Tag: COVID19

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COVID Demos Police

Police response to “freedom convoy” is the strongest argument ever for abolishing the police

As I watched people attack the U.S. Capitol last January 6, I, like many Canadians, asked myself: could anything like that happen here? Well, this past week, we got our answer when we watched thousands of anti-vaccine mandate demonstrators occupy downtown Ottawa for a week – while the Ottawa police did almost nothing to stop them. And this was despite the fact that Ottawa police Chief Sloly eventually had to admit that the protest was, “intolerable [and] unprecedented.”, and that, “The range of illegal, dangerous and unacceptable activities is beyond the ability to list.” 

And, just as people around the world remarked at how American police treated the capital attackers very different from Black Lives Matter protesters, we saw how Ottawa police treated the truckers very differently from the young Black and Indigenous protesters who blocked an Ottawa intersection in November 2020, following the acquittal of OPS constable Daniel Montsion in the death of Abrirahman Abdi. 

But, unlike many people, Black people I know weren’t surprised at the OPS response. On the contrary, we saw the OPS acting exactly as expected. That’s because the OPS, like all police forces in Canada, has always had one mandate: protect the powerful – or at least don’t get in their way. And the thousands of mostly white convoy protesters, and the organizers with their millions in the bank, were the powerful. The young Black and Indigenous protesters who blocked the Ottawa intersection in November 2020 weren’t.

So, despite knowing that the young protesters had a meeting arranged with city councillors and Ottawa Police Service Board members at noon Saturday, that would end the protest, the Ottawa police moved in around 3am Saturday morning and forcibly removed the protesters, arresting and charging 12 of them. 

Those charges hung over their heads for a year. 

When asked why the OPS appeared to handle the two events very differently, Chief Sloly said the two situations were different, and that he didn’t see a connection with the scale, size and nature of what police faced with the convoy protest. So, the Chief was basically saying, “You can’t compare the two events because the convoy protest was way bigger.” However, saying the convoy was bigger is a comparison so the Chief contradicted himself in the same sentence. But, more importantly, we can compare and what we’re all seeing is that the double standard couldn’t be more blatant. Clearly, the OPS believes some people have more right to protest than others.

All the OPS could have really said about the Nov. 2020 demonstration is that it posed multiple potential safety issues because no one actually said that demo made them feel unsafe. However, there were many reports of people saying the convoy demo made them feel unsafe or actually unsafe.

The convoy blocked Joline Mallet’s 4-yr-old son Liam from getting to his brain cancer treatments. Downtown residents’ homes were vandalized for having Pride flags. Journalists, unhoused people and small business owners were harassed by protesters, some of whom carried confederate flags. Protesters parked, danced and urinated on the War Memorial and kept residents up by blowing their horns well into the night. And the convoy caused businesses in the downtown core, vaccination clinics and an elementary school to close. The Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women said members of the protest were overtly threatening and intimidating women, people from marginalized communities, and those working in precarious low-paid employment. They said they heard accounts of young women being followed, almost run over, and threatened with rape.

When challenged about the poor police response, the OPS said they considered it a success because there were no riots, injuries, or deaths. This bears repeating: their measure of success wasn’t whether women got harassed, or unhoused people got beat up or whether people were too afraid to leave their house to go to work. As long as there were no riots it was all good.

In defence of the police, Diane Deans, who both chairs the police Board and is running for Mayor, said we must trust in the police service and their “greater experience with risk and threat assessments and that they make decisions based on the information they have in the moment, with public safety clearly in the centre.” Simply avoiding riots isn’t centreing public safety.

The OPS response to the convoy backs up calls to defund and eventually abolish the OPS. This is because the main question people ask about abolishing the police is, “What about the murderers? What about the rapists? Who are we going to call for then?” Well, up until last week, people could have asked, “What if thousands of angry protesters occupy downtown Ottawa and harass people for a week? Who are we going to call then?” Well, now it’s crystal clear who people shouldn’t call: the Ottawa police.

Enough is enough. It’s time to start the process of abolishing all Canadian police forces by defunding them and starting real community conversations about what systems we can create to truly make us all safer.

Categories
COVID19 George Floyd TV

Black lives matter until the Game of Thrones sequel starts

Like millions of people around the world, I got hooked on Game of Thrones because it was great TV. However, unlike millions of people, I discovered it late and thought it was the one of the most racist shows I had ever seen. The picture below has some of the key reasons why.

Game of Thrones (G.O.T.) was the ultimate white liberal fantasy. It was about good white people fighting bad white people with almost no brown people around. The only brown folks were slaves, former slaves or savage warriors, called the Dothraki, who loved violence and looked and sounded like Arabs (the Sinbad movie kind, who were also played by white or kinda white actors).

Instead of showing these white folks violently robbing brown folks of their stuff (i.e. what really happened), one of the lead characters, Daenerys Targaryen, was a pretty blond woman who attacked places and freed slaves. After she conquered a place, she would tell the former slaves that they were free to go – but none ever did. In one scene, after she freed the slaves, they hoisted her above their heads like in a mosh pit, and passed her around while calling her “mother” in their native tongue.

The only two brown, main characters are the two in the pic above. Both are former slaves who Daenerys freed. The woman, Missandei, is a translator who becomes Dany’s trusted advisor, but it’s the male character who sets a new racist high for character development.

He is a former slave who was raised as part of a slave army, he now leads. Called the Unsullied, they wear masks so it’s hard to tell what colour they are (but you can judge for yourself from the pic below). What we do learn is that they’re all eunuchs because their balls were cut off when they were young. We also learn that, despite his lack of balls, their leader can still feel attraction, but only towards Missandei. He never expresses any sexual interest in Daenerys (despite her running around naked a lot because she’s immune to fire and kills enemies by burning them alive and emerging naked from the ashes). And she never shows any sexual interest in him – despite his sex machine name – Grey Worm.

Members of The Unsullied

So let’s recap: white folks fighting white folks, white women freeing slaves, crazy violent “savages” and the most non-threatening Black guys possible. Oh, and one more thing…. All the white people have a common enemy in the white walkers, an ever increasing army of dead people led by the Night King who’s one of the most Black looking dudes in the show. The dead live outside the massive ice wall separating them from where all the white people live. (Trump must have ordered a similar wall on the Mexican border before one of his advisors told him it would melt.)

The only thing that shocked me more than how racist the mega-hit was, was how few people seemed to notice – or care. Prior to Googling “Game of Thrones racist”, I hadn’t heard about anyone calling the show racist. (When I did Google it, the first result was the Guardian story, “There are no black people on Game of Thrones’: why is fantasy TV so white?”)

Millions of people watched G.O.T. for eight years with very few having a problem with its blatant anti-Black racism. Then they saw an 8-minute video of a Black man being lynched and many of them hit the street yelling Black lives matter. What changed? The problem is, nothing.

White folks (and other non-Black folks) hit the street after George Floyd because 1) Black people hit the street first 2) Black people burned down other people’s stuff. If only one of those had happened, there would have been far fewer non-Black folks in the street.

The problem is that it’s only the most horrendous acts of anti-Black racism, followed by Black folks hitting and street and burning down other people’s stuff that gets people’s attention. Blatant racism in one’s favourite TV show doesn’t.

The riots following the acquittal of the cops who beat up Rodney King got lots of attention but that was partly because of what Black folks burned down – and why.

According to Wikipedia:

“In the year before the riots, 1991, there was growing resentment and violence between the African-American and Korean-American communities. Racial tensions had been simmering for years between these groups. In 1989, the release of Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing highlighted urban tensions between Whites, Blacks and Koreans over racism and economic inequality. Many Korean shopkeepers were sad, tired, and afraid because they routinely dealt with targeted harassment, shoplifting or theft, violence, and threats from their Black customers and neighbors. Many Blacks were angry because they felt routinely disrespected and humiliated by Korean storeowners. They still viewed the area as their neighborhood, which the Korean Americans had invaded to make a living in without learning any preexisting culture. On March 16, 1991, a year prior to the Los Angeles riots, storekeeper Soon Ja Du shot and killed Black ninth-grader Latasha Harlins. Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and the jury recommended the maximum sentence of 16 years, but the judge decided against prison time and sentenced Du to five years of probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $500 fine instead. About 2,300 Korean-owned stores in southern California were looted or burned, making up 45 percent of all damages caused by the riot.”

The problem is not dealing with the root causes of the tension before things blow up.

COVID-19 exposed tensions created by systemic equality and contributed to George Floyd’s death being the spark that set the tinder box on fire.

The question now is, are the majority of people going to see the light, examine their role in maintaining systemic inequality, and do their part to end it – or are they going disappear into the next G.O.T. fantasy, only to emerge after the next explosion?

Categories
Coops COVID19 Sharing economy

COVID19 should be Black folks’ Ujam-Ahh! moment

The COVID19 pandemic reveals the potential of cooperatives as vehicles for economic development in Black communities.

In the “sharing economy”, exemplified by companies like Uber and Airbnb, just about anything can be shared – except the profits. The profits go the owners/shareholders as they did long before run-of-the-mill capitalism was upset by “disruptive” capitalism.

However, in the U.S., the COVID19 pandemic has shown that traditional capitalist companies, where a few owners, or many faceless shareholders, share the profits, risks and decisions, have not fared as well as those based on a very different model: cooperatives.

In his May 8 Truthout article, Pandemic Crash Shows Worker Co-ops Are More Resilient Than Traditional Business, Tessa Collective member Brian Van Slyke, gives examples of how, and reasons why, some American coops are weathering COVID better than their traditional counterparts.

Slyke quotes Esteban Kelly, executive director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, of which the TESA Collective is a member:

“Traditional firms, when times are good, they take that surplus, they distribute it to the investors or maybe pay off debt, but they don’t necessarily do a lot of bonus pay for rank-and-file or increase wages…When times are bad, they panic…They’re slashing jobs and benefits…” Kelly says things are different with coops. “When worker-owned businesses are doing well, they share the benefits among worker-owners. This is most commonly achieved by increasing wages, expanding benefits, distributing dividends to the employees (instead of absentee stockowners) and reinvesting in their communities. But when business is tough, a worker cooperative equitably shares the burden. Instead of mass layoffs, the workers, who are the equal owners, strive to find collective solutions. Worker-owners might vote to take voluntary pay cuts so no one person loses their job, and worker committees might try to find new markets the cooperative can expand into.” Slyke gives several examples of U.S. coops doing just this in response to the pandemic.

Cooperatives aren’t a new idea, including among African-Americans.

Long before Dr. Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966 with its fourth principle of cooperative economics, Ujamaa, Ella Baker and George Schuyler launched the Young Negroes Cooperative League (YNCL) in Pittsburgh in 1930. (Baker would go on to form the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee with Martin Luther King). As Barbara Ransby explains in her book, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement – A Radical Democratic Vision, the idea was to form “black consumer cooperatives as a strategy to combat the economic devastation being wreaked by the depression and to educate black people about socialism.” This, at a time when Blacks in the southern US were still struggling under the crushing poverty of one of the many systems that replaced slavery: sharecropping.

According to the PBS article, Slavery by Another Name:

“After the Civil War, former slaves sought jobs, and planters sought laborers. The absence of cash or an independent credit system led to the creation of sharecropping. Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. This encouraged tenants to work to produce the biggest harvest that they could, and ensured they would remain tied to the land and unlikely to leave for other opportunities. In the South, after the Civil War, many black families rented land from white owners and raised cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and rice. In many cases, the landlords or nearby merchants would lease equipment to the renters, and offer seed, fertilizer, food, and other items on credit until the harvest season…High interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often kept tenant farm families severely indebted. Laws favoring landowners made it difficult or even illegal for sharecroppers to sell their crops to others besides their landlord, or prevented sharecroppers from moving if they were indebted to their landlord. Approximately two-thirds of all sharecroppers were white, and one third were black.”

Although sharecropping hadn’t done great things for Black folks, sharing had. Ransby explains that, “Cooperation, the sharing of resources, and a strong community spirit were fundamental values among African Americans. Ella Baker’s extended family was part of a larger network of black farmers in Warren County, North Carolina, who emphasized self-help and mutual aid as strategies for survival and the betterment of the race. The cooperative ethos that permeated Baker’s childhood was deeply implicated in prevailing notions of family and community; groups of individuals banding together around shared interests and promoting a sense of reciprocal obligation, not of individualism and competition. For example, African American farmers exchanged goods, services, and other resources among themselves. Expensive farm equipment was purchased collectively or used communally.”

Despite its promise, the YNLC only lasted about five years and “eventually collapsed under the weight of financial obligations” according to Ransby. She says Schuyler’s biographer, Michael Peplow, also attributed the YNCL’s failure partially to the fact that, “Schuyler’s inflammatory remarks about the black church and the black middle class had made him too many enemies.” For example, Schuyler had emphasized that, “…young [YNCL] recruits had to be militants, pioneers, unswerved by the defeatist propaganda of the oldsters, and the religious hokum of our generally parasitic clergy.”

So are there any signs of a cooperative resurgence among Black folks today? Yep.

After years of teaching and serving as a principal in Detroit schools, helping lead the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN) and starting D Town Farm on the city’s west side, Malik Yakini and DBCFSN are planning a 34,000-square-foot food co-op, event space, and commercial kitchens in Detroit’s North End neighborhood. The Detroit People’s Food Coop could serve as a proof-of-concept for the ability of co-ops to build wealth, create food security, and drive investment in underserved communities.

(June 12 addition): Events in the US following the death of George Floyd have many people comparing Canada with the US and saying we’re glad “we’re not like them”. Modeling initiatives like the Detroit People’s Food Coop would be a good place to make an exception to that.

Categories
COVID19 SurCap

COVID-19 could mean we lose and surveillance capitalists win — again

This post is on rabble.ca

Update, April 18 – Since posting this, I found some good blog posts on The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Barbara Fisher’s post, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: A Mixed Review on the Inside Higher Ed site, nicely explains how businesses aren’t just using the predictions about our behaviour that they buy from surveillance capitalists to help them better target their ads:

“That Fitbit your employer paid for? It feeds information to insurers that can use to change your behaviour and reduce costs – or charge you more if you don’t comply. Google drove into our neighbourhoods with camera-equipped cars to capture images of our communities and create detailed maps that will be useful for routing their self-driving cars and even planning entire cities where everything will be connected and everyone’s life experience moment by moment can be rendered as data.”