What if we had a system of community care and safety organized around the values of dignity, wellbeing, safety, restoration and love?
What if we thought about the application of care before we thought about the use of force?
What if care was the central organizing principle for the way we generate community safety?
To create communities of care and safety we need to move simultaneously to end racialized and gendered inequality. The anti-black/anti-human violence at the heart of our police and military is there to defend and maintain our system of economic inequality. Ending violence and inequality must happen together.
We need to send the police home and start over. These institutions can not be incrementally reformed. They need to be disarmed and disbanded. Community needs to take charge of community safety.
What do we do when the real solution is clear but seems impossible?
We turn to movements to make the impossible possible.
In one place.
Then in many.
Then everywhere.
#RevolutionInValues
#DisarmThePolice
#DismantleThePolice
#WeAreAllBetterOffWithoutThem
#CommuntySafteyThroughCareAndCommunitySolutions
Vision Beyond Violence Readings & Resources
Below is a preliminary list of readings and resources grounded in the vision needed at this time.
Black Lives Matter Leaders Respond to Dallas Police Shooting, Colorlines
Policing is a Dirty Job, But Nobody’s Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World, José Martín, Rolling Stone.
Big Dreams and Bold Steps Toward a Police-Free Future, Rachel Herzing, Truthout
Demilitarize the Police, Demilitarize America, Greenlining Institute
Abolish the Police. Instead, Let’s Have Full Social, Economic, and Political Equality, Mychal Denzel Smith, The Nation.
Asian Americans are crowdsourcing a letter to explain Black Lives Matter to their families
4 Self-Care Resources for Days When the World is Terrible, Miriam Zoila Pérez, Colorlines
This is what white people can do to support #BlackLivesMatter, Sally Kohn, Washington Post
Resource Links*
Color of Change’s petition calling for justice for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile
Showing Up for Racial Justice (link to Black-led racial justice organizations you can support)
Color of Change’s petition calling for justice for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile
Cut50.org (founded by Van Jones)
Showing Up for Racial Justice (link to Black-led racial justice organizations you can support)
*Thanks to Democracy for America for original list
