Thread by @lisasharper

@stephenproctor Thank you. I honestly think it’s time we consider how we can transition into a world without police. Or do we do as the Apostles did in Acts 6 when the Hellenist widows were not getting served meals by the dominant culture food servers. 1/2

@stephenproctor The Apostles appointed a team of Hellenists to lead all food distribution. This moved power from the center to the margins. What would it look like to see the racialized origins of the police? 2/

@stephenproctor What would it look like for all of us to look the institution of the police full in the face and see how, it was an institution used by communities recognized as white to control newly arrived immigrant Europeans, not yet considered white?
time.com/4779112/police…

@stephenproctor What would it look like to remember the ways police were used in the Jim Crow era—to control and confine Black bodies; feeding them into work farms called prisons to uphold white flourishing with the only legal means to enslave post-Civil War. 4/

@stephenproctor What would it look like to recognize that our policing system was NEVER meant to control White people? It was meant to give white people a means to protect their power. 5/

@stephenproctor What if justice looked like redesigning our policing system all-together? What if it looked like pushing power to the margins? What if all people responsible for enforcing the law in our society were of African descent-from top to bottom? 6/

@stephenproctor What could a new way of living in the world together look like. It is time to dream. It is time to write down the visions. Without this transformational vision, my people are perishing. #RIPGeorgeFloyd #GeorgeFloyd 7/7
nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/…