, and in the interest of those who oppressed us. Therefore, I cannot see myself participating in a war to oppress myself.”
“If niggers get smart, you kill them, period. So they can’t indict him, because if they indicted him, they would themselves be guilty. It’s very, very important to understand because we contend in SNCC that white America cannot condemn herself for all the brutality and bestiality that she’s heaped upon black people as a total community.”
“If you agree with that, then the logical extension would be that any civil rights bill passed in this country, while it might have eased the struggle for black people, it really helped civilized white people. And in fact, the civil rights bill was for white people, not for us.”
“It’s the same thing with the voting rights bill. I know that I can vote. Every time I try to vote, a hunky shoots me. That’s right. So they’ve got to pass a civil rights bill for the hunky, tell him when I come to vote, get out of my way.”
“So that what they have to do is to pass a civil rights bill to tell honkies when we move, any place we want to move, don’t go to acting and showing your color. So that if you really understand that, you would really recognize that the black power fight in this country is a fight to civilize white America because she’s uncivilized.”
“Black power is the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary, period. And that’s very important because we must be able to define ourselves as we see fit because they have been defining us and we have been accepting the definitions of them, of us.”
“And they, oh, violence don’t, what they’re saying is that violence is okay against everybody except the white man. And what really annoys me about these black people who after every rebellion, not a riot, a rebellion, jumps up and says, oh, they shouldn’t do that, they bad, they this, they that, is that they’re using them to condemn their own people and that’s the only power they have, the power to condemn black people. That’s all. They do not have the power to condemn white people because you never hear them speak out about police brutality. You never hear them speak out about white landlords who’ve been charging us high prices. They never talk about white merchants who charges high prices for rotten meat.”
“The most violent man in the black community is a white cop. He has the license to kill and the power to do it scot-free, so it’s not a question of violence. The real question is who is controlling the violence? That is the question. If I shot 30 yellow men with slanted eyes, I would get a badge if I were in Vietnam. If I shot 30 white men who call me nigger in this country, I would get the electric chair. It’s just a question of power.”
“Vietnamese ain’t never call me nigga. I know who I’m going to shoot. Now if we can accept those four basic premises, self-condemnation, the difference between giving one one’s freedom and denying one one’s liberation, the importance of definitions in the world today and violence, we can then move into how they’ve been pragmatically applied to us as a people to oppress and suppress us.”
“The biggest lie that white America has told about us is that we are lazy. That’s right and you have some black people running around here. Oh we so lazy. Oh we so lazy. If we were like white folk hard working we’d make it but not us. We lazy. That’s a lot of junk. White people lazy. Look here. They so lazy they went to Africa to steal us to do their work for them. That’s not a question of being lazy. We are the hardest working people in this country. Our sweat built this country scot-free. It’s not a question of whether you’re lazy or not. It is a question of who has the power to control the resources in a given area. That’s what counts. If it were true then the real lazy people in this country be people like Bobby Kennedy. He ain’t never worked in his life.”
“Yes sir they came in there and they told us to talk about Jesus and we kept our eyes up to the sky looking and they robbed all the golden diamonds on the ground. So that if you really begin to relook at history you’d understand that the white man has been whitewashing everybody in the world and the fight today is for people to do their own thinking and recognize their own culture and not say that white people are good because they are white. What they’ve done is to force their culture on everybody around the world with their guns and their bombs, their guns and their bombs.”
On Friday, I reported on the May Day march that Movimiento Cosecha organized in Grand Rapids. On Saturday, I wrote about the cultural event that Movimiento Cosecha hosted, along with the exciting announcement about SECOM becoming a Sanctuary space for immigrants. Today, I want to summarize the salsa shutdown action that took place at Walmart on 54th Street in Wyoming, MI.
The Walton family owns Walmart, one of the largest retail corporations on the planet. Walton family members are listed on the Forbes Billionaire list, and at least 3 of them are each worth more than $100 Billion. The Walton family spent $32 Million in the 2024 election, with a 5 to 1 ratio of their money going to Republican candidates. In addition, Walmart has been exploiting workers for decades. According to inequality.org:
Amazon and Walmart credit their status to low prices, convenience and speed. These two 21st-century retail kingdoms, like the medieval fiefdoms of old, rest heavily on exploiting workers.
A recent report from Oxfam, the global nonprofit working to end inequality, convincingly details this exploitation.
The action organized by Movimiento Cosecha wanted to highlight these issues about Walmart, along with their investments in the private prison/detention industry.
About 25 people went into the Walmart store, acting like customers. Instead of shopping, those who entered converged in a certain area of the store when someone started music that people could dance to. People danced in the area that people pass through to get to the checkout stations, thus making it harder for people to check out and disrupting Walmart’s ability to make money.
People were taking pictures & video of the action, and eventually Walmart management came by to ask people to stop disrupting customers. People ignored the Walmart staff and continued dancing to the music. After about 20 minutes of dancing, one of the Cosecha organizers use the speaker they brought with them to speak for a bit about why they were there, what is happening to immigrants in the US, along with addressing how Walmart exploits those who work there. Several people said that they saw some of the Walmart workers listen to the comments and even give thumbs up for the solidarity. You can watch video of the Salsa Shutdown here.
Eventually, the Wyoming Police showed up, with at least 6 cruisers converging on the store. Crowd safety people alerted the Cosecha organizers that the police were coming in, and as soon as they did people began leaving the store, many of them dancing their way out of the Walmart.
The Wyoming cops who came in followed those who participated in the “Salsa Shutdown”, even walking behind them as they made their way to the far end of the parking lot where people first gathered. One Cosecha organizer then thanked everyone for coming out and made a few announcement about upcoming actions and campaigns.
While the Cosecha organizer was talking, at least one of the Wyoming cops began to write down the license plate numbers for some of the cars. Crowd safety people were asked to drive behind the Cosecha organizers in order to make sure than the cops did not follow them home. The Wyoming police demonstrated once again that cops will defend Capitalism no matter what, and that working class people will be targeted for disrupting companies like Walmart that are more interested in profits rather than people.
Palestine Solidarity Information, Analysis, Local Actions and Events for the week of May 4th
It has been 19 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. We will also provide information on local events and actions that people can get involved in. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
Call from Gaza Unions to US Workers: Put Your Solidarity Into Action to Stop the Genocide
The Myth of Conquest: Why Gaza Will Never Be Subdued by Israel
Screaming Soldiers and Open Revolt: How One Video Unmasked Israel’s Internal Power Struggle
NO LABOR FOR GENOCIDE – NO COMPLICITY WITH APARTHEID
‘Genocide in Action’ as 60-Day Blockade Plunges Gaza Into Mass Starvation
Analysis & History
The Ongoing Gaza Genocide and the State of “Ceasefire” Negotiations
Image used in this post is from https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/stolen-steps/
Last night, Movimiento Cosecha hosted the second event in their 4 days of immigrant resistance. Yesterday, I posted about the May Day march and in today’s post I want to talk about the Cosecha cultural event and the Sanctuary announcement.
It is always vitally important for those that are engaged in resistance and movement work to engage in building community. Last night’s cultural event organized by Movimiento Cosecha did just that.
First, there was the great food. Second, there was amazing music and dancing. Third, there was the pinatas that engaged lots of children. Fourth, and most importantly, the event provided a wonderful opportunity for people to meet, to talk, to share stories and to deepen relationships. Relationship are critical for movement work, since we can not only build trust, we can collectively take action at a deeper level, as Southerners on New Ground (SONG) reminds us with their relational organizing model.
However, on top of all the beautiful aspects of the community building and cultural event that Cosecha fostered last night, there was an additional act of inspiration. The event was held at SECOM on Friday night, an early on in the event, the director of SECOM, Pablo DeNooyer Garcia, made the announcement that SECOM would also be a Sanctuary space for undocumented immigrants.
In the span of 5 days, there have now been two community-based organizations that have publicly announced they would be safe spaces for the communities affected by the threat of mass deportation. On Monday, LincUp declared their commitment to being a Sanctuary space, and last night SECOM.
As Cosecha organizer Gema Lowe has said recently, “If the City of Grand Rapids or Kent County won’t declare themselves a sanctuary space, then the community will do it. We take care of ourselves.”
On Friday morning, MLive reported that the Michigan State House passed legislation that, “would withhold a majority of state funding from counties and cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.”
MLive also noted that “the bill was passed with support from all Republicans and five Democrats – state Reps. Peter Herzberg, D-Westland, Tullio Liberati, D-Allen Park, Denise Mentzer, D-Mount Clemens, Mai Xiong, D-Warren, and Angela Witwer, D-Delta Township.” The bill now goes to the Michigan Senate to see if they will also adopt an anti-sanctuary position.
What we have been hearing from local government, with the City of Grand Rapids and from the Kent County Commission, on why they won’t adopt a sanctuary policy comes down to one of two things. First, some have said that immigration is a federal policy, which they have no control over, so they won’t take a position. The second reason that we have heard repeatedly is that if the City or the County adopted a sanctuary policy it would put a target on their back, from both the federal government and now potentially the State of Michigan.
One response that immigrant organizers have given to these justifications from local government officials is that immigrant communities always have a target on their backs. In the midst of these kind of repressive policies, when the federal, and possibly the state government, wants to punish people, now is the time to stand with those most impacted by the repression. Indeed, this is the very essence of solidarity, when those who carry more privilege are willing to defy systems of power and oppression and stand with those most affected. This is what SECOM did last night!
Editor’s note: As a matter of transparency, I was one of the police liaisons for the Cosecha May Day march.
Movimiento Cosecha kicked off their four day strike and boycott with their annual May Day march. The march began at Clemente Park in the southwest part of Grand Rapids, which is the heart of the Latino community.
As people began to slowly trickle in to the park, a group of 10 GRPD bike cops rode in and and positioned themselves across the street from Clemente Park. Several minutes later the two GRPD cops made their way over to the park, ignored the police liaison who attempted to speak with them, and came over to the park pavilion area to address those who came to support Cosecha.
The GRPD then announced that they were there to clear a path for the march and make sure that our first amendment rights would be protected. Besides being a load of bullshit, this was meant to be a PR stunt for those who were present. A few minutes later they shared their real intention for being at the march, which was to threaten people with arrest. The GRPD cops told the police liaison that if anyone marched in the street they would be arrested. If the started in the street and moved to the sidewalk they would be arrested. If the march included a safety vehicle in the front or the rear of the march, the drivers would be arrested and their vehicle impounded.
Back at Clemente Park, Cosecha organizers providing a framework for why May 1st is an important day for both workers and immigrants alike. This was followed by a local Latino minister offering up prayers for safety and for justice. However, just before the march began, we founded out the legal observers who were present that the GRPD had pulled over the Cosecha vehicle and gave them a ticket for “excessive horn honking.”
The marching finally got underway, with people walking on the sidewalk down Godfrey to Market Avenue. The GRPD bike cops followed along the route making sure that people did not walk on the street.
The marchers made their way to Wealthy Street and then crossed over US 131 on the Wealthy Street overpass. One thing about the GRPD’s threat of arrest against marching in the street is that they don’t realize that walking on the sidewalk stretches the march further then it would be if people were in the street. I say this only to point out that walking on the sidewalk actually disrupts traffic more, particularly at major intersections and the overpass roads.
The Cosecha march arrived at the corner of Wealthy and Division, where people gathered in front of the Catholic Diocese building. There were a few speakers at this point, with the main speaker being from Cosecha. The immigrant-led organization chose to stop in front of the Catholic Diocese building to challenge them to take action in favor of immigrants and to publicly oppose the threat of mass deportation coming from the Trump Administration. After reading a statement, Cosecha organizers then took a copy of the statement, in both Spanish and English, and taped them to the front door of the Catholic Diocese building, Martin Luther-like.
At this point the plan was for people to use the crosswalks at the intersection of Wealthy and Division, starting on the east side of the intersection walking south, then cross Division going west, then cross Wealthy going north, etc. Again, since we were walking 2 or 3 abreast, marchers took a while to cross the intersection, which also disrupted traffic. However, those marching only crossed when there was a signal to walk, thus following the traffic signals.
At this point the GRPD were rather enraged at what was happening and they pulled both of the police liaisons off to the side to question them, using bike cops to kettle them from those participating in the march. We were told that we were being detained. Eventually, the police liaisons were let go and the march continued south along Division, then eventually made their way west on MLK Street, back over US 131, then jogging over to Rumsey Street and back to Clemente Park.
Cosecha organizers thanked everyone for coming, talked about the next several days of events/actions, along with announcing the upcoming Cosecha Assembly that will take place on May 16th in the evening at the Linc Up gallery near Hall and Madison SE. Check the Movimiento Cosecha GR Facebook page for updates on the May 16th Assembly, where information should be posted soon.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 