Prosecute Killer Cops Defund the LAPD
Taking a break from levity and levity-adjacence this week to talk about the protests. I've already said a lot of this on instagram, but it's worth hearing twice.
Yesterday's peaceful Black Lives Matter LA protest had two very specific, concrete, actionable demands. Everyone should be aware of them, and anyone who is aware of them is morally obligated to do everything in their power to make sure they stay at the forefront of any coverage, conversation, or even thinking about these events.
1) Prosecute killer cops. Of the over 400 murders committed by police under District Attorney Jackie Lacey's tenure, charges have been filed a single time. She is negligent in her post and up for re-election in November. Vote her out.
2) Defund the LAPD. Under Mayor Garcetti's proposed 2020-2021 unrestricted revenues budget, LAPD gets 53.8%. BLM and a bunch of other humanitarian organizations in Los Angeles have created a proposal for a peoples' budget, which would redirect funds towards services to help people in need instead of police people in need.
For reference, here are some graphs from the website of the People's Budget (which you should review in full yourself).
This breakdown of where funds go in the current budget helps illustrate the difference between policing and helping people.
And here is a side-by-side breakdown of Garcetti's budget versus the People's budget:
These are just pie charts, they don't paint a complete picture. Click through and read more. The crux of it is that we need social services, mental health services, care services, instead of sending armed officers whose top priority is enforcing a law.
If someone is breaking a law because they are having a mental health crisis, why do we send someone to enforce the law instead of aid in the health crisis?
If someone is breaking a law because they have nowhere to sleep, why do we send someone to enforce the law instead of someone to aid with their shelter emergency?
And if these people having mental health crises and housing crises are only being visited when they break the law, how can we pretend we want to solve the underlying crises they are suffering from?
SO call and/or e-mail City Council President Nury Martinez before 10AM tomorrow in favor of the People's Budget. You can find a script and more information at the toolkit here.
CD 6: Nury Martinez
City Hall: 213.473.7006
District Office 1: 818.778.4999
District Office 2: 818.771.0263
council member.martinez@lacity.org
Budgets and local elected officials are so fucking boring, but they are concrete changeable things, and they are what these powerful, vibrant protests are seeking to change so that innocent people like George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylors and the countless and unknown others do not have to keep being murdered by government employees.
Doing these things now (or if you're in another city, action items in your city) are vitally important (if you can't find appropriate action items for where you live, respond to this e-mail. I will do the research for you).
But what is just as important on top of that is the need to stay engaged (this advice btw is directed at the people who are privileged enough to become disengaged/forget about racial atrocities: on the whole, white people like me). I can't stress this enough. "Staying engaged" sounds vague and it sounds like a monumental lifestyle shift. It is not.
There are so many weekly actions (or demonstrations) and local advocacy groups and even local neighborhood council groups (I'm in the Midtown Homeless Coalition for example) which meet every week or every other week or send out weekly e-mails with concrete things you can do even in quarantine like phone banking to vote out Jackie Lacey or donating to bail funds.
But if you are angry and energized now, now is the time to lay the groundwork to stay engaged forever. At the very least, set a weekly calendar reminder of whatever you need it to be. If you can do more, sign up to get involved with organizations like KTown for All or White People 4 Black Lives. If you can do even more than that, start attending weekly meetings for these or other organizations (a lot of which are going on still in quarantine via Zoom).
But know that even if you aren't being an overachiever (or even if you feel like an underachiever), doing the smallest amount every week is better than the privilege of forgetting once this shit isn't hot on instagram or on CNN.
And it builds on itself. Your smallest amount next week is more than your smallest amount this week and so on.
I've grappled with this paradox in the past of the more engaged you are, the more you realize can be done and therefore, the more you do, the less it feels like you are getting done.
And I've brought this up with friends who are way more active and wise than I, and both of them shared with me some words that have always helped ground me when spiraling about how much I'm doing:
"It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it"
Honestly, I don't know too much about the origin of it other than that it is very rabbinical. I will have to talk to our friend Rabbi Sam in a future journal to get more context. But the historical context isn't as important as the present.
Do what you can. Do not get overwhelmed about the pointlessness of your specific contribution. You don't get active in order to be the savior and the one person who solves the problem of racism. You get active because nothing is going to change until all of us are.
Love to all. Stay safe. Seriously take me up on researching actions in your area.
Julian