The most upsetting thing about this is it reveals the powerful understand abolitionist principles and how to take action on them. They only adopt abolitionist language, however, to further entrench existing inequality, rather than the other way around. chicago.suntimes.com/2020/4/29/2124…
#Lightfoot understands moving resources from communities who don't need them and redistributing them to those that have been historically denied them. But instead of applying this principle to housing, a living wage, access to education and healthcare, she applies it to policing.
She uses the language of 'addressing need,' but the need she refers to--the need to end inter-community violence--is born from lack of access to basic resources, not lack of access to being policed by the state. (The south and west sides have never lacked this "resource.")
A similar hypocrisy was revealed when #Lightfoot said members of a predominately white church disobeying social distancing orders "needed to be educated" about #COVID19, and that her administration would "avoid mass arrests." chicago.suntimes.com/platform/amp/c… Image
This was days after telling youth on the West and South sides they would be arrested and taken to jail if they were disobeying social distancing. wbez.org/stories/black-…
As MLK famously said, "We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor." The powerful understand abolition perfectly. They only apply its principles to themselves and their neighborhoods, while denying them to ours. #CareNotCops

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More from @radfagg

Dec 2, 2020
The abolitionists of the 1800s lost a big audience when they said the institution of chattel slavery couldn't be redeemed. Slave owners--many rich and powerful--felt alienated by the statement. It was polarizing. In fact, it led to war. #DefundPolice politico.com/news/2020/12/0…
It would have been more diplomatic to call for reform: To stop beating slaves, to not separate parents from children, but allow the institution's core--one pop. of people owning another--to continue unfettered. Perhaps they might have won more over to their cause. #DefundPolice
Black people are no longer (literal) property in this country because the abolitionist movement called for slavery's abolition. It took a war for that demand to become reality. But the institution ended because of the clarity of movement, and its radical vision. #DefundPolice
Read 5 tweets
Sep 22, 2020
THREAD: I’m voting early for #BidenHarris2020.

Here’s why, against many of my core values, I’m doing so, why you should too if you’re able, AND why voting in this election is not revolutionary, and deeply insufficient:
I believe we need to use every tool we have at this moment. I believe a contested election gives us more fodder than one where Trump wins easily. I believe a racist establishment president is NOT BETTER but MORE NAVIGABLE than a fascist for of our most marginalized communities.
That being said, the idea that fascism can be voted away is dangerous, not only because fascism doesn’t care about the laws of democracy, but also because fascist movements that are mobilized at this moment will continue to be, regardless of how the election plays out.
Read 15 tweets
Sep 3, 2020
It's good that more ppl are aware of the overlap between law enforcement, vigilante militias, and white nationalist organizing, but I'm also disturbed by the discourse that one has "infiltrated" the other. They are the same. #DefundPolice #AbolishPolice theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
The overlap between law enforcement and white nationalism isn't a recent event. One is inseparable from the other. If police departments evolved from slave patrols, then policing begins with the goal of white nationalism. #DefundPolice #AbolishPolice worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/ori…
A cursory review of US history reveals this: Sundown towns, the birth of the KKK, race riots in which police watched white ppl to destroy neighborhoods of color. Policing and white nationalism have been bonded from their inception. #DefundPolice #AbolishPolice
Read 6 tweets
Aug 26, 2020
The saddest thing about @ChiPubSchools voting yet again to keep police in CPS ins't just that they're on the wrong side of history, it's that getting on the right side is inevitable.

#PoliceFreeSchools will be reality. You're just waisting time/$ until we get there. #CopsOutCPS
Hearing officials today use terms like "school to prison pipeline" and "restorative justice" while arguing FOR police in schools was insulting, and not even a good cover. We know exactly where you stand, and more importantly, we know where we stand. #CopsOutCPS #PoliceFreeSchools
The only members of the board who uplifted the actual voices/demands of youth were also the only ones who came with the actual data/stats that support #PoliceFreeSchools. @ChiPubSchools NO MORE STUDIES. The research has already been done and the findings are clear. #CopsOutCPS
Read 5 tweets
Aug 21, 2020
Grateful to @them for running this story on HRC's deletion of a tweet praising #LoriLightfoot after Black and brown Chicagoans pointed to its hypocrisy.

I also want to challenge some of the analysis here, which comes directly from the her administration: them.us/story/hrc-dele…
From the article:

"In addition to the police beatings of protesters, Lightfoot also drew criticism for nightly shutdowns of transit service through downtown...The nightly road and transit closures, unrelated to protesting, were enacted after looting downtown on August 10."
The looting that occurred downtown and in other parts of the city WAS PART OF THE PROTESTS of policing. #LoriLightfoot's claim that the de facto separating of the predominately Black south side from the predominately white north side had nothing to do with protesting is a lie.
Read 7 tweets
Aug 18, 2020
#Lightfoot has a similar profile to her predecessor #RahmEmanuel in that her national image and her status in the Democratic party matter much more to her than the opinion of local Chicagoans--especially Black, brown, immigrant, poor and working ones. #StopLightfoot #DefundCPD
The platforms these national orgs give #LoriLightfoot don't just shroud the violence she commits locally--they empower it. So long as she is allowed to masquerade as a champion or "racial justice" and "intersectionality" nationally, she is empowered to be the antithesis locally.
Read 4 tweets

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