During these past few weeks, as each of us has attempted to make sense of Michael Brown and Eric Garner’s senseless killings, “confusion and bewilderment” abound. In private moments and public demonstrations, we have been overwhelmed with emotion. We have grappled with disbelief, frustration, shame, and anger. Yet, confronted anew with a crisis as old as the country, it’s my conviction that we must give our own testament of hope.
More than 2.4 million people are now incarcerated in federal, state, and local prisons and jails, reflecting a vast expansion of the prison population since around 1980, when harsh sentencing guidelines were introduced as part of the Reagan-era war on drugs.
This is a moment recorded for the future and we are writing this letter to open up ways for people to stand in solidarity.
Third Wave Fund has compiled their 6 favorite writings in the hope that the conversation around state violence and criminalization includes an understanding of gender, race, and sexuality.
This proliferation of protests is good. But it's not good enough.
As people continue to organize around transformational change, we wanted to offer these set of national and local recommendations.
This is a publicly accessible, comprehensive and multidisciplinary research database website. This is an essential resource for providing and publicizing factual, scientifically valid information about current “stop and frisk” policing practices.
We walked out of that meeting unbought and unbowed. We held no punches. There was no code-switching or bootlicking; no concessions, politicking or posturing. The movement got this meeting. Unrest earned this invite, and we can’t stop.
The consequences of this racial profiling are as evident as ever: in the frayed relationships between police and minorities, in the deep distrust among minorities of the justice system, and in the racial tension in Ferguson.
We are faced with our system’s criminalization of poverty, severely anemic political participation, geographically segregated neighborhoods, unprecedented levels of economic and wealth inequality, and a heavily militarized police force entrusted with public safety over communities who are met with not only brutality, but with a justice system that is indifferent, neglectful, and even hostile in bringing justice for abuses suffered.
