Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Listen here to our interview with Brandon on WBAI.

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Abolitionist Mariame Kaba famously stated, Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair. Following her words, I can only comprehend what we have endured in 2020 as a calling to radicalize, to rethink ineffective public safety policy and to revitalize our communities by defunding the police.

2020 was a year that felt like a decade, a time of deep stress and distress, challenges beyond measure, and enormous personal tragedy. I saw my home, New York City, fall into a series of crises, I lost friends and relatives to the pandemic, and I, along with millions of Americans, watched black men murdered on video.

West says it would be pretty easy for City Council to cut the NYPDs annual budget by $2 billion per year.

Beginning in June, after months of lockdown, I was in the streets fighting for Black lives and for the end of the carceral state. I organized with the Free Black Radicals and members of VOCAL-NY at the Occupy City Hall encampment to defund the NYPD. Months later, and only days after a white supremacist insurrection in the capitol, the NYPD brutalized peaceful protestors on MLK Day in that exact same location.

But when I feel despair, as I did during almost the entirety of 2020 and already many times since the start of 2021, I know it is time to turn to action. Whenever asked why Im running for City Council, I speak about my experiences fighting against over-policing and the carceral state. I tell voters that Im running to defund, and to abolish, the NYPD. Having the experiences of an organizer on the streets and as an analyst in the NYC Office of Management and Budget and City Council Finance means that I know it is possible to do these things and to radically re-envision public safety.

So how do we do it? Defunding the NYPD requires being bold and standing up in the budget process and also, critically, to articulate a vision of community safety that is not carceral. We have to do both, and the latter is harder than most people think. We are so used to treating the police and policing as the solutions that they most clearly are not. Even conversations with progressives and leftists, its hard to shake the language and framework around incarceration. But I know we can do it if we are intentional and clear about how we want to do this work.

First, there is a lot we can cut in the next budget. Its pretty easy to make reasonable cuts and hit $2 billion. There is no reason we couldnt hit at least $1 billion last year. Its a shame the outgoing council didnt. Communities United for Police Reform put out a well-researched report last summer showing just how easy it is to slash NYPDs budget by over $1 billion. This includes over $200 million in a hiring freeze and cutting the cadet class, $100 million in removing NYPD from schools and social service-related roles, almost $300 million in for police misconduct settlements/judgments and not firing abusive officers, at least $219 million by reducing the NYPD uniform headcount to FY2014 level, and almost $400 million in cutting bloat like surveillance technology and overtime. Not to mention that if you include all the fringe benefits associated with these positions, it adds up considerably. Critically, it doesnt mean we abandon workers like school safety officers or traffic officers, who are often BIPOC folks. We can and will engage in a just transition as we decarcerate jobs that should never have fallen under NYPDs purview. Police do not keep people safe, but community services and economic stability does.

The other part of this work is creating the vision for the alternative. Many people I talk to cite victims of violence as a rationale for the brutal incarceration of those who engage in forms of violence. But deterrence is just punishment, our basest instinct, and it doesnt work. Incarcerating peopledestroying peoples livesresults in only devastated communities, not safe communities.

No single person can design a perfect system to eliminate violence in all aspects of life in New York tomorrow. But many have done this work for years and we must empower them to begin to build this alternative. In December 2020, Brownsville engaged in a pilot program where the community removed beat cops and instead had community members present in the streets, including non-profits and city agencies setting up booths to offer city resources for folks. There wasnt a single 911 call during that stretch of time. This pilot was just that: a pilot; it was a bubble within the world of a carceral state, with the normal over-policed stretch of the city a few blocks away. But it was a start, and seemingly a success, and we need to engage and fund programs like these and see to it that they are successful.

If we are not laser-focused on Defund and making it the goal of the next class of councilmembers and the next budget, we will not get there. We absolutely can to build on the work that was already done to get to this vision. I have often remarked that if 2020 didnt radicalize you, then you cannot be radicalized. It is for my fellow radicals that I run for City Council in District 39 and why I run to defund the police.

Brandon West is running for City Council in District 39 which encompasses Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and parts of Sunset Park. He is a member of the 6-candidate DSA for the City slate.

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We Can Defund The PoliceHere's How - The Indypendent

In the endless catalogue of British imperial atrocities, the unprovoked invasion of Tibet in 1903 was a minor but fairly typical episode. Tibetans, explained the expeditions cultural expert, were savages, more like hideous gnomes than human beings. Thousands of them were massacred defending their homeland, knocked over like skittles by the invaders state-of-the-art machine guns. I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, wrote a British lieutenant, though the Generals order was to make as big a bag as possible. As big a bag as possible killing inferior people was a kind of blood sport.

And then the looting started. More than 400 mule-loads of precious manuscripts, jewels, religious treasures and artworks were plundered from Tibetan monasteries to enrich the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. Countless others were stolen by marauding troops. Sitting at home watching the BBC antiques show Flog It one quiet afternoon in the early 21st century, Sathnam Sanghera saw the delighted descendant of one of those soldiers make another killing 140,000 for selling off the artefacts his grandfather had come across in the Himalayas.

Its a characteristically instructive vignette in Empireland, Sangheras impassioned and deeply personal journey through Britains imperial past and present. The empire, he argues, still shapes British society its delusions of exceptionalism, its immense private and public wealth, the fabric of its cities, the dominance of the City of London, even the entitled and drunken behaviour of British expats and holidaymakers abroad. Yet the British choose not to see this: wilful amnesia about the darker sides of imperialism may be its most pernicious legacy.

Among other things, it allows the British to deny their modern, multicultural identity. Moving effortlessly back and forth between history and journalism, Sanghera connects the racial violence and discrimination of his childhood in 1970s and 80s Wolverhampton with the attitudes and methods previously used to impose empire and white supremacy across the world and still perpetuated in British fantasies of global leadership.

Along the way, he tackles the racist myopia that allows present-day Britons to fantasise that black and brown people are aliens who arrived without permission, and with no link to Britain, to abuse British hospitality. On the contrary, imperial citizens have been enriching British life for centuries. The pioneering author and entrepreneur, Sake Dean Mahomed (1759-1851), invented the curry house. William Cuffay, the child of a freed West Indian slave and a white woman, helped lead Londons Chartist movement for greater democracy then, after being transported, became a political organiser in Australia.

Millions of others fought for Britain in the second world war alone, 200,000 Indian soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured while serving in allied campaigns. More than 10% of the UKs current population (including a staggering 44% of the NHSs medical staff) is non-white. All this is because for centuries white Britons colonised nations all over the world proclaiming their intimate, familial allegiance while invading, occupying, plundering, humiliating and killing their peoples on a massive scale to benefit British wealth and self-esteem. We are here because you were there.

Without getting bogged down in definitions, calculations or complicated comparisons, Empireland also manages to convey something of the sheer variety of imperial experiences over four centuries, and the limits of broad-brush explanations. Most of Britains wealth probably came from non-imperial trade. Imperial control was made possible by the collaboration of indigenous rulers and groups. Other nations have similarly problematic histories. And theres a long history of Britons themselves criticising, not celebrating, the full, gut-wrenching horror of imperial violence and racism.

But to make too much of such qualifications would be to miss the essential point. Both deliberately and unconsciously, the empire was one of the biggest white supremacist enterprises in the history of humanity, and it still corrupts British society in countless ways. Sangheras unflinching attempt to understand this process, and to counter the cognitive dissonance and denial of Britains modern imperial amnesia, makes for a moving and stimulating book that deserves to be widely read.

So does Padraic Scanlans engrossing and powerful Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain, a detailed exposition of how Britain profited from slavery for 200 years, and then used its abolition to justify another century or more of imperial violence and capitalist exploitation.

Its a different kind of book: straight history, no memoir, a scholarly rather than a journalistic argument. Yet its propelled by a similar, urgent frustration with the amnesiac myths of Britains supposedly glorious imperial heritage.

In the popular imagination, Britains abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and of slavery itself after 1833, was a great victory of good over evil, a national sacrifice that wiped out the stain of its slaveholding past. By voluntarily casting off the sin of slavery, the empire was transformed into a beacon of righteousness, and flourished thereafter as a global leader of antislavery and free trade, not bondage.

In the age of Brexit, thats the proud, inspiring history that many Britons love to rehearse. As Scanlan shows, its not a recent invention: its rooted in the vision of the antislavery movement itself. But its deeply misleading. Inspired by the classic West Indian critiques of CLR James and Eric Williams, and synthesising a mass of recent scholarship, Slave Empire presents a series of much more uncomfortable truths.

For one thing, the mass enslavement and exploitation of Africans by Europeans was never incidental or separable from the rise of global trade and empire: it was one of the central mechanisms through which these things were achieved. Slavery itself was an ancient practice. But there had never been anything like the vast slave plantations created in the Americas, especially on the islands of the Caribbean. By the late 18th century, these enormous, brutal, ecologically destructive enterprises had become the hub of a huge, profitable, interdependent web of money, commerce, power and territory, stretching both eastwards across the Atlantic, to Europe and West Africa, and north and south, into the mainland colonies of America.

From the forced labour of the millions of enslaved people who were worked to death on such factory-farms, white Britons and other Europeans created not just a booming international market in sugar, tobacco and rice, but a heavily capitalised imperial economy of shipping, banking, insurance, manufacturing, commodity trading and military expenditure. Even the fine white sugar that Jamaican planters themselves consumed was the product of raw materials grown and processed in the Caribbean, shipped to London, refined by sugar bakers in England, and then transported all the way back across the ocean to be retailed in the West Indies.

Nor did slavery die just because enlightened Britons turned against it. The abolitionist vision was deeply hierarchical, racist and paternalist freedom was something to be gradually earned by blacks and benevolently bestowed by whites. Enslaved people themselves had very different ideas. Long before white Britons took up their cause, they fought fiercely and unremittingly against their bondage.

All over the West Indies, throughout the later 17th and 18th centuries, large numbers of escaped and rebelling slaves waged continual guerrilla warfare on white settlers. In the early 19th century, three major insurrections in Barbados in 1816, British Guyana in 1823, and Jamaica in 1831-32 helped force the hands of the British. Abolition was partly an attempt to prevent black people from emancipating themselves and capturing valuable British territories by force as the rebel slaves of Frances main colony had done when they established the free republic of Haiti in 1804.

Whats more, ending slavery didnt stop the gigantic system of trade and exploitation it had spawned. On the contrary, it was meant to enhance it. The British government paid out colossal sums to compensate slaveowners but nothing to enslaved people themselves. Instead, the law abolishing slavery forced them to continue to labour for years on their existing plantations, as unpaid apprentices.

Abolitionists presumed that freed slaves would work harder, making plantations more profitable. When the price of Caribbean sugar fell, it was their laziness that was blamed. When they had the temerity to demand better wages, thousands of other dark-skinned workers were shipped in as indentured labourers from China, India, and Africa, to take their place as they were to countless other new British plantations around the world. Free labour and free trade were incompatible with slavery, but not with the continued exploitation and global trafficking of low-paid workers.

As Scanlan points out towards the end of this rich and thought-provoking book, 19th-century British capitalists continued to invest heavily in slaveholding enterprises overseas. They funded and insured many of the banks, railroads, steamships, and plantations of the American south. Britains cotton industry grew into its largest and most valuable industrial sector by processing much of the raw material produced by Americas slaves. At one point, the livelihood of nearly one in five Britons depended on it. In almost every respect, the free trade empire was less a repudiation than a continuation of the empire of slavery. Its time to embrace a more honest understanding of its manifold legacies.

Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain by Satnam Sanghera is published by Viking (18.99); Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain by Padraic X Scanlan is published by Robinson (25). To order copies go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera and Slave Empire by Padraic X Scanlan review - The Guardian

They say fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag and a bible, so I dont see why socialism couldnt be the same.

The branding for leftist ideas absolutely sucks. Mostly due to the fact that ideas like socialism and welfare have been demonized in this country. Socialism isnt the Soviet style communism that its popularly equated to nor does welfare just mean unemployment and food stamps.

Socialism is an economic school of thought and social theory that advocates for heavy regulation of industries along with a strong working class through unions and other organizations. Other examples of bad branding are in the buzzwords and phrases used such as defund the police.

The phrase defund the police is extremely aggressive and pushes people away from the movement. The phrase makes it seem like leftists would just remove the police from existence and have the people fend for themselves. This is a far cry from the police reform leftists would advocate for. While we would divert most of the police funding toward things like education spending and investments in the communities directly, it wouldnt mean that the police system would be abolished. The police system Id advocate for would have higher requirements to join, such as a minimum of one year of police training and a focus on community engagement rather than militarization. However, the branding surrounding defund the police only serves to push people away from a cause theyd otherwise agree with.

This is why I propose leftists ditch terms that have bad branding like socialism and communism and instead create new ones so we can dupe people into voting for policies that would fall under these namesakes. Instead of calling it socialized healthcare, call it PatriotCare: providing healthcare to all the patriots in the country free of charge.

I have to give props to Andrew Yang for the branding of his campaign. He wanted to implement a universal basic income, which seems like it would be a socialist policy, but he didnt get labeled a socialist. This is due to the fact that, instead of calling himself a socialist, he called himself a human centered capitalist and advocated for human centered capitalism which is just socialism that sounds more American. The only reasons his campaign didnt take off was due to his relative obscurity and the fact that he didnt capitalize on his endorsements. How do you get Donald Glover to endorse you and I dont hear about it?

Therefore, I think the future of branding for the Democratic Party is to use the Yang strategy. That is to say branding oneself not as a socialist, but as a super-capitalist. Instead of trying to change the stigma around words such as socialism and communal ownership of the means of production, they should instead disguise it as the future of capitalism and so much private ownership that everyone privately owns part of their business. Its much easier to explain to a steel mill worker, Hey, under super-capitalism you would own a part of the steel mill you work for, as opposed to having them unlearn American Cold War propaganda by getting them to read 30 books written by dead Russian dudes.

This way, you could advocate that youre so into the free markets that youd seek the abolition of service-based industries from market forces such as transportation and healthcare. You could provide things like free public transportation and socialized healthcare due to the fact that their industries just dont work in a free market. The supply and demand curves are inelastic, so they would actually obstruct the free market. Were actually promoting capitalism in order to sneak in socialist policies. This way we could minimize the amount of people pushed away by buzzwords with garbage branding. Instead, I encourage leftists to advocate for the same policies weve been trying to pass, but instead make sound super patriotic and capitalistic.

The future for the democratic party isnt socialism its Super Capitalism

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The Lefts biggest issue is branding - Xavier Newswire

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When the artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed was enlisted to create a monument honoring Downtown Brooklyns abolitionists roots at the under-construction Willoughby Square Park, she bucked expectations and conceived a series of pavement engravings and bronze placards that pose questions about the antislavery movements legacy. Preservationists and activists spoke out against her design, insisting that women and people of color are fighting to see themselves figuratively represented in New Yorks monuments after a contentious summer that saw dozens of statues toppled around the country. A recent meeting of the Public Design Commission, which reviews permanent monuments and artworks on city property, voted to table Rasheeds proposal until a later review. Having multiple pathways for engagement is the most important thing to focus on here, Rasheed, whose text-based banners recently adorned the Brooklyn Museums facade, said at the meeting. This is just one project in a larger ecosystem of projects, which are trying to address questions around abolition.

Following allegations that the French artist Claude Lvque seually abused and raped minors, Paris authorities have voted to turn off his luminous public sculptures. Residents of Montreuil, a commune east of Paris, chose to turn off Modern Dance (2015), a sculpture that consists of three large blue fiberoptic hoops encircling a water tower in the towns square. Montreuils assistant cultural mayor, Alexie Lorca, told Le Monde that the blue light has become unbearable for residents following his accusations. The commune of Montrouge, meanwhile, has reversed its controversial decision to leave up one of Lvques neon works that he made last year for a festival; it will be taken down by March 10. The decisions follow Lvques departure from Kammel Menour Gallery and an announcement that the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Geneva will not show any of his work in the future.

The Flaming Lips recently performed to an audience of people that were encased in individual plastic bubbles, but public health experts arent sure that measure is entirely effective at preventing the spread of Covid-19. Ultimately, virus transmission control depends on good air circulation and filtration, which wasnt immediately apparent in the bubble setups. Theres no evidence about the efficacyor lack thereofof these bubbles from an infectious disease transmission point of view, Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, told the New York Times. So, in theory, if air filtration is good, protective barriers can helpfully augment and reduce risk of transmission, but I would be hesitant to attend a concert in a bubble at the moment unless this has been assessed further.

After winning a design competition for the new El Paso Childrens Museum, Snhetta designed a light-filled playscape programmed to bring value to the citys youth and also to complement the nearby childrens museum in Jurez, Mexico. The architecture resembles a formation of clouds with an assemblage of seemingly floating floors that connect the galleries throughout. Most importantly, the new El Paso Childrens Museum needs a name! Head to epcmuseum.org to submit ideas.

Also known as the Silicon Valley of New York, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is home to some of the most innovative technology companies of late: Newlab, a multidisciplinary technology hub; Systech, an IT services firm that specializes in cyber security, cloud solutions, automation, and strategic IT consulting; and Honeybee Robotics, exactly what it sounds like. Two major design firms are making the move to the 115-year-old post-industrial building in the complex that once housed and shipped SweetN Low: Smart Design, known for its groundbreaking designs with OXO, and Daedalus Design & Production, the set-designing practice for Hamilton and Frozen. The century-old boat-building facility is honoring its manufacturing roots with an extensive $42 million renovation by S9 Architecture, which will transform it into a modern design hub.

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A Monument Honoring Abolitionists Gets Stalled in Brooklyn, and Other News - Surface Magazine

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Budget 2021: From yoga to agri and health, heres what startups want from Modi govt

From incentives to subsidies and tax cuts and other benefits, the startup industry wants from the Modi government to announce measures in the Union Budget 2021-22 that translates into profits in the coming years. While startups are a key component to PM Narendra Modi's dream of making India a self-reliant country, the sector faced the brunt of the pandemic. The sector wants government to prepare a plan with focus on ease of doing business. After Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that "100 years of India wouldn't have seen a Budget being made post-pandemic like this", expectations are at all-time and it would be interesting how the government strategies to keep the budding entrepreneurs happy. Here are some of the key expectations of startups from the Budget 2021.

Gaurav Gupta, Co-founder, Navia Life Care - a digital healthcare startup

The upcoming 2020-21 Union Budget has the potential of being a game-changer for the Indian Healthcare Sector. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital solutions as a viable option to conventional care delivery systems. Be it efficient management of COVID-19 and vaccination or achieving the goal of Universal Health Coverage, Digital Health would be great enablers with the right policy push. The health sector is expecting more specific allotments in this years budget to mitigate Covid and the growth of the telemedicine sector. With the launch of NDHM earlier this year, we expect a surge in budget allocation this year, especially for setting up digital health infrastructure for India, a shared digital infrastructure leveraging both public and private enterprises is the need of the hour, and a policy push to it under the Mission is strongly recommended. Such an infrastructure would help us to provide innovative solutions. Digital Health in the country is mainly being driven by health-tech companies and startups. A right policy push would pave the way for a new and robust digital health ecosystem. The Budget 2020-21 needs to focus on the expansion of digital healthcare that has great potential to make healthcare more affordable and accessible by using technology to reach out the last mile.

READ MORE:Union Budget 2021: Great expectations of common man

Prasanna Manogaran, Founder of Aqgromalin - an agri-tech startup

With the governments target year of doubling farm income approaching we believe there will be significant allocation in categories helping to increase farmers revenue streams, especially in farm diversification into the sectors of aquaculture and animal husbandry. A stimulus for the export of aquaculture products will help the entire ecosystem and will also ensure that we are able to effectively compete with China and other South East Asian countries in this sector. The government also need to empower the existing Krishi Vigyan Kendras to increase penetration to the rural hinterlands and help farmers utilise the technologies developed by premier national research institutions like ICAR. The number of startups has also dramatically increased in the Agri Tech space, a focused approach from the government to device policies to support them will go a long way.

Sonica Aron, Founder & Managing Partner, Marching Sheep - an HR Advisory startup

Further, GST rules need to be altered particularly for service firms like ours. Currently, GST needs to be paid within the month the invoice is raised, whereas client payments are often received 30-60 days later, leading to cash flow issues. It will be a great help for small firms if the government provides some relief in payment of GST to align it with payments by clients. As recovery seems a long term process due to the unprecedented damage caused by the pandemic, the government must focus on incentivizing organisations for building the right capabilities - reskilling, upskilling and promoting diversity. Additionally, favourable statutes and implications around the gig economy would be a win-win for organisations and the economy.

READ MORE:Govt may announce formulation of policy for toys sector in Budget 2021

Shishir Dixit, director and founder, Centurion Defence Academy - a startup Indian defence forces aspirants and youth

The global pandemic has highlighted the need to upgrade technology in education to enable quality access that is affordable and equal for all. Government should work in tandem with ed-tech companies and firms to provide necessary technology updates that will enable improved online learning and provide impressive outcomes. Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and cloud technology are expected to increase engagement and boost user experience in e-learning. Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities will be the sunrise destinations for Ed-Tech firms and substantially raise ed-tech demand. The government needs to collaborate with EdTech firms and earmark funds for the development of video assisted courses (offline learning), which can be provided to students at subsidized rates. These courses can be for short-term, with full-time access to help students including smaller villages, towns and cities. Also, the government should make a provision for preparing these courses in regional languages so that students hailing from different socio-economic backgrounds can benefit as well.

Lalit Arora, Co-founder of VingaJoy - a gadget accessory startup

The consumer tech industry expects that the budget will have provisions that can strengthen progressive initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India, and the Smart Cities Mission. We are hopeful that the government would continue the good work it began carrying out in its first term with regards to GST, Make in India, along with a host of initiatives it has undertaken in the consumer tech/FMCG sector. There has been an abolition of Chinese applications in India; this has led to considerable slowdown in import of Chinese products, so our industry is expecting improved funding and credit facility from the upcoming budget. Additionally, we are hopeful that the government will continue to promote manufacturing in India through its Make in India initiative as this will not only provide a boost to Indian companies but also aid in creating more employment opportunities.

Harshit Jain, founder of Doceree - a startup in healthcare

The pandemic hit Indias healthcare severely and in spite of waiting until 2015 to reach the target of 2.5% of GDP to be spent on healthcare, the government should eye reaching it in the next two years so that healthcare infrastructure in the country could be improved. It is also high time that the spend is significantly increased, given the population of our country is so huge. Additionally, while universal health coverage is a welcome step and so is the idea of Health IDs, they must not remain on papers and get mired in red tape, facing delays.

In the upcoming budget, allocations and timelines should be announced so that they get implemented in an organized manner and we are closer to realizing the vision of making healthcare accessible and affordable. Besides, innovative healthcare startups that are working to promote accessibility and affordability should be encouraged by way tax benefits and tax holidays so that government and private partners can work together to make the condition of Indian healthcare better.

Shivani Gupta, founder of hellomyyoga - a startup that helps in finding best yoga teacher and yoga studios

In this pandemic, Yoga Tourism is adversely affected, also the yoga tourism has been deviated to neighboring countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal. With 2021 budget, we look forward to government of India supporting initiatives that are promoting yoga in India, worldwide with offline and online yoga events. We need a great amount of budget allocation to the events that help us to market brand - Yoga in India enthusiastically. A fair amount of budget should be allocated to the research institutes who are working on combination of yoga therapy with Ayurveda and Western medicines in healing diabetic, cardiovascular and other lifestyle disorders. Its the researches that help us to come to the conclusion and execute right practice. Budget 2021 should support schemes that encourages local yoga teachers of Rishikesh, Goa, Kerela, Mysore to business register their yoga centres so that unorganized yoga in India takes a first step toward aligning itself with commercial world.

Raghav Kansal, Founder and CEO, ET Medialabs - a startup offering Digital Advertising, Analytics and Reporting Solutions

Startup faced striking challenges in the pandemic year. Being a digital marketing firm, 2020 was an interesting year for digital marketers as the nation-wide lockdown gave a push to mobile marketing, video content, voice search, and influencer marketing. As a startup, our expectation from the Government is to lower the GST rates for service-based startups as 18% is very high, subsidize patent applications and legalize costs around that. Adding to this, the government should provide sufficient fund to startups that have successfully filed patent for their technology and now wishes to commercialize it. At last, we expect the government to lower income tax slabs for the startups. Let's hope that budget 2021 will be beneficial for all the sectors.

Sangeet Kumar, CEO & Co- Founder, Addverb - a startup that automate intralogistics operations

From the Union Budget 2021, we expect that the government will ease the legal processes and regulations involved in setting up manufacturing facilities in India under its Make In India initiative. We also hope for extension of PLI schemes for the Indian Industrial Robotics Manufacturers. The government should mandate the automation adoption for PSU enterprises to enhance their performance indices as this will encourage industry 4.0 adoption from all over India which will add to a growth factor in our robotics and AI industry. We are also expecting an improved Infrastructural facilities as well as increase in the employment opportunities from this budget. Increasing minimum wages is the need of the hour as during the Covid pandemic most of the labour left for their hometowns and to bring them back while providing them with a meaningful life, their wages should rise.

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Budget 2021: From yoga to agri and health, heres what startups want from Modi govt - India TV News

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Rabbi Jessica Lott closed the Monday afternoon event with a benediction, while Alpha Mu members held candles in front of their screens.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Northwesterns Alpha Mu Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity held its 42nd annual candlelight vigil in honor of the civil rights leader, who was a member of the fraternity at Boston University.

The hour-long vigil was a part of MLK Dream Week, a University-organized series of virtual events in celebration of Dr. Kings legacy. The Northwestern Community Ensemble opened Mondays event with a performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing, followed by a performance from spoken word poet Timothy Mays and a prayer led by Chaplain Tahera Ahmad, NUs director of interfaith engagement.

Even in secular institutions we cannot dismiss that Dr. King was a man of deeply rooted spirituality, Ahmad said. For a man who was incarcerated 29 times, you better believe that he was deeply connected to the divine.

Godson Osele, Alpha Mu chapter vice president, said mass incarceration and its disproportionate effect on the Black community was on the organizers minds when planning this years event. As a historically Black organization and a chapter of the oldest Black fraternity in the nation, Alpha Mus programming was influenced by NU Community Not Cops protests, the McCormick senior said.

Osele said they chose author and actor Hill Harper, an advocate against mass incarceration, as Mondays keynote speaker in hopes of furthering the abolitionist conversation on campus and building on abolitionist activist Mariame Kambas MLK Dream Week address last week.

(We wanted) to add to that dissenting voice in the community to let people know that its no longer time for just talking about it, Osele said. Weve seen the numbers, we can give you all these speakers that are going to let you know this is an issue, and basically enoughs enough for just talking about it.

Harper, who is also an Alpha Pi Alpha member, has won seven awards from the NAACP for his work. His most recent book, Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healing for Inmates and Their Loved Ones speaks to the crisis of mass incarceration.

The United States contains about 5 percent of the worlds population, yet holds over 20 percent of the worlds prisoners, the majority of whom are people of color, Harper said in his address.

One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King is, We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, Harper said. There are multiple systemically racist and systemically unjust instruments that try to block you through your journeylets think about how important it is for each and every one of you to claim your purpose.

Alpha Mu also announced the four grant winners of its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Vigil Award, before Rabbi Jessica Lott closed the event with a benediction, while Alpha Mu members held candles in front of their screens.

Email: [emailprotected]Twitter: @maiapandeyRelated Stories: Activist Mariame Kaba talks abolition and mutual aid, condemns campus police in Dream Week keynote Alpha Mu hosts annual Martin Luther King Jr. candlelight vigil

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Alpha Mu hosts 42nd annual candlelight vigil for Martin Luther King Jr. - Daily Northwestern

Saru Jayaraman used to believe that leaving a generous tip on a restaurant check meant providing a reward for good service. Now, the activist, co-founder and director of One Fair Wage and director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley, knows that restaurant workers depend on tipping for their wages.

In this Voices in Food story, Jayaraman talks about her commitment to eliminating the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 per hour and ensuring that all restaurant workers receive the federal minimum wage plus tips for their work.

On the road to activism for restaurant workers

My first job out of law school was working with immigrant workers on Long Island, New York. I worked with different immigrant workers in lots of different jobs restaurants, nail salons, day laborers but after Sept. 11 happened, I got a phone call from the union that represented the restaurant workers who worked at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, asking if I would start a relief center in the aftermath of the tragedy. We started Restaurant Opportunities Center, or ROC. We were flooded by cries for help from restaurant workers first all over the city and then all over the country, and what started as a relief center grew into a national organization.

The idea that this whole industry gets away with saying, 'Customers should pay our workers wages for us,' is an anathema and in direct contradiction to what we as a nation decided 150 years ago with the abolition of slavery, when we decided as a nation that employers should be paying for the value of labor.

At ROC, it became very clear through lots of research and organizing work that workers top concerns were their wages. Most tipped workers in America continued to look at the subminimum wage as negligible. They rely almost entirely on tips as their sole source of income. We ended up focusing all of our efforts on One Fair Wage at ROC in 2013 and finally spun One Fair Wage into a broader effort to end all subminimum wages in the United States.

On how we ended up with a two-tiered wage system

Around 1850, there was a massive strike of waiters who were mostly men, and restaurants replaced them with women. It happened around the time of emancipation, so the feminization of this industry was combined with the entrance of Black people into the labor market and that combination resulted in a mutation of tipping from being an extra or bonus to becoming the wage itself. In 1938, as part of the New Deal, workers got the right to the minimum wage for the first time except for three groups of workers: farm workers, domestic workers and tipped restaurant workers, who were told they get a zero wage as long as tips bring it to the full minimum wage.

On the problem with a tipped minimum wage

The idea that this whole industry gets away with saying, Customers should pay our workers wages for us, is an anathema and in direct contradiction to what we as a nation decided 150 years ago with the abolition of slavery, when we decided as a nation that employers should be paying for the value of labor.

When you have a dynamic in which a woman is completely dependent on tips to feed her kids, managers are able to tell women, 'Im telling you to encourage your objectification so that you can earn more money in tips.'

Today, 70% of these workers are women and they are disproportionately women of color who are not earning enough money in tips to survive. They use food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the U.S workforce, and they have the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry because they have to put up with all this inappropriate customer behavior to earn enough tips to feed their families. So its a crisis, but theres no reason it cant be changed.

On the connection between tipping and sexual harassment

The wage is so low that it goes entirely to taxes, leaving [workers] to live completely off their tips and completely dependent on putting up with whatever the customer does and says because the customer pays their bills, not their employer.

In research, we saw managers telling women to dress sexier, show more cleavage, wear tighter clothing in order to make more money. When you have a dynamic in which a woman is completely dependent on tips to feed her kids, managers are able to tell women, Im telling you to encourage your objectification so that you can earn more money in tips, and frankly, it benefits the employer because that means more sales. But its all dependent on a woman allowing herself to be objectified, allowing herself to be harassed.

On the impact One Fair Wage would have on the economy

Seven states Alaska, California, Nevada, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon and Washington all changed their laws to One Fair Wage 30-plus years ago. California changed its law 50 years ago, so we have decades of data showing how effective and successful it is to pay a full minimum wage.

All seven states have booming restaurant industries. The industries are growing faster, sales revenue is higher, job growth is greater and tipping is higher. You just have to look at Californias booming restaurant industry to know that its absurd to think that this kills the restaurant industry. On the contrary, the data is showing the opposite.

On how COVID-19 has exacerbated the issue

Tips are way down and its all become so much clearer during the pandemic, because any customer that comes in the door, they have more power over the workers. Workers are more dependent on any customer because there are fewer customers, and so that power dynamic gets exacerbated. In a report we just published, female restaurant workers reported that male customers are saying, Take off your mask so we can see how cute you are and decide how much to tip you. It obliterates the idea that tipping ever correlated with the quality of the service.

The restaurant industry is the canary in the coal mine for all sectors where workers earn a subminimum wage. Its both a canary in the coal mine in a negative sense having a subminimum wage is a boondoggle that a lot of other industries like the gig sector are increasingly trying to emulate but it can also be a canary in the coal mine for building back better post-pandemic and really rethinking everything about how we work in America.

On the best ways to support restaurant workers right now

The answer is not to stop tipping the workers desperately need those tips. The answer is to demand that these restaurants pay a full minimum wage. Consumers can call on governors and state legislators to change the laws in their states and encourage their favorite restaurant owners to change their practices.

Hundreds of independent restaurants have changed their practices during the pandemic to go to a full minimum wage, and we as consumers should encourage that. We have a website, highroadrestaurants.org, that lists which restaurants are already doing the right thing, and consumers have a lot of power to encourage their favorite restaurants to move to a full minimum wage.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Saru Jayaraman: Tipping Is A Legacy Of Slavery That Needs To Be Abolished - HuffPost

INDIANAPOLISRep. Carolyn Jackson spent 30 years as a probation officer at the Cook County Adult Probation Department.

Now her experience informs her legislation. In House Bill 1128, Jackson, D-Hammond, calls for mental health checks for police officers. She was emotional as she said a friend was shot on duty.

They came back to work after a couple of days and, and everybody seemed to think that he was OK, but as it turned out, he was not OK, Jackson said. And, you know, things just kind of spiraled out of control.

The bill requires the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board, which oversees the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, to establish a psychological fitness test, which officers would be given following potentially traumatic events.

A lot of times, they dont want to come out and say, You know what, Im really hurting, or, This is really bothering me, and sometimes you dont know, Jackson said. And theyre suffering. And not only are they suffering, but those individuals around them are suffering as well because they dont know how to deal with it.

This is just one of many bills being introduced this session involving policing in Indiana. Other members of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus are introducing legislation along with Republican lawmakers and former police officers.

In a separate bill, Jackson, who serves as the chaplain of the Black Legislative Caucus, hopes to establish a database of police misconduct. It would give police departments background information on officers in order to prevent departments from unknowingly hiring officers with a history of malpractice, Jackson said. She said officers often resign upon committing a fireable offense, and without shared information between departments, the officer can be easily hired to a new agency.

What if there is no way for another law enforcement department to know that these different things have transpired, that you have this long record of doing things? Jackson said. Then they think you are the greatest person to hire because you have experience, you have training, and you have a lot of quantifications behind you.

Jackson said that when an individuals history of misconduct is revealed, supervisors say they had no knowledge of the offenses because the officer was at a different department. This database would not only protect citizens, Jackson said, but protect police departments from hiring incapable officers.

Rep. John Bartlett, D-Indianapolis, also a member of the Black Legislative Caucus, authored another bill requiring Indiana State Police oversight in cases of excessive use of force.

So if a local policeman shoots someone, he doesnt go before his buddies and they say, No, it was justifiable, Bartlett said. I want the state standard to be set, and I dont care if you live in a small town or a big city, in a rural community, urban community. Everyone goes before the same commission, and everyone has to abide by the same rules.

Bartlett denounced the idea of defunding the police, an approach that has gained support in some cities in the wake of the George Floyd killing in 2020.

I tell the folks in my district, thats not what you want to do. Defunding the police, thats not an answer, he said. We need to do some fine-tuning with the police.

Bartlett said more energy needs to be focused on decreasing the number of homicides in Marion County.

We need to take a long hard look at ourselves, and its that time, Bartlett said. We ended up with 255 murders in Marion County. And we marched in protest because the police kill one person. One person is wrong, and Im not downplaying that.

The person Bartlett referred to is 21-year-old Dreasjon Reed, who was shot in May 2020 after being pursued by police for reckless driving. The incident was partially caught on Facebook Live. IMPD found a weapon at the scene and believe it belonged to Reed. Bartlett publicly denounced Reeds murder.

Its now time that we begin to look at not only the police but look at ourselves as well, he said.

Bartlett said he is hosting town halls to find the solution to this problem. At 72 years old, he said things have changed since his youth, and he wants to sit down and take notes from citizens on how crime can be decreased in Indianapolis.

Some advocates dont believe reform is enough

Jessica Louise, a community organizer for Indy Ten BLM, said the group pushed for mental health checks for officers before transitioning their goal from reform to defunding as a means to abolish the police. She said this would consist of pulling money from police department funding and using it for community projects and services with the goal of eventually disbanding police departments.

I think the legislation is just one piece of the puzzle, Louise said. Legislation can offer itself more to reform that abolition, and were students and studiers of abolition.

Working off the idea that people commit crime because their basic needs havent been met, Louise said working to address these needs would decrease criminal activity in the city.

Our hope is to reallocate any funding that comes into community initiatives that serve peoples basic needs, and as that happens, study and watch the level of activity and police response, and then utilize that to push forward with abolition, Louise said.

The national Black Lives Matter website does not discuss abolition, but does prioritize defunding police.

Initially, her organization sought reform.

Seven years ago, under former Indiana Metropolitan Police Department Chief Rick Hite and former Indianapolis Mayor Gregory Ballard, Louise said the group called for cultural competency and implicit bias training along with mental health checks for officers.

We attempted to be consistent with those suggestions, she said. We took them to two organizations as well as the chief of police and the mayor at the time, and those arent things that they found to be of benefit or that they wanted to devote their energy to.

A recent example cited by Louise was the police killing of 19-year-old McHale Rose in Indianapolis in May 2020. IMPD Chief Randal Taylor ordered the four IMPD officers involved returned to duty after being placed on administrative leave for three months.

Chief Taylor had an opportunity to navigate that process with more grace than he has, and he chose not to, Louise said.

A separate bill that would require de-escalation training, make chokeholds illegal in most instances and have mandatory record-sharing between departments passed unanimously in a House committee Tuesday.

The bill was authored by Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, and co-authored by three other legislators, including Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis, chair of the Black Legislative Caucus. In testimony before the committee, the lawmakers said they aim to use reform measures to build trust between police officers and their communities.

However, Louise said its too late for police departments to gain trust.

Weve had to shift our energy from reform again to defunding and abolition, she said. Unfortunately, that trust is gone, and every opportunity that theyve had to rebuild that trust and every opportunity theyve had to build transparency and accountability, theyve shied away from.

Jackson said that a lot of the legislation introduced for police reform isnt new, but a summer of protests and discussions with their constituents highlighted that it is overdue.

Republican lawmakers are seeing state oversight of IMPD

With Indianapolis hitting a high in homicides with 245 killings in 2020, former police officer Sen. Jack Sandlin, R-Indianapolis, introduced legislation to create an advisory board over the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, is a former member of the Indianapolis City-County Council and is also an author of the bill. The bill has 10 Republican co-authors.

Sandlin, a former councilman, said the bill came about because he saw no action plan from IMPD or the City-County Council.

Something bold needs to happen to address the crime and violence and the response to the police morale, Sandlin said.

The five-person board would consist of Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and four members appointed by Gov. Eric Holcomb. The board would appoint a police chief, serve as the merit board, and create and execute rules for the department.

Bartlett called this idea crazy.

If youve got a flat tire, you dont get rid of the car. You change the tire, he said. Instead, he said the Indianapolis City-County Council should continue to oversee the department.

In a press release, Rep. Cherrish Pryor, D-Indianapolis, a member of the Black Legislative Caucus, said this was an attack by Republicans in an attempt to gain control of the local government in Indianapolis and encouraged the Indiana General Assembly to instead focus on passing criminal justice reform bills.

Sandlin said he didnt want to create government oversight of IMPD, but he has been getting calls from people in the community, businesses and law enforcement officers telling him something needs to be done.

I spent a career in policing. I think I grasp the concepts and whats going on, and I hate it that were here, Sandlin said. But, you know, theres really nothing going on to address the issues.

Sandlin said the appointment of the police chief by the board, rather than by the mayor of Indianapolis, would remove political aspects of the job. Under the current state and city leadership, members appointed by Holcomb, who is a Republican, would be serving on the board with Hogsett, who is a Democrat.

There are some agencies in the U.S. where they appoint a police chief for a determined period of time and then that chief can be removed only for cause, which eliminates some of the political nuances that go on in policing, he said.

Louise said its troubling that the Republican Party, which typically advocates for smaller government, is advocating for extending state government to a city police department.

It kind of seems ironic that, now that we have two civilian majority boards, that now theyre wanting to step in and take that power from, you know, civilians and community members, and give it to the state, she said.

Sandlin said the board would still allow the current Citizens Police Complaint Board to operate and that members of the board would be primarily selected out of the City-County Council.

If you have a board thats working toward the professional operation of the Metropolitan Police Department and makeup such that it represents the community, Sandlin said, I think you have the opportunity for better communication and less nuts-and-bolts political influence.

Sandlin emphasized he hopes this change will increase communication between law enforcement and the Indianapolis community.

We used to have great communication between law enforcement and in the community, and its just almost nonexistent at this point, Sandlin said.

Sandlin repeatedly acknowledged that the bill is not necessarily in its final form and modifications may come. If signed into law, the changes would begin in 2023.

Taylor Wooten is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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Following a year filled with racial tension, 2021 could be time for criminal justice reform in Indiana - Washington Times Herald

The legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. carries special meaning today as our nation wrestles with the unthinkable acts carried about by a violent, conspiratorial mob opposed to foundational elements of our democracy. Dr. King understood that, in spite of the challenges America faces, the most patriotic thing we can do is one day rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.

Dr. King recognized that Americas founding principles are so profound that, if you look at every great cause in our history abolition, womens suffrage, the Civil Rights movement he led, and beyond you see that each great stride toward justice came from an appeal to those ideals.

Governance in this country must be aimed at realizing these principles. As legislators, we are tasked with carrying forward Dr. Kings work and doing just that securing justice, bringing about the common good and, in particular, preserving the essential dignity of the human soul. That dignity rests on three elements: access to a loving family and rich community; a nourishing faith that keeps us connected with God; and economic opportunity to provide for ourselves and others through safe, decent work.

At this moment, those ideals may seem quaint and even naive, but we cannot allow the most insidious actors white supremacists, armed militia groups, and dangerous, conspiracy-driven groups like QAnon to determine Americas future. Instead, that task falls to those of us who share Dr. Kings vision and pursuit of what he called the Beloved Community.

The success of our shared future depends, in large part, on American children growing up in stable, two-parent households, with flourishing neighborhoods waiting for them just outside their doorstep. This must not be limited by race or zip code.

Human dignity is also predicated on our freedom to practice our faiths as dictated by our conscience. As a Baptist minister, Dr. King understood the greater Christian context in which his work took place, which, when properly acted out, eagerly seeks to overturn injustice. All men and women are equal as children of God born with rights endowed to them by their creator, not their politicians and America as a nation must reflect that.

And to do so, we must also recognize the importance of maintaining our connection with the almighty and our freedom of religion for Americans of all spiritual backgrounds. Runaway secularism leaves us adrift, deprived of guiding values and vital notions of forgiveness or mercy in our disputes. The gnashing of our culture wars grows all the more frenzied, our political fights uglier. To invoke Dr. King, (t)he old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding. ... It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.

And, in particular, policymakers must recognize that human dignity today is contingent on opportunity, especially when it comes to work. As Dr. King repeatedly noted, all forms of labor have dignity. That dignity cannot be reserved for those on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley. Fair wages, strong benefits, and general stability must be available to sanitation workers and metalworkers, teachers and cashiers alike.

For far too long, too many in our government ignored that fundamental truth. Recognizing this mistake, we should strive to preserve and extend that dignity to those who have suffered from reduced economic opportunity through short-term decision-making. As political and corporate elites chose to hollow out and offshore Americas industrial base to China, millions of Americans were left stripped of their vocation and ability to provide as a result.

That process of deindustrialization has affected Americans all across the country. But as factories shut down in places like Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit, neighborhoods of color were among the hardest hit hard right as they were beginning to feel the economic gains of the Civil Rights era. Realizing Dr. Kings vision of the Beloved Community will require recognizing the challenges facing Americas families, places of worship, and workers today and committing to substantive action to fix them.

Ultimately, we must remember that America is not a government, or a president, or a Congress. America is something much larger something much more tangible and intimate. It is your family, your congregation, and your community. And this is what Dr. King understood so well: that our pursuit of a more perfect Union requires unity and recognizing the inherent dignity in all Americans in that endeavor.

Marco Rubio, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Florida.

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Dr. Kings message is more important today than ever | Column - Tampa Bay Times

The past year saw a major uprising across the United States as people mobilized against racist state violence in the wake of George Floyds killing by police in Minneapolis in May. Drawing on a divest/invest framework that abolitionists have been using for years, defund the police became a common demand at protests. The demand is a first step toward abolishing the prison-industrial complex by dismantling its infrastructure and shifting resources toward things people need like food, housing and community-based safety practices. From an abolitionist perspective, the events in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th have only made it clearer why more policing does not equate to more security: From their foundation, the police have always been on the side of white supremacy.

Woods Ervin, communications director of Critical Resistance, a nationwide abolitionist organization founded in 1997 by a group that included Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, put it this way: The way that the prison industrial complex (PIC) is pitched is a one-size-fits-all model to address a variety of kinds of concerns that actually require specialized attention attention that doesnt involve bringing in more punishment, more violence, or removing people from those communities, which is what the PIC does.

Abolition is not about standardizing, points out Miski Noor, co-director of Black Visions in Minneapolis. Abolition is liberating precisely because it is not homogenous and is not a pre-designed program. Imagination plays a big role and therefore is not necessarily easily mass marketed.

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But abolition is also a broader concept, encompassing the abolition of borders and imperialism, systems of social control including foster care and many kinds of social work, and the erasure of the concept of criminality itself. Everything has to change in order for us to actually realize abolition because so much of how we live is embedded in punishment systems, says PG Watkins with 313Liberation Zone and the Green Light Black Futures coalition in Detroit.

Recent comments made by former president Barack Obama and other Democrats claim that the call to defund the police does not have enough appeal or power. Speaking to activists reveals how much these comments miss the point. The movement to defund the police is making a constant and explicit commitment to center the people who are most impacted by policing and, in particular, those who Noor refers to as having been failed over and over again. The movements approach brings the margin to the center, putting into practice threads of Black feminist theory and traditions of Black liberation in which the abolitionist movement is rooted.

Unfazed by establishment Democrats opposition, organizers in cities across the country are working actively on a wide variety of abolitionist projects. Some are experimental, like Black Visions Transformative Black-led Movement Fund, which is redistributing resources they received after the uprising in Minneapolis. Noor sees the fund as a way to till the soil and invest in an ecosystem of arts and culture and organizing and power-building to recover from the divestment that has harmed Black communities and Black people. Money is being distributed to healers, organizers, artists, Black businesses building community wealth, and mutual and legal aid initiatives, to name a few. In Minneapolis and other cities, projects include defunding the police, working on emergency releases from COVID-infested prisons, taking chunks out of the prison-industrial complex like life sentences without parole, creating cop-free zones, and embodying and building up other practices of abolition in their communities, including critically centering voices usually left out of political conversations.

Although organizers have been working on divestment campaigns for years, there is new energy behind efforts to reduce policing budgets. Noor characterizes the difference as exciting because all of this years proposed budgets in the city are more than what activists felt they could demand just two years ago.

In Chicago, the city just wrapped up its budget process with the mayors budget which did not substantially shift funding away from the police passing by only a small margin, thanks to the efforts of the defund movement. This is historic, because the budget vote is typically a process of rubber stamping the mayors agenda, according to Asha Ransby-Sporn, a member of the Black Abolitionist Network and the steering committee of Defund CPD.

What we certainly have won is a great deal of people over to our side when it comes to not just defunding the police, but also connecting that to other issues that affect Black and Brown, and poor and working people in the city, Ransby-Sporn says, citing a recent city-sponsored survey where an overwhelming 87 percent of Chicago residents said they wanted to reallocate money away from the police and move it to other city services. Highlighting that its not all about austerity, Ransby-Sporn says Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot has threatened council members with divesting from city services in wards where council members voted to divest from the police.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., organizers aim to cut the citys policing budget in half over the next three years, while looking to increase taxes on the rich.

Our agenda for next year is really going to be about ways to make sure that our state governments and our social safety nets do not go bankrupt and that were not tightening budgets in ways that are going to hurt the Black people in the working class, Makia Green, an organizer with an autonomous chapter of Black Lives Matter and the Working Families Party, says. Black Lives Matter DC is also focused on supporting public campaign financing so that regular people can run for office, like Janeese Lewis George, who just won a seat on the D.C. city council on a defund platform.

In Detroit, the budget cycle is coming up in 2021 and a major goal, according to PG Watkins, will be to make the defund demand real. Organizers are targeting not only the police themselves but also the surveillance program Project Greenlight, which has posted cameras at just under 700 local businesses, residential buildings, clinics, and other places in the community. The program provides real-time camera surveillance to the Detroit police department in exchange for preferential police response time.

Kamau Walton, a member of Critical Resistance, says its clear that defunding will be a multi-year push in most places. Walton says Critical Resistances role is to support strategic planning and other needs as activists continue to push for defunding nationally.

Divestment, Walton says, is about chipping away at the reach of the PIC in communities. Abolitionists sometimes refer to practices of chipping away as non-reformist reforms, or changes that get the movement closer to abolition instead of reforms that simply make policing seem more palatable to those who are not really affected by it.

Ervin with Critical Resistance highlights that organizing for releases is at the top of the list for 2021, because its such a red alarm emergency. COVID, of course, makes the already toxic conditions in the prison even more dangerous. They point out that theres been a surprising lack of releases, even from high-powered Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom (California), Andrew Cuomo (New York) and Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) who have received a lot of praise for how they have handled the pandemic.

In California, Aminah Elster with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) says the group is engaged in this urgent effort to push for releases as well as several efforts to change sentencing and improve conditions within prisons. One key effort is ending life without parole which in the state of California is essentially a death sentence.

At the national level, the Peoples Coalition for Safety and Freedom seeks to repeal the 1994 Crime Bill, co-written by President-elect Joe Biden, and to replace it with legislation written by people in communities most directly affected by the bill. They describe this as a revolutionary process of peoples movement assemblies through which people will propose and implement their own solutions at the policy level rather than having legislative solutions prescribed by those who sit outside of their (harmful) impacts, including an acknowledgement of wrongdoing in the original 94 Crime Bill.

Watkins from Green Light Black Futures says that for organizers, a major goal for 2021 is to normalize abolition. Defund the police is a launching point to discuss and deepen organizing against all the ways that the prison industrial complex organizes and targets people on the street, in the prisons, in social services, and through the very ways our lives our organized.

Abolitionists often thread their policy proposals, plans and analyses with the principles of care and love. When Makia Green talked about defunding police in D.C. the city with the highest police per capita they talked about how such a change would decrease the number of interactions their younger cousins have with police and stop them from being pushed into the prison system. In particular, abolitionists prioritize deep care and respect for the people who are often forgotten, marginalized, invisible and most directly harmed by the police and the prison industrial complex.

The core of Black Visions mission is to show this love by making Black queer and trans people and their experiences visible so they can receive the care they need and deserve. The organization actively holds space for queerness, for family, and for joy in the fullness of our humanity. Its about practicing the love and care now so that we can actually be in practice of it, so that we can create a world in which all of us can be free, Noor says.

Elster says CCWP is also working to wrap up our efforts to maintain communication with folks on the inside, and also fighting to make sure that they are not overlooked in this pandemic. The group is growing their pen pal training program since there is currently no in-person visitation, continuing their survival and release advocacy work, and raising money in response to COVID to help currently and formerly incarcerated people with their necessities.

We need to double up, on taking care of each other and creating things, says Watkins in Detroit, especially with the pandemic. They continue, I think part of the fight for abolition is showing people in real time, what types of systems of care we can create, and actually doing that experimentation in small- and large-scale ways. As an example, Watkins describes the 313Liberation Zone project, which has set up several police-free liberation zones in the middle of the city for several hours or days with music, cookouts, arts and crafts, community meetings, free stores and political education. They describe the 313Liberation Zone project as a way for Detroiters to be embodying liberation and practicing liberation in our spaces.

Abolitionist organizers want to turn this spark from last year into a fire, Ervin says. From California to Detroit, people are refocusing on the importance of political education as a tool to keep the momentum going from this summers uprisings. In Minneapolis, Black Visions has been holding Sunday Salons to answer questions about abolition, while Elster says shes really excited about the possibilities that may grow from the new coalitions that have formed this year with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners.

Ransby-Sporn says she believes political education is fundamental to building a base and growing a movement, because thats where you get people on the same page about what were actually fighting for. In political education spaces, we can work together to build a new common sense of how we think the world should look.

One reason there is so much investment in political education as local campaigns transition into 2021 is because they fear cooptation as the new Democratic administration enters the White House. Biden and Harris are actually well versed at being able to absorb radical movements, says Ervin, and emphasizes that activists need to be aware of this in our organizing. The new administration is expected to present false alternatives of 21st century policing 2.0, as Walton put it. Examples of these include body cameras and bias trainings, which only expand the resources being given to the PIC rather than shift resources away into community-controlled, noncarceral alternatives. Meanwhile, these initiatives do not deter the very things they aim to prevent; chokeholds were already banned in New York City when Eric Garner was murdered by the NYPD. Organizers and scholars have repeatedly shown such reformist reforms are ineffective at best.

Abolitionists remind us that the Black Lives Matter movement itself became necessary and began under the Obama/Biden administration. These activists are skeptical about the Biden/Harris administrations openness to non-reformist reforms. Regardless, organizers will continue to target city and state budgets, to demand non-policing resources that support communities in flourishing, and refuse to shrink their political imaginations. This movement is not backing off once Trump leaves the White House.

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The Movement to Defund the Police Won't Go Away When Biden Takes... - Truthout