It was with deep regret and indignation that Pan-African Community Action (PACA) learned of the deplorable murder of Sonya Massey at the hands of the Springfield, Illinois police. We denounce this murder as one more in the persistent war waged on Black people by the U.S. settler state. [More] The "Secure DC” Omnibus bill is the latest attempt by DC’s local government to impose law and order, while ignoring the root issues that lead to street-level crime and advancing the war against the Black working class. After passing unanimously by the DC Council's Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, the new crime bill was voted on and unanimously passed on February 6, 2024, by the full council. Pan-African Community Action (PACA) contends that Black people in the U.S are a domestic colony, an internal colony that is enforced by a massive police presence meant to control and keep us exploited for our labor and other human resources. Consequently this bill will impose more state surveillance; grant police and the state more authority to target, harass, and brutalize Black residents; and expand the police occupation of the ghettos of Black people in DC. [More] A statement by Pan-African Community Action D.C. Mayor Bowser’s “Draft Racial Equity Action Plan” (REAP) is a public relations document which reflects a continued commitment to the systemic foundations of racial inequities. As a follow-up to the empty gesture of painting the words “Black Lives Matter” on 800 16th Street Northwest, Washington, DC and declaring that space “Black Lives Matter Plaza”, the REAP suggests that the state structures which maintain settler colonialism and capitalism can be a remedy for racial inequity. “It is our charge and our responsibility to put in place policies that are intentional about ending structural racism and reversing the legacies of policies that intentionally locked Black and brown Washingtonians out of opportunity and the ability to build wealth,” Bowser said when announcing the REAP on November 16, 2022 as a first for D.C. of such a plan. [More] The DC government is deploying COINTELPRO like tactics against organizations and individuals fighting to protect and expand our rights. Of course, this is not news to those who have been engaged in political work here for any amount of time, but now, thanks to one local organizer, there is proof. Suspecting she was being surveilled by the Metro Police Department (MPD), April Goggans of Black Lives Matter DC (BLMDC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the documents the DC government had on her. After years of hiding, stalling and lying by MPD, April took the request to court. The most important hearing to date is scheduled for June 14, 2022 at 9:30am is open to the public using the online court system and will determine if MPD is required to follow FOIA laws. This hearing is important for anyone organizing in the DMV and anyone concerned about public access to government information, police and government official misconduct and the use of police to spy on perceived political opponents. [More] Principled ideological struggle should be welcomed in the liberation movement. However, it begs the question why more effort is put into trying to discredit CCOP, while the ruling class is pulling all stops to hoodwink the public with actual reformism, like the George Floyd Act. [More] In response to the persistent problem of state-sponsored violence against working class Black communities and the futility of police reforms, the contemporary calls for community control over police (CCOP) have garnered significant attention and support in Black communities. Consequently, the growing grassroots support for the concept of Black communities controlling their own security and safety has come under fire by a number of individuals and organizations advocating for the defunding and abolishing of police. PACA believes in the positive role of good faith argument in movement-building, and we write this article to participate in this process. Moreover, criticisms of CCOP have highlighted potential dangers in our approach at this crucial political moment. [More] [More] [More] State Violence Has No Opposition Party. The clashes between police and protesters in response to the recent police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and others throughout the country expose the violence inherent to the U.S. system of policing. Social media has been inundated with hundreds of videos chronicling police aggression and brutality. Cities nationwide, particularly in the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C., have faced unprecedented militarization of their streets. Police have wielded weapons typically used only by special forces in overseas military campaigns, even going as far as to use a Lakota helicopter with Red Cross markings in a show of force against protesters (in violation of the Geneva Convention). A number of attempts to give political expression to the energy in the streets have emerged in recent days. Some have emphasized the symbolic. Not a month after proposing a budget to increase the local police budget by some $45 million, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser commissioned artists to paint “Black Lives Matter” on the streets near the White House where clashes between protesters and armed state security still continue, prompting immediate and sharp rebuke from Black Lives Matter DC. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden cobbled together legislation calling for reforms that include creating a national database of civilian complaints against police and banning chokeholds and no-knock raids—a tepid defense of the status quo wrapped in kente cloth. [More] A Critical Analysis of the Demand to By Max Rameau and Netfa Freeman Pan-African Community Action The intensity and span of the mass rebellion that has gripped the U.S. and expanded internationally since the recent spate of state sponsored murder of Black people has shaken global white supremacists, capitalist, patriarchy to its knees. The people have tasted a real sense of their own power and as a result some very unexpected developments have emerged and the opportunity for real social transformation and the shifting of power into the hands of working class Black people, particularly women and LGBTQ folks, is as strong as it has been since prior to the military defeat of the Black Panther Party. Among the unexpected developments is the rapid emergence of movement demands, particularly one getting much traction, to “defund the police,” which is covered by the mainstream media and even being acknowledged by some lawmakers in a few jurisdictions. To be clear, this is a momentous development for the movement not only because of the speed with which the demand is being delivered, but because of the radical nature of the demand, particularly in comparison with the demands leveled during the 2014 round of urban rebellion, which were essentially a demand to allow police to monitor the public at all times (body worn cameras) and a demand to repeat a slogan. [More] by Max Rameau Fear of the global COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic is compelling local, state and even the US government itself to do what protests, law suits, policy position papers and appeals to human decency could not: treating people as if they were valued members of the human family. [More] “The pre-existing crisis of legitimacy for the rulers is compounded by the government’s inept response to the pandemic.” News stories about the National Guard assisting with the coronavirus have overshadowed stories about US military plans to join police in stopping expected “civil disturbances.” But eyewitness accounts of trains transporting armored vehicles and other equipment into their communities prompted posts to social media about the threat of martial law. The Department of Defense responded with a media defensive to dismiss the concerns as conspiracy theories, sticking to the strict definition of martial law. They assure that the duties of the reserve National Guard personnel are only for things like disinfecting public spaces, delivering food to homes, and erecting provisional medical facilities. Semantic games and a neglect to connect the dots are meant to assuage public concerns. [More] “No matter how many cases of murderous police brutality there are, each is treated like an isolated incident.” If withholding US military aid from a neo-Nazi friendly government in Ukraine is unacceptable, then it is only logical that a fascist police surge on Black and Brown communities in the US is acceptable. Until the threat of war between the US and Iran stole what had been central in media attention, the power elite worked to keep the public fixated on the antics of a useless partisan impeachment. All the while career politicians in the Democratic Party have been betraying their constituents with their typical and deafening silence about a police crackdown by the Trump administration that Donald Trump himself dubbed “The Surge.” Concerns about Trump’s overt racism by Democratic Party leadership and the media are fake. He first announced his plan for a nationwide crackdown on “violent crime” and for a more militarized police on October 28, 2019 in his remarks at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference and Exposition in Chicago. The only news stories corporate media thought worthy of reporting then were about Trump slinging insults at Chicago and its former superintendent of police, Eddie Johnson. And whatever stories there have been since seem to leave out “The Surge" entirely. “The Democratic Party has been betraying their constituents with their silence about a police crackdown.” [More] By Max Rameau To be sure, white support for the police decreases proportionately with income. That is to say, poorer whites tend to support the police less because the police interact with them differently than with their wealthier white counterparts. By the same token, support for the police among Blacks tends to increase proportionately with increases in income, wealth and other privileges. Overall and within each economic strata, however, white support for police is higher than Black support. [More]
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Why community control over police (CCOP)?
We can’t trust elites’ promises to abolish or defund police: policing and incarceration are big business and managed by Democrats and Republicans. State violence has no opposition party. We have to focus on getting the power to make these decisions ourselves.
I’m an abolitionist. Should I support CCOP?
Yes! CCOP is the best position from which to achieve abolition. Each policing district would hold a vote to decide what to do with its current police department, immediately giving the community the direct voting power to abolish, restructure, downsize, or otherwise reconstruct their departments.
Communities that want to dismantle police departments will need the power to do that work themselves.
Defund the Police
Pan-African Community Action (PACAPower.org)
The rulers are concerned about the class war becoming sharper in the current crisis and they are preparing to send in the military and police to quell dissent.
Trump wants to “surge” against urban Black and brown Americans in the same way that the US surged against Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pan-African Community Action
Introduction
While it might be fair to say that the police enjoy support among the majority of the white population, the police enjoy no such support among the majority of Black people, who endure more frequent and harsher interactions with cops than whites.
