Since Dickens took office, Atlanta has:

-pulled out of a funding opportunity that would have helped reduce imposition of/reliance on criminal fees/fines via @FinesandFeesJC

-nixed the plan to repurpose the city jail and instead leased beds to abusive Fulton County

1/ -partnered with Fulton to revive a racist “repeat offender” courtwatch program championed by a councilwoman who tried to help Tr*ump overturn election results

-failed to use MILLIONS of dollars earmarked for the virtually unstaffed Office of Violence Reduction
2/

A few things I learned from mentors:

1. Never meet or broker power with adversaries alone.
2. Never broker power on behalf of people who haven’t sent you or to whom you aren’t concretely accountable.
3. Never meet without a plan.
4. Never offer a plan not grounded in strategy. 5. Ideas of individuals do not become the strategy of the collective without being vetted by that collective.
6. Meetings are a tactic and not a strategy.
7. Community must decide how meetings will be publicized before they happen.

When the cops killed 7 y/o Aiyana Jones in Detroit during a no knock raid, they arrested her aunt saying she grabbed their gun. The aunt said she was grabbing Aiyana because a flash bang had set the baby on fire. During the trial, the judge threatened the aunt for her outbursts. In America, even the act of caring for our young is treated as a threat. It is as if we are in a persistent state of resistance when we do merely the things that come naturally. Even while sleeping. Even when awakened by the scathing flames of authoritarianism. There is no rest.

You know what’s telling? That in response to Atlanta solidarity demonstrations for Jacob Blake this week, @Atlanta_Police has chosen to make jaywalking arrests, pull over people bringing food to protesters and falsely charge someone for attempting to a incite a riot. How is it that as the nation continues to be awakened to the sheer brutality of American policing and only weeks after an entire council was tasked with making recommendations on how to curb police violence, @Atlanta_Police is escalating infringements on speech?