In search of justice

financial institution. We also have to say gender, ability, sexuality—intersectionality
teaches us that. We’re very clear that the structure that
we’re against has interlocking systems of oppression.
We know when most marginalized people win, everybody wins.
Many of us have been in the streets, have put our bodies on the line,
have been leading, and we have done too much to go home with anything
short of freedom. We’re going to do it for all. That has been central
for this entire platform.
You’ve said elsewhere solving racial prejudice is not the primary issue we need
to solve. Why not?
Kwame Toure said, “If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem.
If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not
a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.”
We think ending racial prejudice is important but that work has to
be done in the white community. Our organizing and thinking is about
creating power. This is too critical of a moment, too important of a
movement to misdiagnose. If all that comes out of this is six hours of
police training we have failed this movement, this moment.
If black cops started to kill white kids because they were afraid, it
would be unallowable. Saying cops just need to get trained on how to
not to shoot white grandmothers or white kids skateboarding, they just
need therapy, we would reject that. The white community as a class is
powerful enough [that] even if you have racial prejudice, that can’t happen—which
is a direct result of power. That’s what we need. Not that we
shouldn’t change the hearts and minds of people, but there should be
something so strong in the structure to not allow violence against our
community whether or not people like us.
What does positive change look like? Can you name some victories?
It is incredibly important to recognize our victories because we are
fighting hundreds of years of oppression and colonization. Sometimes
we feel like we’re not doing anything but we’re actually doing incredible
work. The creation of this united front and this vision is no small
feat. It’s the result of hard work and is a community tool for people to
organize around. That is a huge victory.
Other victories include our new generation of young black leaders,
who are engaged in political work—inspiring folks to become more active
in changing their society than they were five years ago. We’ve seen
resistance throughout the country to the violence and the harm done in
our communities. Whenever oppressed people organize, take their power
back, you get victory. Every time we showed up, it absolutely mattered.
There are many cities who’ve fought really hard over the last few
years and who’ve achieved some level of victory in terms of policy
change, but we don’t see policy change as the only victory. We’ve seen
people create urban gardens, take back homes, land, and communities.
We’ve seen freedom schools established, organizers training more organizers,
more demonstrations, and more challenges to elected officials.
We’ve seen more Black political agendas discussed in mainstream
places; we’ve seen a challenge to the dominant narrative of hegemony—all
of those are victories.
Loquitur spoke with VLS alumni, professors and students
who are practitioners, policymakers, and activists
about the movement’s effects and its potential to impact
the criminal justice system.
“Activism, protest and civil disobedience can be ‘extralegal,’
meaning that they are often outside the established
legal strategies and may even be illegal,” says VLS Professor
Jessica West, who teaches Criminal Law and writes
on race and the criminal justice system. Over the course
of her career, West has represented protesters, and as an
academic, she writes about protest and the law, especially
focusing on the legal responses to protest and the tensions
between the law and the right to protest.
Despite being outside recognized legal structures,
protest “may be the only option for marginalized and
disenfranchised voices. It may be the only way for an
issue to get on the societal agenda” says West. Nonviolent
protests “inject into the public discourse” issues that
may not otherwise be heard. West highlights America’s
activist roots, noting that “our country was not born
in the confines of legality but through many acts of
protest”—and that protest provides a safety valve for disenfranchised
voices in lieu of actual revolution. Despite
the country’s activist roots, West says there is a deep
tension between law and activism, and it is not entirely
clear how much protest conflicts with an orderly and
lawful society.
West admits that policing issues are complicated
and the problems entrenched. “The police operate as a
quasi-independent societal entity and that entity is entrusted
with an important public role. Most police believe
strongly in the honor of fulfilling that role. While understandable,
the strong perception of police as honorable
protectors along with the insular nature of the institution
has led to the failure to acknowledge the very real
deficits they have.” Some of those “very real deficits” are
outlined in a Department of Justice (DOJ) report on the
Baltimore Police Department released in August 2016.
The report validates what the black community in Baltimore
and elsewhere has said all along—that the criminal
justice system generally, and policing in particular, have
a problem with racial bias, which brings to light the systemic
inequities. West is not enamored with individual
prosecutions of police officers, however. “The problem
is bigger than a couple of bad apples. The real culprit is
biased procedures and systems. For example, stop-andfrisk
procedures and ‘broken window’ policing are justified
to ‘protect’ black communities. These policies are
applied unevenly and have deeply racist implications.”
West believes that protests by BLM and other activists
have already accomplished much. “Recent videos
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