Truthout Volume Interrogates Policing While Calling Us to Action
In light of the new wave of police killings of Black people, this volume edited by Maya Schenwar, Alana Price and Joe Macaré from the Truthout Collective is timely. It offers a great collection of new voices- mostly people of color, mostly women. These are not the old guard but activist/scholars based in a range of organizations and struggles. While focusing on police violence, the essays touch on a broad range of themes, from high profile cases like Mike Brown to Taser violence and death behind bars by neglect.
The famous martyrs of contemporary struggles recur in this book like a modern day injustice litany, we say their names, we remember their names to make us strong. We don’t worry about repetition. In this instance, repetition reinforces the reader’s thirst for justice. In a time where mobilization has somewhat ebbed, Who Do They Serve, Who Do They Protect? replenishes our will to make sure that Black lives do matter, that the lives of Black women, Black workers and Black transgender folks also matter, that from the notion that Black lives matter we can draw broader definitions of liberation for all.
Systemic Focus
The authors general framing is systemic oppression not “microaggressions” or legal technicalities. Totally absent are analyses of white privilege and white supremacy grounded in the self-centered angst of white activists who fail to understand that their narrative remains peripheral , at least until they endure their baptism by fire and still move forward. Another welcome feature of these writers is their connection to history. Paul Robeson, Bayard Rustin and Ruby Bridges appear, as do the Black Panthers and the Young Lords. The threads of analysis link BYP100 to the original We Charge Genocide petitioners who took their case to the United Nations in 1951.
The second section, “Communities Building Resistance and Alternatives” was the most rewarding. Written more in first person narrative and drawing more specifically on the writers’ experience as activists in their communities, I got the sense of exactly how the thinking that informs the present movement translated into action on the ground. Here we find the irreplaceable voices of important folks at the grassroots. Listen to former political prisoner Jasmine Richards tell the world what Black Lives Matter means to her: “I see (BLM) as a statement that gave life to a place that didn’t have life. It’s opening up a whole new world to a lot of us. It’s making us love each other and it makes us speak to one another: ask how we’re doing instead of ‘mean-mugging’ or ‘mad-dogging’ one another.” (p. 127) That’s power.
I was especially struck by Kelly Hayes’ piece which not only talked about Native American –Black solidarity (and the challenges therein) but also raised key questions which she didn’t attempt to answer -simply acknowledged that they were there and had to be part of people’s agenda. I cherished her wonderful notion that a movement is not just a space for action but for serious reflection of questions that emerge from the realities of political struggle.
Building Alternatives to Policing
Most impressive of all were the efforts to find alternatives to police and policing. One fascinating case was Eugene, Oregon where a group called CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets) is part of first responders. Funded by the city and largely made up of homeless people, the CAHOOTS folks try to handle as many crisis situations on the street as possible without any police participation. Their efforts beg the questions asked in the book’s title- and make us think about what services that truly protect and serve would look like (hint they wouldn’t involve guns or arresting people).
However, while supporting such anti-police sympathies, Ejeris Dixon also adds a cautionary note about people in progressive organizations who believe that having good ideas and attending a workshop equals having the skills and experience to handle the complex situations that arise in communities. In her words, “I think that the notion of instant expertise is contrary to our liberatory values.” As a formerly incarcerated person who works with in a reentry program in my community, I love how Ejeris spells this out. I have stumbled over this very stone many times, thinking that because I know how prison and parole work, I can provide effective support to someone trying to negotiate their way back into the community. It’s much more complicated than that.
Apart from all the insightful analysis, no review of Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect would be complete without mention of the poetic prose of Eisa Nefertari Ulen. Her four page chapter, “Black Parenting Matters: Raising Children in a World of Police Terror” is a lyrical ode to her son and her parental struggle to guide him through the repressive maze of 21st century “America.” The opening lines particularly grabbed me: “My child’s breath is a freedom song. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. The rhythm pulse of air he powers is love, is life, is liberation.”
Volume 2, Please!
Like all short collections, this book had me crying out for more. In volume two I would look for more attention to the impact of policing and violence on disabled people. Also, I would expectat least some attention to cops in schools. There were three other things I would hope to see in the sequel. A first would be more case studies and personal experience from non-traditional areas, especially the South. As someone who lives in a small Midwestern town, I grow tired of hearing about New York, the Bay Area and even Chicago. This struggle is happening everywhere and many people in out of the way places are doing amazing work under incredibly adverse circumstances.
Secondly, a book advancing a radical critique definitely could use an overarching theoretical piece framing the changes in policing as part of the restructuring of the state under neoliberalism. Lastly, I was a little disappointed not to hear voices of people who have been incarcerated for some considerable length of time. Most people who have spent years behind bars have experienced not only the violence, racism and arbitrary behavior of police on the streets but a continuation of “policing” behind walls. While we have an extraordinary and unacceptable number of deaths at the hands of the police, for the vast majority of those brutalized by law enforcement, the beating or the Taser are only the beginning of a long process of living under the police state of a U.S. prison. Someone tying those experiences together would be an important addition. Although I know all these activist-authors are probably far too busy to produce another volume like this, I hope they will at least find the time to convince some of their comrades to provide us with volume 2. I, along with many others, would certainly relish the opportunity to read it.
James Kilgore is an activist and researcher based in Urbana, IL. He has written extensively on mass incarceration (full disclosure he does often write for Truthout). He is the author of Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time (New Press, 2015). He has also published three novels, all of which were drafted during his six and a half years of incarceration. His forthcoming novel, Sister Mercy’s Revenge, will be released in August 2016.
