50 years after the infamous demonstrations, participants and historians reflect. What lessons does the battle of Chicago have for us today? We asked three veterans of 1968 and one historian of the period to revisit this 50-year-old debate.
Of course, I don’t trust Trump, but to actually see him side with Putin in that moment was stunning. Soon after I watched it, I started realizing just how familiar that feeling was.
A pattern of abuse.
We can’t say a world without police wouldn’t work when the places that supposedly “need” police have never received adequate resources to thrive.
“Over 500 people we surveyed in West Garfield Park said they do not want this cop academy,” said Monica Trinidad, one of the demonstrators. “There are way more resources of need in their community. They want jobs. They want mental health clinics. They want public schools."
The March 18 killing of 22-year old Stephon Clark by Sacramento Police once again calls our attention to the racist aspect of the problem of civilians murdered by law enforcement. Angie Thomas's award-winning Young Adult novel is among the most recent literary responses to this crisis.
“We should no longer be the target practice of a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ police force.”
The focus of the exhibit, Do Not Resist? 100 Years of Chicago Police Violence, curated by For the People Artists Collective, is on the past 100 years of police brutality in Chicago. In particular, we wanted to draw attention to the resistance that’s happened here.
One way to describe Erica Garner’s last few years is to say she spent them fighting against police brutality. Another way is to say she fought against the forced separation and destruction of black families by the state.
The author argues convincingly and in graphic detail that the problem with police in civil society is not just the lack of adequate training, police diversity, increased militarization or even police methods such as the routine brutalization of many people of color, but the dramatic and unprecedented expansion in the last four decades of the too-accepted social role of police. The problem, the sociologist-author insists, is policing itself.
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