#while relying on the frameworks capitalism uses to prop itself up.

[elftwink]

you guys know that "landlords are leeches get a real job" is a haha funny bit you say to illustrate the hypocrisy of the rhetoric surrounding work and what qualifies as 'contributing' to capitalist society and not a coherent leftist belief right? you guys are saying that because it's funny to watch landlords sputter to come up with a response to the kind of attitude they have always subjected tenants and renters to and not because you genuinely believe your worth is determined by the money you earn under capitalism, right? you understand that once you believe it is possible for someone (even landlords) to be a 'leech' on society if they arent working (or aren't working enough, or aren't doing the right kind of work, etc), this will bleed into the way you think of everyone else too, right? you guys know that legitimate and meaningful critiques of landlords are not and can never be based on whether or not they are working because that is irrelevant to the fact that they own property for the express purpose of charging other people for access to shelter, which is a basic human need and shouldnt be controlled by the whims of Some Guy just because its his name on the deed... right???

#good idea generator #preaching to the choir on this one for sure i just sometimes see interactions on this website that worry me #like babygirl what about people who cannot work due to circumstance ability or both? ppl who will NEVER work? #do u think theyre leeches too??? you can SAY 'oh well i obviously dont mean those ppl' but like #the rhetoric was designed to be used against Those People specifically to turn YOU against THEM when youre on the same side #its funny to use against the ruling class but its not like. effective except as a snappy comeback #additionally what about landlords who do work?? who have dayjobs?? #landlords who do live in the property they rent. who rent out bedrooms or basement suites or the like #are these people no longer leeches? do you think this system of land ownership is fine if all parties have jobs?? #do you see what i am saying. it is not possible to critique capitalism as a system #while relying on the frameworks capitalism uses to prop itself up. #you will only EVER end up tacitly supporting the very thing you declare youre against

[kyliecheung]

Full newsletter below-

Last week, I wrote about why no one should use survivors of sexual violence to justify police and incarceration — not when both are more likely to perpetrate and exacerbate sexual violence than protect victims and survivors. (You can read this piece here.)

No one should be using victims and survivors as convenient political talking points, period, but especially not to uphold a system in which (at least) 40 percent of police officers are domestic abusers, (at least) 60 percent of prison rapes are perpetrated by prison guards and staff, and 90 percent of incarcerated women, who are predominantly women of color, are survivors of sexual violence. Lest we forget, it was just a few years ago that a white Oklahoma police officer was caught abusing his power to sexually assault dozens of Black women with impunity for years, while in many other documented cases, officers have been exposed abusing information databases to stalk, harass and target women. More recently, a Utah police officer who had denied a woman a restraining order shortly before her stalker killed her, had circulated explicit photos of her with other officers.

That said, in light of viral graphics and social media posts calling for specific police reforms making the rounds, not to mention recurring videos of police officers kneeling and dancing and hugging protesters (like, why bother sharing these when police already have paid PR departments..?) on my timelines, I wanted to write about the importance of understanding why these “reforms” — many of which are already widely implemented in police departments with some of the most lethal records — will not bring change. Only disarmament, divestment from, and eventual abolition of police will stop the killings, brutality, and racist violence — physical and non-physical — that are inherent to policing. (It’s worth noting here none of these ideas are original, and Black activists have been fighting and creating the framework for abolition for decades, which you not only can but absolutely must read more about here!)

Generations of co-opting survivor justice to reinforce and breathe fire into support for the carceral police state have convinced many of us that we need police to protect victims. But far more often than not, coming forward about sexual violence to police will lead to being treated as a criminal suspect, yourself — especially for women of color, who are more likely to experience sexual violence and more likely to face criminalization. Hundreds of thousands of rape kits sit untested across the country. In far too many cases, feigned concern for the safety of victims is used by white supremacists to target and enact violence on Black men and men of color. White femininity is often specifically weaponized to demonize, incarcerate, and kill Black men and men of color. Days before George Floyd was killed by police officers in Minneapolis, a white woman in New York was caught on video threatening to call the police on a Black man just for reminding her of park rules.

All of this is entwined with the notion that police protect us from violence, that without police — not with them — we are at greater risk of facing violence. This notion is a result of our racist, classist conceptions of what constitutes and defines “violence” and “crime.” These definitions are essential to upholding the carceral, capitalist police state, as Angela Davis writes about extensively in her texts Freedom is a Constant Struggle and Are Prisons Obsolete?, and Jackie Wang writes about in Carceral Capitalism.

The majority of incarcerated people are imprisoned for so-called survival “crimes” — they face punishment, policing and criminalization for growing up in a country where we invest drastically more in prisons and policing than in health care, education, housing, and other basic needs and resources. As a friend pointed out to me recently, it’s not only rape and sexual violence that are used to justify police and prisons — many defenders of the carceral police state also invoke gang violence, despite how gangs often form as a result of a) lack of resource and investment into communities, and b) fear of the police.

When we define violence, often only two things come to mind — murder, rape, maybe sometimes armed robbery. This is not to minimize or devalue any overt acts of violence. Certainly, though, prisons as we currently understand them cannot be the answer to solving and addressing the crisis of our rape culture — not when rape is so common in the very prisons that are supposedly rehabilitating offenders.

But all of that said, these definitions too often absolve white, wealth-hoarding capitalists of the daily violence they enact on society with the help of police. White capitalists’ exploitation and wealth hoarding leads to millions dying each day from being unable to afford health care or housing — this, too, is violent, and makes the country unlivable for the most marginalized, namely poor communities of color.

And what do police do about that? Police actively perpetrate violence not just through physical beatings, assaults and extrajudicial killings, but also, arguably, through enforcing the private property mandates of capitalism that empower wealth hoarding, and lead to mass death and suffering. Yet, we’ve been socialized to not see that as violent. As Angela Davis writes, the existence of prisons has made it so no one has to think critically about why crime happens, as the state can just conveniently tuck away these harrowing truths and inequities behind bars, far from public observation and critique. If people really sat down and saw how the white supremacist, carceral capitalist police state itself creates the crimes, they would see the only solution is abolition, investment in our communities, and alternate, peaceful and community-based approaches to emergency response and accountability.

As I’ve written in a previous newsletter:

“if the government were doing its job of redistributing wealth, fulfilling basic needs, and investing in humanity, billionaires, charities (and ESPECIALLY ‘corporate social responsibility initiatives) and prisons, wouldn’t exist. My thinking is that if the government were adequately providing basic resources, most crimes would likely cease to exist because most crimes are survival crimes. …

For a long time, I believed decriminalizing nonviolent and victimless crimes and liberating offenders was enough, and had concerns about what prison abolition could mean for violent offenders. That was before I read the essay “Against Innocence” in Jackie Wang’s brilliant Carceral Capitalism. If we rely on arbitrary definitions to differentiate between violent and nonviolent crimes and what those offenders deserve, then we’re allowing this to distract from a greater system of racist, classist, colonialist oppression. We reduce this system of oppression to individual acts.”

Policing is ultimately not about good vs. bad individuals, or a few bad apples; as Blake Simons of Hella Black Pod wrote in 2017, “policing is not a question of individualism.” He continues:

“It is not as if a random individual gets a gun, a badge, a police car, and a blue uniform. The police are a highly organized institution with systemic power. In order to understand any institution, it is important you start with the history of that institution, the institution of modern day policing evolved from the slave patrol system. ...

“To suggest that there are good cops is like saying there’s good slave patrols or good colonizers. It acts as if policing is an individual act that isn’t a product of racial capitalism. A cop might have “good intentions”, but these good intentions don’t change the fact that they are a part of a system that is rooted in anti-Blackness. These “good intentions” don’t change the fact that the system they work for criminalizes the whole Black community.”

(I can’t recommend the full essay enough, as it traces the history of policing to slave patrols and then utilizing policing to continue racist labor exploitation via mass incarceration, etc.)

Calls for police reform — while certainly well-meaning — are innocuous and harmful, because they will ultimately lead to more funding for police, taken away from investment in vital resources for the community that prevent crimes. Police budgets as is are already unjustifiable — they bleed cities dry, from Los Angeles (which allocates 44 percent — $3 billion — to policing), to my suburban hometown of Fremont, CA (which allocates 43 percent — $93.3 million — to policing), and take away from funding for anything else.

Briefly circling back to sexual violence, advocates in the survivor justice community have been critical of the Violence Against Women Act (AKA, a piece of legislation you’ve probably heard propped up as the sole defense from Biden supporters about why we should believe he’s on our side) for investing more funding into policing. While VAWA has been critical to recognizing the crisis of domestic and sexual violence, and funding hotlines, shelters, resources, education, and more to support victims, it has also played a harmful role in legitimizing policing as a solution.

I also fear that calls for reform will lead to passivity and a false feeling of victory if and when those reforms are easily implemented by police departments, only for nothing to really change. After all, if police aren’t following existing rules (hence all the killings and brutality), why do we have any reason to believe they’d follow new ones? Racist violence is inherent to policing, because in addition to all the baked in white supremacy, policing is the gateway that protects and upholds every violent system our nation is rooted in, namely white supremacist, capitalist exploitation, theft, and hoarding. Note, too, that Minneapolis Police Department — home to the officers who killed George Floyd — is widely recognized as the “most progressive police department” in the nation. Policing is unreformable.

Respectfully, using the current crisis we face to call for folks to vote is deeply tone-deaf and harmful, and will be until more Democratic politicians especially at the local level take meaningful steps to support divestment from police and disempower police forces and unions.  Cities and localities with the most violent police response to protests, such as Los Angeles, Oakland, and New York City, are all governed by Democratic mayors. Yes, vote — but demand divestment from policing. Demand real change and leadership. Demand real steps toward abolition.

#prison abolition #abolition #police abolition #feminism