#alex vitale

[caelpictor]

✊🏽 🌈 😷

Hello hello hello! Happy Pride, and a very happy Juneteenth to you all! For those of you who don’t know, Juneteenth is a holiday that commemorates the day the final group of enslaved people was freed in Texas in 1865 (which was two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed… but that’s beside the point). So I recently took about a month-long unplanned break from social media, because, as I’ve said before, I’ve been REALLY low energy these past few weeks, what with everything that’s been going on in the world. I am at the intersection of multiple marginalized groups, and that knowledge can be very heavy sometimes. But I wanted to make a post today in my own words, because I realized my staying silent doesn’t help me or anyone I care about; it only helps maintain the status quo. So now I’m here to check in with all of you and to put my thoughts and feelings on the record. 

First of all, I’ve been doing a lot of drawing and writing and bingewatching and bingeplaying video games since quarantine started, and I’m having a great time with that! But I’ve also been staying up-to-date on the news, as any good person should, and what I’m seeing isn’t so good. More and more Black people, including children and the often overlooked women and trans folk, are being murdered every day. Speaking of trans folk, their basic human rights are being taken away before our very eyes. Brown immigrants continue to be abused by our government. Indigenous people continue to have their bodies, lands, and cultures violated. People who riot and loot are being condemned in the name of “respectability politics,” despite the fact that they’ve been systemically disenfranchised all their lives, and their anger is justified. People who oppose fascism are being dubbed terrorists. The pandemic isn’t getting any better, but people are acting like it’s over. Political leaders and celebrities who claim to be on our side are taking performative action that does nothing to foster actual progress. And that’s just in the United States! There are more crises going on in countries around the world than I can even think to name. 

So right now I’m doing what I can to stay safe and sane and help out in whatever small ways I‘m able to. That means continuing to practice social distancing while also signing petitions, spreading information, supporting my fellow Black and Brown and LGBT+ artists/businesses/individuals, elevating our voices, and donating wherever I can. But Juneteenth is about education, and I’ve also been doing some reading. I have two really great books to recommend to you, if you haven’t read them already: 

The first one is called The End of Policing, and it’s by Alex Vitale; it basically breaks down that phrase that seems to scare and confuse a lot of people: “Defund the police.” Vitale talks about how policing as an institution is ineffective at its best and harmful at its worst, how attempts at reforming the institution are also ineffective, how policing permeates every area of our society, including schools and politics and several other places where it doesn’t belong, and about the criminalization of homelessness, sex work, drugs, gangs, immigration, and more. The End of Policing is available as an ebook for free right here, for your convenience! 

The second book is by the great political activist Angela Davis, and it’s called Are Prisons Obsolete? Like Vitale, Davis questions and critiques an institution which is often said to be in need of reform when it actually, she argues, needs to be done away with entirely. She talks about how the current system incorrectly values punishment and vengeance over reform and rehabilitation, how people of color are vastly overrepresented in the penal system, how the system treats people of color, women, the disabled, the mentally ill, the poor, and LGBT+ folk differently from well-off cishet white men, and how prisons have become an industrial complex that serves capitalistic desires over human needs. This one is also available for free, as a pdf right here, for your convenience!

Both authors discuss controversial, interconnected topics through thorough research, write in clear, concise, and fact-driven language, dive deep into the history of policing and prisons in America and around the world (including their shared origins in slave-catching), and finally offer alternatives, which are detailed, doable, and proven effective by precedent, such as decriminalization of certain acts and substances, and reallocation of bloated funds to areas that more effectively address crime at its source (as crime doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and mostly occurs as a direct result of people’s needs not being met!). I highly recommend these if you’re interested in reading. If not, there are lots of videos and infographics and articles that discuss these topics in much shorter, simpler ways, and a quick Google search will lead you in the right direction. 😉

In conclusion, coronavirus is alive and well, and so is racism. I urge my friends and followers not to be quiet about the injustices we have been facing every day for centuries, all over the world, and not to let the attention and momentum shift away from our movement.  It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are or where you are. Keep wearing masks and socially distancing. Keep educating yourselves and each other. Keep protesting and contacting officials and donating and signing petitions. Keep supporting Black and Brown and Queer artists and businesses and individuals. Keep elevating our voices. Use your voice to call for an end to white supremacy, the patriarchy, and transphobia. Be careful with spreading images of violence (as they can be disturbing and disrespectful), as well as protestors’ faces (as they can be used to identify and track people down). 

On a more personal level, respect and value the lives of people who look different from you. We don’t exist for you. We exist for ourselves. We are complete human beings, and we will not be broken down into parts for your easy consumption. And sure, voting is important, but direct action has proven to be much more effective at causing immediate change. I understand if you need a mental health break. As I said at the beginning, I needed a mental health break. But please do so quietly, safely, and respectfully, and don’t make this about you. I see some of you are still out here fighting the good fight daily, and I thank you for it. But I can’t begin to express how troubling it is to watch other people go about their lives as if all these crazy things aren’t happening. Remember, no voice is too small to be used as a platform of positive change! I realized that includes me. Now you need to realize that includes you! 

Lastly: Black Lives STILL Matter, Black WOMEN’S Lives Matter, Black TRANS Lives Matter, Black DISABLED Lives Matter, Black MENTAL HEALTH Matters. Defund The Police. Abolish ICE. No One Is Illegal On Stolen Land. Eat The Rich. Pride Is A Protest. Be An Ally. We’re In This Together. 

And once again, happy Juneteenth. 

P.S: My book recs are free, and Google is free, but as my friend Javon so perfectly put it, “my emotional labor and racial education will only be free when I wish them to be.” So if you want to debate me on any of these topics, OR if you want me to do more research for you, I would be happy to accept payment via Venmo (@KyleBryant), PayPal (kylemb13), CashApp ($KyleMarcusBryant), et cetera! (I’m also accepting drawing/painting commissions, reparation payments, and general donations! Yes, I’m dead serious!) 

✊🏽🌈😷

[thesparhawke]

“As Kristian Williams points out, ‘The police represent the point of contact between the coercive apparatus of the state and the lives of its citizens.’ In the words of Mark Neocleous, police exist to ‘fabricate social order,’ but that order rests on systems of exploitation -- and when elites feel that this system is at risk, whether from slave revolts, general strikes, or crime and rioting in the streets, they rely on the police to control those activities. When possible the police aggressively [...] prevent the formation of movements and public expressions of rage, but when necessary they will fall back on brute force. Therefore, while the specific forms that policing takes have changed as the nature of inequality and the forms of resistance to it have shifted over time, the basic function of managing the poor, foreign, and nonwhite on behalf of a system, of economic and political inequality remains.”

-Alex Vitale, The End of Policing

[teenageread]

Review: The End of Policing

Synopsis:

Recent years have seen an explosion of protest against police brutality and repression. Among activists, journalists and politicians, the conversation about how to respond and improve policing has focused on accountability, diversity, training, and community relations. Unfortunately, these reforms will not produce results, either alone or in combination. The core of the problem must be addressed: the nature of modern policing itself.

This book attempts to spark public discussion by revealing the tainted origins of modern policing as a tool of social control. It shows how the expansion of police authority is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice—even public safety. Drawing on groundbreaking research from across the world, and covering virtually every area in the increasingly broad range of police work, Alex Vitale demonstrates how law enforcement has come to exacerbate the very problems it is supposed to solve.

In contrast, there are places where the robust implementation of policing alternatives—such as legalization, restorative justice, and harm reduction—has led to a decrease in crime, spending, and injustice. The best solution to bad policing may be an end to policing.

Plot:

How much power does the police force in our cities have? Everyone wants to live in a safe city, where there is no crime, no homeless, and everyone feels safe to go everywhere. That is the ideal city, yet far from true for many places. The United States centric, Alex Vitale explains the intensity dependence on the police force, forcing some to think they are above the law, and how the system must change with alternative suggestions. Talking about the tactic known as Broken Windows policing, the rising inequalities, the criminalization of homelessness, the coined phase of the war on drugs, and how the police department does not help sex workers, some of the most vulnerable people. With chapter two accurately titled “The Police Are Not Here to Protect You” (30), this book is a one-stop-shop for information on the problem of policing and how our reliance on them must end for that ideal city we all want. 

Thoughts: 

The book is an eye-opener and a must-read for those wanting to learn what is wrong with our society through the dependency on police work. Alex Vitale's writing is easy to follow, as they navigate the difficult research by an easy explanation of concepts, use of numbers to help with visualizing problems and always including footnotes to back up research. Vitale knows how important this work is, especially with the current Black Lives Matter movements spreading across North America, and the former Trump Administration seemingly giving more power to the police force and militarizing states. That being said this book is solely the United States centric, with references to other countries' policing structures for comparison, with other countries being the United Kingdom, India, and New Zealand to name a few. The most shocking part of Vitale’s research is the sheer numbers of police-related deaths in America, and how people still think the second amendment is a good idea. Each chapter has a reform and alternatives section, and where Vitale does not give the alternative for the police force, they do give ideas for how funding and responsibilities of the police force can be reallocated in other ways. This book, which is why it's available for a wider audience, is more along the lines of the ethics and the image/role police have in society than the details of transforming these ideas into reality. Overall this book is a must-read, especially in today's climate, as not only is it educational, but it's a mind changer and makes you really question how much you trust the police to keep you and your city safe.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[barren-and-trivial-words]

How The Storming Of The Capitol Was — And Wasn't — About Police

Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, says it's a mistake to boil Wednesday's events down to questions of police force. He argues we need a broader conversation about race, politics and justice.

One of the major bulwarks of policing is not right wing extremists, it's centrist liberalism. It's the belief that what's most important is the production of order. And the willingness to to turn that problem over to police and the criminal legal system. And the kind of willful ignorance about what the consequences of that turning over are for the people who are subjected to it. So part of what's happening is a racial reckoning. That the folks who've been subjected to that system of order are unwilling to put up with it anymore.

[makingcontact]

The End of Policing, Alex Vitale (Encore)

The End of Policing, Alex Vitale (Encore)

Making Contact · The End of Policing, Alex Vitale (Encore) Like this program? Please click here and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!Alex Vitale is Professor of Sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College. Vitale’s book The End of Policing, is an accessible study of police history as an imperial tool for social control that continues to…

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[her-bookshelf-tells-her-story]

By conceptualizing the problem of policing as one of inadequate training and professionalization, reformers fail to directly address how the very nature of policing and the legal system serve[s] to maintain and exacerbate racial inequality.

Alex S. Vitale, The End of Policing

[her-bookshelf-tells-her-story]

As long as the police are tasked with waging simultaneous wars on drugs, crime, disorder, and terrorism, we will have aggressive and invasive policing that disproportionately criminalizes the young, poor, male, and nonwhite.

Alex S. Vitale, The End of Policing

[xipiti]

How Much Do We Need The Police?

For many Americans, it goes without saying that the police help maintain public safety. But many others — especially black Americans — see t

“Part of our misunderstanding about the nature of policing is we keep imagining that we can turn police into social workers. That we can make them nice, friendly community outreach workers. But police are violence workers. That's what distinguishes them from all other government functions. ... They have the legal capacity to use violence in situations where the average citizen would be arrested.

So when we turn a problem over to the police to manage, there will be violence, because those are ultimately the tools that they are most equipped to utilize: handcuffs, threats, guns, arrests. That's what really is at the root of policing. So if we don't want violence, we should try to figure out how to not get the police involved.”