Image Descriptions

Image 1

Defund, Community Control of Police and PIC Abolition (with Project Nia and Interrupting Criminalization and moderators Bettina Johnson and Mariame Kaba, October 19, 2020) is written in bold orange font at the top, with the four panelists depicted in light purple rays coming from the text and illuminating their points against a black backdrop.

Also at the top in a light purple shape, it reads “On these points, we agree! Anti-capitalist; Not about reformist reforms; Material change, not only symbolic; We value struggle through tension to sharpen!”

Below that is an orange shape with banners reading “Community Control of Police” and the following text: “We’re here with on the ground organizers to talk through the tensions, merits, and risks of the demand of Community Control of Police. Abolition is a national demand. We’ve been sprinting without time for internal discussion or clarity.” To the right side is a stick figure with their arms open in a question and thought bubbles with the following words: Imagine, Take Over, Defund, Dismantle

Panelist 1: Max Rameau, Pan-African Community Action

“Taking control over the police means challenging their bosses for power so we can free ourselves from colonial occupation.”

Cops are the protectors of wealth in any classed society (picture of referee between haves and have-nots); We see this relationship as imperialist; Our program (people at local roundtable, one person saying “like a jury”) vote to create civilian police control boards through sortition; Prepare people to serve through political education by social justice organizations; Result: paid community workers with same tools as cops; Agree civilian oversight boards are toothless.

Panelist 2: Kamau Walton, Critical Resistance

“We don’t want to control the police. We want to dismantle the PIC and build a society beyond punishment and control.”

The abolitionist matrix of criteria for reforms (orange box): Reduce $ to the PIC? Challenge idea that policing equals safety? Reduce the tools of PIC? Reduce the scale, scope, and life of PIC?

Why CCOP Fails: CCOP is reactionary; Doesn’t get to root of safety and harm; Versions have been tried and failed; Susceptible to manipulation; Branding and comms obscures how in practice CCOP placates without real change (orange octopus holding a sheet of paper that reads “PIC PR”).

Panelist 3: Aislinn Pulley, Black Lives Matter - Chicago

“On the ground I have seen the CCOP demand engaging the radical imagination of our people.”

Move from understanding the need to overthrow capitalism and imperialism globally and inside this, abolition reveals realities and alternatives.

State violence ripples from individual to collective trauma (drop of water ripples water); Pervasive carceral reality surrounds and is in us, we enact it (people in cage and cage pictured inside a person); This violence leaves us stressed and sick; Through CPAC process we ask: What does it mean to take power?; We know some CCOP elements don’t work (brown cop with speech bubbles reading “I live in Chicago…Where 1/2 cops are Black or Latinx”).

Panelist 4: Jason Perez, DSA Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus

“When we demand control over a harmful institution, often what we really want is control over the part of social life being harmed (like safety).

Both! And! (Stick figure pointing to car burning and ballot box): Militant and insurrectionary and Electoral (currently cops prevent even this!).

We envision the state as a vehicle for care (cars and bikes with red crosses). Racial capitalism: cops are the muscle of racial capitalism; Defund weakens the muscle.

Question of imagination is central….How do we make alternatives visible? (Stick person watching TV screen that reads” Next week in Law & Order: Community Control of Police.)

Image 2

“Discussion”is written in the middle in glowing orange, with six purple threads leading away from the central point, and two contrasting points: We can’t abolish what we don’t control; Policing rather than transforming and abolishing will not prevent or change the conditions that make violence possible…no matter who does it.

Thread 1: The Case for CCOP

We have the right to self defense and determination. We need more formal security. Even MLK had it! Like the Black Panthers: survival until the revolution comes. We need a dual and competing force, to defend our communities against white supremacists. PACA’s program has not been tried…imagine a wave of organizing and energy! At the root, this vision believes in social control on some level. (Brown person holds purple gun.)

Thread 2: The Case Against CCOP

Self defense does not equal policing. We can stop things without seizing control of them. We have decades of post-colonial evidence that taking control of arms ends badly. In the global south, leftists get killed when they neglect to dismantle the existing security apparatus when claiming power. What would happen to marginalized people under CCOP is stratification, necessitating power struggle? Women Queer folks, trans, and gender nonconforming? There are other ways to chip away at police (orange police badge breaking apart).

Thread 3: If We Defund What Happens? What are other Pitfalls?

Defund the cops tomorrow and a privatized force will be ready to defend the social order with even less transparency or accountability (armed badges defending Walmart). We expect: Private security surveillance, new ways to criminalize folks and put them in cages…Abolish/defund demands must be anti-capitalist: Beware neoliberal co-optation! We must close loopholes to avoid purely performative concessions from power.

Thread 4: Muddying the Waters

Could CCOP be a stepping stone? An entry point? (Arrow sign reads “Abolition Ahead.”) This is a cart/horse problem. Workers suppressed by cops, so weakening cops builds the anti-capitalist project. CPAC seems so useful as orientation for organizing process (stick figure in front of skyline that reads “in Chicago…”). So what comes first? (says a chicken laying an egg). So why not orient around a stronger abolitionist frame, demands, and vision?

Thread 5: What is Our Work?

To develop the radical imagination and consciousness of our people! Remember our folks taking militant action! Many of our folks are there and down and ready! We need to hold mutual respect. There needs to be a both and. The abolitionist and Pro-CCOP left. We need to continue to grapple together with persistent thorny issues like the state. (A stick figure teaches a classroom of people, with “Political Education” written on a chalkboard and a book open to a page that reads “Abolition is world-building!” The teacher’s thought bubble reads: “Radical imagination. Examples: Where in our community can we eliminate cops today? How are we keeping each other safe?”)

Thread 6: What Does an Abolitionist Vision Offer?

Vision for dismantling the whole PIC (including private elements) (spider web connecting symbols of police, capital, tech, etc.).

So let’s stop conceding a split between radical imagination and everyday doing. (A cracked box reads “Cops or Chaos.”) Abolition is a process and practice of creative liberation, not an outcome or a destination. It’s a path we make together daily, especially in community (purple shape with outlines of groceries, tools, and food). A purple city backdrop with stick figures with purple hearts reads “Building and fortifying community controlled alternatives and repair methods.” One person asks: “What are we already doing ourselves?”