Author: brian

Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington sponsored the Primero de Mayo Car Rally along with 36 other organizations¹. This event drew thousands of people who came together to show solidarity with essential workers and lift up workers’ demands in a time of crisis. A member of the BLM GB collective spoke and read a collective statement. 

Read on for our statement about people victimized by our criminal punishment system, problematic police power in this crisis, and a call for people to get involved, help your communities, and help create a new normal that is concerned with the survival and well-being of us all.

¹Including Justicia Migrante, Burlington Tenants Union, Vermont Interfaith Action, 350 Vermont, Vermont Workers’ Center, Champlain Valley DSA, Rights & Democracy, Rural Vermont, Community Voices for Immigrant Rights, Rights & Democracy VT, Vermont State Labor Council, VT National Lawyers Guild, Peace and Justice Center
Watch the Speech: Here on Justicia Migrante’s Facebook Live – go to 1:36:11 in the stream.

We stand here outside CRCF on International Workers Day and we acknowledge all the people victimized by our criminal punishment system.

We see their humanity, and the crimes committed against them by our racist systems that prioritize capitalism over people. We see their rights being systematically ignored every day. 

We would be remiss if we didn’t address the health crisis before us. In order to address it, we must point to the series of crises that the police state has used to permanently erode civil rights and establish new, repressive methods of exploitation and profit.

This isn’t the first time the state has taken advantage of their governmental powers in a time of crisis to serve the interest of profit & not the well-being of the people they claim to represent. 9/11 was used as justification for the AUMF, the Authorization of Military Force, which brought about two forever wars, surveillance institutions that eroded the practical use of the fourth amendment, and the creation of DHS, the Department of Homeland Security. Hurricane Katrina was used to level low-income communities and replace them with wealthy private communities, and the recession of 2008 was exploited and used to consolidate wealth even further.

Over the last month, Vermont police have been granted emergency powers to fine and even dole out jail time to people for violating stay-at-home orders–punishments that they can enforce at their own discretion, with little-to-no oversight. COVID19 has been used as an excuse to deepen the state’s and the nation’s reliance on punishment and violence through police. 

Crises only make existing power structures worse, deepening pre-existing inequity.

Don’t forget: Our country and our state have prioritized military and police spending over housing, and continue to do so. In 2019, Burlington spent over 20% of its general fund on Policing. This is over 12 million dollars more than it spent on Housing, Community Development, and Community Justice combined.²

Don’t forget: Black people make up a little more than 1% of Vermont, but make up 8.5% of Vermont’s prison population.

Don’t forget: Black folks are homeless in Vermont 6x more than white folks.

Don’t forget: the purpose of our military and police is not to “liberate” people or make our community “safer.”

Our police have invented new crimes, expanding what it means to criminalize homeless people simply by criminalizing being outside. They have destroyed hand washing stations, disturbed mutual aid food distributions, and interfered with our ability to help each other. They have created new victims.

Don’t fool yourself, police will disproportionately apply punishments to people who look like trouble to cops. Who do you think that means in Vermont? The low wage person of color working long hours. The youth constantly harassed by the police, The homeless who have very few safe places to sleep, and those who are not physically or mentally able. 

Police and prisons exist to protect the profit and property of business, not the prosperity of our communities. Not to protect people or public safety — no time is this more evident than in a season where prisons and jails have had the highest rates of a deadly pandemic. Nearly 10,000 incarcerated people have tested positive across the country and the number of cases is doubling each week³. 38 inmates and 18 DCF workers have tested positive for the virus in Vermont⁴, with 150 tests pending results, and not counting our outsourced prisoners in Mississippi and numbers in ICE detention. According to the Marshall Project, the prison infection rate eclipses the spread among the general population by more than 150 percent³. 

Outside the prison walls, runaway economic catastrophe is showing us how many workers have been existing just steps away from this system, even before this specific crisis. 

The most vulnerable populations are finally getting some of  the government social support they’ve always deserved, because the nation and the state are seeing more people than ever need food, housing, and income– and the government can’t deny these needs any more. 

Before the onset of COVID-19 and now, poor folx, black and brown folks, folx with disabilities are the most likely to live paycheck to paycheck. What happens when the paychecks stop?  We are the most likely to be essential workers or to be without homes, without shelter, without food, without the means to survive and the support systems.We are facing an uncertain future and significant threat from the people who pretend to work to keep us safe.

We are more likely to be fined for violating stay at home orders.

And we are more likely to be put into prisons.

The criminal punishment system has always been dangerous to our humanity, to our  bodies, to our society, to our movement to create a liberated society. 

Don’t forget: This nation, this state, and their police, do not have some higher moral authority to commit violence — they are just given power by the government. We, the people, determine what is moral and what is right, and it’s been proven time & time again that we can’t trust state powers to make ethical decisions for us. 

We have an ask for those who are here, who hear this, who read this – we want you to get involved and help us help our community. The criminal punishment system won’t. The cops won’t.

Contribute to healing, housing, and food funds, while talking about the structures that make these funds necessary. Challenge local government priorities, responses, and budgets. Sign up to stand together. We can refuse to “go back to normal” and instead create a new normal — a normal that is concerned with the survival and well-being of every person in our community.

Our ask, of all of you today, is simple: trust your neighbors. Trust them to know what is best for themselves. Build relationships with them, however you can. We can, and we must, take care of ourselves and each other — and we can do it without police.

Article on Socialist Resurgence.com: A People’s Bailout: May Day in Burlington, Vermont https://socialistresurgence.org/2020/05/04/a-peoples-bailout-may-day-in-burlington-vermont/?fbclid=IwAR0udU61RH3nhhC3-GHyelyXKfMrm5i5JKlau9SnX4WY83KLdJnQ6kAWoBo

Sources

²https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/CT/Budgets/Fiscal-Year-2020-Budget
³https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/24/tracking-the-spread-of-coronavirus-in-prisons
⁴https://doc.vermont.gov/covid-19-information-page

Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington is adding their voice to the national rallies in support of ending family separation. While we cannot attend the rally today, we want to add our voices to the call locally and nationally to end cruel, inhumane family separation practices.

Our goal is to address institutional racism and racial disparities at all levels of Vermont society including policing, education, employment, and government representation. We want to ensure that Vermonters of color, like all Vermonters, enjoy their freedom, justice, and peace uninhibited.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network has said that as a pro-Black, pro-Queer, anti-fascist organization in a nation populated by immigrants of all races, creeds, and colors, including Black immigrants from every country, ripping children out of their parent’s arms does nothing to keep us or this country safe.

The current Administration is enacting a racist, nationalistic, ugly policy. We protest the treatment of asylum seekers at the border, the treatment of vulnerable immigrant populations being targeted by ICE, and the treatment of Vermont citizens who are having their children taken away from their homes, all of whom are victims of a cruel and inhumane injustice.
Family separation affects our poor and working poor, our new american families, and asylum seekers at the borders. We see how family separation is a persistent issue that affects Vermonters locally. And how black and brown folks of all nationalities and citizenship statuses are disproportionately affected by systematic family separation practices.
This is happening every day, here, and now.

Some of these practices have become commonplace and palatable in the eyes of our society. This is unacceptable, and it’s not just something that happens “everywhere but here.” In Vermont, this is especially clear in the prevalence of the school to prison pipeline. The school to prison pipeline is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated, because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Right here in Burlington, the School Board has shared statistics that while black students only make up 14% of Burlington High School’s population, they make up more than 30% of the students being suspended.

This pipeline is a toxic system that begins with suspension, leads to expulsion, often bringing in the involvement of the Vermont Department for Children and Families, and results in children ultimately being removed from their families. The systemic practice of separating Vermont families can also be witnessed in the number of cases where parents and guardians are afflicted with a mental illness or the disease of addiction. Often, these cases are connected, perpetuating the cycle of broken families, broken homes, and broken communities. We have seen this, we know these families, we hear their pain. We should be working collaboratively to build up our communities, engaging with families and supporting them through their hardships. But instead children are still being removed from their homes. And at what cost? What long-lasting issues might they be faced with as a result of this?

This too needs your attention, this too needs your disgust and your passion.

We call on folks to stand together, in solidarity, to end cruel family separation practices, for all of us. If you want to continue to work to preserve families locally and stand up against racist, xenophobic, and inhumane practices, we call on you to join us!

Burlington, VT – Members of the greater Burlington community announced today the launching of Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington. Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington has been building networks with social justice groups in Burlington and across the state since the fall of 2017. The goal of the organization is to address institutional racism and racial disparities at all levels of Vermont society including policing, education, employment, and government representation. “We want to ensure that Vermonters of color, like all Vermonters, enjoy their freedom, justice, and peace uninhibited” says Jabari S. Jones, the group’s spokesperson.

“We are Vermonters, and congruent with the values of most Vermonters, we work to end institutionalized racism and all forms of discrimination. We aim to address everything that undermines the rights, freedoms, and potential of marginalized communities so that all lives will truly matter in this beautiful state,” says Jones. Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington is led by the POC Caucus, a diverse group of people of color. BLM of Greater Burlington also includes a Caucus of white-identified people whose members and leadership share the same commitment to justice. This framework of establishing a POC Caucus and a white Caucus working in synergy reflects a new trend in racial justice organizing to create greater accountability and focus. The caucuses focus on building collective leadership with accountability and transparency, community, and healing towards collective liberation.

The POC Caucus was responsible for the initial call for a rally in South Burlington earlier this month to protest Patriot Front, a local white supremacist group. The rally gathered around 200 people from the area. As an organization, with many active members in our local colleges, we work closely with college students and staff against racist intimidation, fascist recruitment, and terroristic threats. Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington is also active in the Vermont Coalition for Ethnic and Social Equity in Schools, supports the passage of H.794, and works closely with community members and students to address the impact of institutional racism in stunting the potential of children of color and the possibilities for growth for all children. “We know that no one is born racist and that racism is learned and as such, can be unlearned,” says Jones. Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington meets monthly and welcomes new members who want an active role in dismantling institutionalized racism in Vermont.