The Black Lives Matter movement rose up in response to the killing of Mike Brown by Ferguson police on August 9, 2014. Since then, the killings have continued across the country. Closer to home, on November 9, 2014, Ann Arbor police shot and killed Aura Rosser, a 40-year old black woman and mother of three. In this context, lots of folks have been talking about racism and the police.
May 6 to May 9, without even meaning to, I encountered five traffic stops: two in Pittsfield Township, one in Ypsilanti, one in Ann Arbor, and another in Canton. In each instance, the cop was white and the motorist Black.
This year’s free May Day book, entitled Premature Death, is now available at the following locations:
—Ugly Mug
—Ypsilanti Food Coop
—Bookbound Bookstore
—Coming soon to Black Stone Books and the downtown Ypsilanti Library
Premature Death contains essays by The Third Coast Conspiracy, Civil Rights Congress, James Boggs, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore.
Earth Day, 24 April 1016
Library Lot, Ann Arbor
Last year on Earth Day we sang the Digger’s Song and I promised not to come again unless it was with a jackhammer. Here I am with no jack hammer. So it was at best a hope deferred or at worst a false promise. In any case a defeat.
I was asked to speak about “the commons” and I shall. It begins with where we stand, the library lot. Is it to be a parking lot for developers to lounge at the trough and consume the swill as the vision of development, with Governor Snyder in the middle on Main Street? Passing the buck and making a mess of water, earth, and air?
This is Calvin Jones, age 26.
He and his family were violated and brutalized by the Taylor Police Department on Saturday, April 16 at 3 p.m.—less than 24 hours after they’d moved to this new city. The Jones family’s fifteen-minute encounter will end up costing thousands of dollars in medical bills and court costs, not to mention the psychological and emotional burdens they’re now forced to bear. What follows is part one of Jones’s account:
Radical Washtenaw received Chief DeGiusti’s response to our report, “Why Are Black People in Ypsilanti Disproportionately Arrested on Bench Warrants?” We appreciate that DeGiusti took some time to attempt to address some of the questions raised in the RAW report via his memo to City Manager Ralph Lange, dated February 22, 2016. Here are some problems with the memo.
In his memo, DeGiusti argues that the RAW report does not prove anything; he does not disprove any of RAW’s claims, however. Instead, DeGiusti makes several rhetorical arguments, but unfortunately he does not provide any additional numeric data which, he claims “would take a vast amount of staff time” to obtain. RAW was very transparent about the limitations of the publicly-available data and about the need for cooperation from the police departments, courts, and county to obtain more accurate and comprehensive data. The Chief has access to relevant data that could go a long way towards clarifying the situation, yet he does not provide it.
Radical Washtenaw 