Black Lives Matter

CLUE: You're watching a movie.

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/may-i-shoot-an-intruder.html

Yes I realise. That doesn't mean one doesn't question 'why does this scene appear so much in movies' from the US...and not in movies from England, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.

Again, curiosity. Best always to ask when the chance arises.

Thanks for the response, and the link.

Movement For Black Lives Releases a Political Agenda That Stretches Far Beyond Police Violence

Janae Bonsu & Montague Simmons say their demands for black power, freedom and justice go beyond reform and require transformative change.
By Kwame Rose / The Real News Network
August 3, 2016

Just days after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, the movement for black lives released a detailed political agenda. Some of the demands focused on ending the war on black people, reparations for slavery, investing into black communities and away from corporations, and finally community control and political power. Now the coalition was made up of over 50 different grassroots organizations representing thousands of black lives matter activists from across the country. In the upcoming weeks, the Real News will host in depth debates and discussions about each demand and we look forward to having those conversations. But now joining me to discuss today’s released are two guests who played an integral part in creating this political agenda. Our first guest is Janae Bonsu, the national public policy chair of BYP100. She is a black feminist, activist, organizer, and scholar based in Chicago. Our second guest is Montague Simmons. He’'s with the organization for black struggle who is heavily involved in the Ferguson uprisings and the movement for black lives policy table.

The following is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

KWAME ROSE: Thank you both, Janae and Montague, for joining us. Janae I kind of wanted to start with you. Why now? Why release this policy just days after the democratic nomination?

JANAE BONSU: Well we feel like it is very important to intervene in this political moment because neither the Democratic National Convention nor the Republican National Convention address the root causes or necessary solutions to the ongoing war in black communities. And so it is up to us to be our own advocates and really take on the onus of putting forth the vision that really is reflective of black lives actually mattering in practice and really taking it upon ourselves to introduce policy that is transformative and not incremental and reactionary.

ROSE: Montague, this goes beyond—you’re from St. Louis, Missouri. This political agenda, it’s kind of different for I guess mainstream to associate black lives matter with something other than police violence. What other challenges are more important that police violence that this political agenda addresses? Which ones are on the forefront and need to be addressed sooner than others?

MONTAGUE SIMMONS: Well I don’t necessarily think we’re weighing them one versus the other in terms of priority. But when we have a conversation about what safety in our community is and what community violence looks like, it does go beyond that discrete expression of violence in terms of how police show up. It’s violence when you’re actually living in a community when you can’t find good quality food. It’s violence when public policies divest in resources from a community where you can’t get access to good healthcare. For us the platform, it combines those to show not only are we talking about the explicit war in terms of criminalization, mass incarceration, police violence. But also when you’re divesting both resources and people in the community through criminalization. When you can’t find quality jobs or means to support it. Or when communities really deny the opportunity to have real political control, community control of the policy making vehicles in its community. So these things we’re not prioritizing one versus the other. But the feeling was the slate of demands are all interrelated.

ROSE: And Montague, I just want to briefly just ask you, recently President Obama has hosted several discussions with black lives matter activists. These were smaller discussions than the list of 50 different grassroots organizations who are signed on as endorsers of this political agenda, the movement for black lives. What do those meetings, those small meetings with President Obama and those activists--what role did they have to play in creating this political agenda and has President Obama accepted this agenda? SIMMONS: Well we haven’t heard any responses from the White House. I mean we haven’t formally presented. It’s just been publicly released today. I will say that I think a few of the folks that may have been involved in those conversations have been in some way or at least their organizations have been involved in the process. This process began with a convening that was held in July last year. The event itself drew more than 3,000 people. And the assembly process, the people’s assembly that actually began this between somewhere of 200-300 people. So for us it was important to make certain, one, the platform reflected the work that was already happening on the ground and not necessarily the policy experts to say no lets intervene in this way. Let’s look at the work that’s already happening. But also, to make certain that as we begin to develop the platform that it wasn’t just a few people doing this and presenting this and saying hey here’s a remedy. This actually included hundreds of folks from a variety of organizations around the country that represent thousands of folks that go across the spectrum of black folks across America.

ROSE: Now Janae you are from Chicago where in November Chicago police released the video of the shooting, police involved shooting of Laquan McDonald and BYP100 was one of the groups in Chicago on the ground protesting. How realistic is it that lawmakers, that political figures will accept this policy, will implement parts of the policy, if not the whole policy? BONSU: I think it’s very likely so long as they are put under pressure. I mean we can’t and nor do we intend to just put this platform out here and expect it to pass itself. I mean we see policy as one means to getting to what we want right? So this will be in conjunction with policy advocacy, lobbying, direct action, and grassroots campaigns that are built around these ideas. So we will continue to put pressure on the ground directly to elected officials so that they have no choice but to adopt the agenda. And really putting hard stances on elected officials who are supposed to be accountable to us. They work for us and this platform is serving as a tool for organizations, organizers, activists, individuals on the ground, to really have something tangible to actually advocate around. So long as the pressure stays on and we’re very intentional about how we’re engaging with these folks, I think it’s very likely.

ROSE: And Janae just to piggy back off of that, at the DNC, the Democratic National Convention this past week there was significantly more protest against Hillary Clinton by Bernie Sanders supporters and other activist groups than there were at the Republican National Convention against Donald Trump. Also at the Democratic National Convention we saw several mothers of the movement, the mothers of victims of police brutality who’s sons and daughters sparked protests. How inclusive do you think the Democratic Party is of an idea of such a political agenda?

BONSU: I don’t really differential much between the Democratic and the Republican National Convention or parties in general. It’s about the actually policies and platforms that will lead to transformative change and we haven’t seen those transformative solutions from either party. It’s about shifting power and reallocating resources to our communities. So we will use this platform indiscriminately with both the Democratic and Republican parties in order to get what we’re calling for and for the war on black communities and investment in our communities, divestment from the systems that harm us. Again we haven’t seen those solutions from the Democratic Party so we’ll continue to push for them.

ROSE: And Janae you’ve served as the public policy chair for BYP100. I just wanted to get your grasp on how realistic is it to assume that some of these demands if not all will actually be accepted by elected officials, will actually be implemented into law through the legislative process. Is it too farfetched of an idea to think that would happen?

BONSU: I don’t think so. I mean I know that we understand that of the 39-40 comprehensive policy demands that we’ve put forth in this agenda, there’s not going to be one sweep of law passages or you know these laws aren’t going to be enacted in one sweep but it is going to be a process. Some of these policy solutions are short term. Some of them are intermediate, some of them are long term. But we do whole-heartedly believe in this entire platform and will continue to push it so that we can build the world that we want to build. So some of these solutions are again, they’re not in priority order but some of them will come to fruition before others. But we are wholeheartedly pushing the whole platform absolutely.

ROSE: Montague, just briefly as we’re running out of time. We have seen a political agenda presented before through campaign zero which was presented by a smaller group of activists. Just briefly if you can point on what differentiates this platform put out by the movement for black lives versus the campaign zero coalition?

SIMMONS: Quickly, 1 the process. The platform is the product of over a year of conversations, engagements, convenings, feedback with organizations from out of the country. Its being launched by United Front and it address more than just police violence. Provides resource organizations and the document’s just wider in scope. It was born from a very different process. It was a document that was meant to challenge existing systems while offering transformational policy.

I just looked up the rate of violence by country, and found this link.
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/violence/by-country/

On a cruise on the Caribbean some years ago, a small group of up walked into town in Belize. Since it was a weekend, it was very quiet, and none of us thought about fear.

The death rate in Belize was pretty high with Singapore and Japan being in the lowest. However, in Singapore, nobody is allowed to throw trash on the ground. The fine is quite high, so their streets/sidewalks are very clean. The only place you are allowed to throw trash on the ground is at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar, where they provide peanuts.

Interesting map. I was surprised by the US being green, and Israel being grey. US I thought would be lower, and Israel higher.

There's a number of people with obsessive personalities on this forum -1,-1,-1,-1

This one seems pretty black and white to me. 5 dead white cop who were defending a group of Black Lives Matter people who hate white cops. Ridiculous.

Say something liberal like GO CLINTON, or SCREW WHITE PEOPLE. Should get you some thumbs up.

I've never been particularly worried by thumbs up or down. I'm not going to please everyone in life, and that's plain fact.

I do roll my eyes at those who obsess over particular posters, thumbing them down regardless of the actual content of their posts.

My guess is they don't realise how unhealthy such a behaviour is for their own mental health. Our beliefs will always modify (to some degree) to conform with our behaviours. The more we do something consistently, the more our beliefs modify to fit that behaviour. If our behaviour involves voting down posts regardless of content...

The results of shoot happy, gun crazy cops:

People in Australia aren't allowed to defend themselves? I find that hard to believe from all the movies I've seen.

Seems like if someone was pounding your head into the sidewalk that you'd do all you could to not die. Don't you guys all carry really big knives?

Still relevant.

Well, unless you like Black Lives Matter, no one will thumb you up. It's just how the site is run. Liberal. Fortunately for me most people away from this dinky site have come to realize BLM is ridiculous and share my opinion that they are pretty much a gang.

I think it depends on one's experience and their perceptions.
http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/jen-kuznicki/blm-screams-intolerance-tolerance-isnt-what-they-are-looking

I think both are true.

You are an idiot.

Of course they are - I'm not sure how you came to ask such an absurd question from anything I've said.

I'm not worried about thumbs up or down - as I mentioned, I can't please everyone.

Some of the things I've said in this thread have supported posts that further the intent of the thread, some of the things I've said, have questioned peoples pre-conceived paradigms. Questioning generally takes more effort. Some people can only see the negative, and not the positive. Some people hate a person questioning the fairness of their views. That is life.

Racism is one of those things that does need to be discussed.

And while we do that, we should try to make sure we judge each person, and each event on it's merit, and don't apply that event to the whole of a group...just as we ask of others when it's directed at us.

To do something that we decry others doing, meets the very definition of hypocrisy.

There are many, even handed & fair ways to get any point across. And there seems plenty of supportive material for this BLM thread to use.

This of course is at an individual level. If enough individual events show a concerning pattern, then we can make statements like:
- there is a concerning level of racism in ***
- there is a concerning level of crime in ***
- there is a concerning level of poverty in ***
- there is a concerning level of **** in prison
and
- these things represent a problem that needs to be addressed
and
- the contributing factors are
A
B
C
D
What are you (the govt) going to do about it?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The factors in A,B,C,D+ should represent all the factors, not just the factors on one side (no matter which issue is being discussed)

That's an overall picture. It's not appropriate or practical to follow that completely here, but the concept of fairness should be able to be applied to our posts, within the context of the thread (ie. acknowledging that a thread on negative behaviour needs examples of negative behaviour)