#cat brooks

[remembertheplunge]

Beginning of an answer

9/7/2020. Monday 2:08pm 

out front. Espresso’s Coffee House: Pacific Ave, Stockton, Ca

“There were plenty of onlookers, but no witnesses.” In other words, we may log impressive miles in our travels but see nothing: we may follow all the advice in the travel magazines and still feel little enthusiasm.” Page xxi The Art of Pilgrimage

Our pilgrimage has taken us into a Land which Angela Davis said is one that she never experienced before—the confluence of pandemic and protest.

I agree with Angela—its a phenomenon—We have all awakened here on Bali-Hi.

But, as Ms Davis also said, it will pass—the mystical island will recede back into the fog of “normalcy”

Like the travelers described in the Art Of Pilgrimage (above) we have to see it—to embrace it while it is here. I feel fortunate to have lived to see this beginning of an answer—

Angela also said this is not the time to dismantle the police, but, instead, to evolve that institution.

Mavis Staples sings “Gotta change around here, say it loud, say it clear” as I write.

End of entry

Notes: 1/15/2025

Please see photos of the original 9/7/2020 entry in the next blog

Bali-Hi was a mystical island of magic in the musical “South Pacific"

The above journal entry was written in September of 2020 during the Covid Pandemic and the era of the massive George Floyd—Black Lives Matter protests. Angela Davis, a well known civil rights activist during the 1960’s, was acknowledging the power of the people’s movement then. Although she was right that it would pass and the streets would become quite, the Christian Nationalist response is now raging in the form of Trump 2.0

Kat Brooks, who hosts a show on KPFA radio, said yesterday on KPFA Hard Knock that “We are never going to get free in the halls of power. It’s in the streets…"

[tieflingkisser]

Oakland Pro Palestinian Protest These are the words from The People whom are and were affected by HER in Seat. We have to look at Peoples Actions and the lack thereof when voting. At their Political Resume and contributions be them positive or negative.

[buchino]

“Not all arsonists!”

A few of the compelling arguments I’ve heard defending the status quo.

I’m sure this could be about any number of issues, but it was drawn¹ ² from my experience throughout 2020 hearing counterarguments to defund the police.

Occupy was admonished for its lack of a pithy message. But, now, the critics want nuance. “Defund the police” is simple, straightforward and digestible. I think people are feigning ignorance, but I’ll spell it out:

Imagine any cause you’ve ever donated to. Your tax dollars didn’t fund it & *you* had to donate because police & military budgets already looted the coffers. They starve everything you’ve ever cared about. And literally get away with murder.#DefundThePolice #BlackLivesMatter

— Michæl Buchino (@buchino)

June 10, 2020

I heard the both sides-isms, which I haven’t understood from the start. One side wants no one to get hurt or die, the other side wants to get paid to hurt and kill people with impunity. Where’s the moral compass?

Some say “Not all cops are bad—it’s just a few bad apples!” Missing is the rest of that expression, which continues “…spoils the barrel.” Police unions make it impossible to get rid of individual bad apples. Donning a police badge means standing with and standing for those bad apples. Every cop is complicit.

Language and decorem are often cited as resonable justifications for eschewing the plight of the suffering. Indeed, “ACAB” and “fuck the police” are offenses equivalent to, if not more egregious than, militarized goons terrorizing, gassing, beating, shooting and killing the citizens they’re sworn to protect.

And, lastly, a criticism I didn‘t expect from a source I didn‘t expect: “You’re not suffering or disadvantaged in any discernible way; this doesn’t affect you directly; why do you care?” It’s such a selfish, privileged and oblivious sentiment. As if caring for the well-being of others is a bad thing. How callous.

There were a bunch of other apologist arguments absolving police culpability—what about-isms and false equivalencies that ran the gamut from past convictions to damaged property to thrown water bottles—that assume the duties of police encompass judge, jury and executioner. Some are quick to embrace wrong place/wrong time collateral damage—positting that trained and paid officers cannot be expected to be perfect all the time, but the hoi polloi must be on their best behavior, steadfast and vigilant. Still, others are willfully ignorant of historical context among an abundance of data—like why which people are policed or the perceived necessity of security theater. Crime is a construct.

But the thing I keep returning to is how we collectively just accept that a city can spend a third of its budget on a gang of outsiders to harm city residents while evading duties, bemoaning violence prevention and just not solving crime in general. Why are so many people fighting to preserve this?

Further listening:

Behind the Bastards by Robert Evans “The Worst Police Union in History”, Pt. 1 “The Worst Police Union in History”, Pt. 2

Politically Re-Active with W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu “Defund the Police 2021 + Trump’s Twitter”

1. Cartoon originally posted to Instagram on 27 December 2020.

2. Pun intended!

[glitteraorta]

“insurgency and counter-insurgency is precisely the lens through which the American state views much of its domestic policing activity, from gang-related operations through to protest management.” “As noted earlier, the U.S. military considers NGO partnerships to be a vital part of counter-insurgency efforts. Much has been written about the negative effects of non-profits on social movements.” “there were concerns, at least in Minnesota, that the National Guard would be insufficient to quell the uprising. Governor Tim Walz on May 30 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “We do not have the numbers… We cannot arrest people when we are trying to hold ground.” "In Oakland in 2009, non-profits directly intervened to deradicalize the response to the killing of Oscar Grant. Ahead of a major rally in January 2009, the Oakland police arranged meetings with various nonprofit and church leaders in order to defang the protests before… they even began. Religious leaders asked their congregations to not attend the protests. A coalition of NGOs came together and formed the Coalition Against Police Execution (CAPE). CAPE explicitly called for a lack of militancy in their protests… and stood as a physical barrier between police and protestors. 59 In turn, CAPE became the public, legitimate face of the protests, which was reinforced through media coverage.” & is anyone who was in CAPE still arnd doing things that are consistent with CAPE, you ask? related: [link captioned: lol sheilagh polk (cat brooks) being her authentic self ] cat brooks was literally a CAPE spokeswoman. & did Teen Vogue boost cat brooks in 2018? yes, it did. [...] maybe treat it as a given that aspiring politicians talking about revolution are full of shit.'

Anatomy of a counter-insurgency | MR Online

The defanging of the George Floyd Uprising was not accidental but was rather a deliberate attempt on the part of the American ruling class t

Wendy Trevino's commentary on the MR Online piece above

[serious2020]

Cat Brooks Dynamic! On stage FIYAH!

Worried abt Oakland’s incoming inclement weather & the flooding though…! Attention must be paid 2 what seems2B a broken pipe…! www.facebook.com/527472695/posts/10160312054852696/

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[serious2020]

'Out of a dream': Cat Brooks was guided by Natasha McKenna to tell slain woman's story - 48 hills

Playwright-activist’s poetic ”Tasha’ is a powerful, shocking biographical work at 3Girls Theatre’s New Works Festival. — Read on 48hills.org/2023/02/out-of-a-dream-cat-brooks-was-guided-by-natasha-mckenna-to-tell-slain-womans-story/

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[arcticdementor]

Column: Tough-on-crime politics are back in California. But Black activists aren't giving up

After George Floyd, many Americans backed police reform. Now with a rise in crime, activists must fight changing opinion by politicians and the public.

"I don't think all is lost."

I'm not sure what I expected to hear when I called up Cat Brooks, co-founder of Oakland's Anti Police-Terror Project, but it sure wasn't that.

Like her, I've been watching with growing unease as supposedly progressive politicians have returned to the kneejerk, tough-on-crime policies and rhetoric of California's past, swearing it's the only way to slow a string of brazen robberies and homicides.

…

At all of this, Brooks is outraged and disappointed, but not surprised.

"We knew that dead Black bodies were very soon not going to be the 'it' thing to rally around," she told me. "White people are going to go back to business as usual. So we need to brace ourselves for that."

The question is what comes next.

…

"Organizers around the country are scurrying to try to figure out what of our gains can we keep," Brooks said. "Where did we miss the mark? What were we not prepared for?"

For Melina Abdullah, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in L.A. and director of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, it's the rhetoric that's being used to trash progressives and criminal justice reform.

…

Still if, as polls show, most Americans — even Black Americans — don't want to "defund the police," or ease up on prosecuting criminals, that presents larger problems.

"We have to win the souls of our people and we have to earn that," Brooks said.

That means understanding and acknowledging why, even in Black communities, many people really do want more police. Blame the very real uptick in violent crime there.

"They're begging for more cops because that's what we're all told is the only way to get safe. And it's a cognitive dissonance for Black folks," Brooks explained. "The more cops you have, the more encounters our communities have with law enforcement, the more violent encounters there are."

Brooks said she takes off her jewelry before she gets gas now. Abdullah told me there have been gun threats at her children's schools.

"The conditions are real out here now," Brooks said. "Now, what generated those conditions, though, was not some great mass explosion of Black people being savages. What happened was we had a pandemic."

People lost their homes, their jobs, and their family and friends to COVID-19, not to mention their mental health. Many were pushed into the underground economy to make ends meet, which often results in an uptick a crime.

"It's this gaslighting cycle. The state creates the conditions of poverty, which puts people in the underground economy, and then they respond to that crisis with violence in the form of policing," Brooks said. "We're in that cycle."

[serious2020]

RESOURCES

mailchi.mp/catbrooksforoakland/we-all-we-got

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