A part of the Sequence
The Highway to Abolition
The continuing assault on the community of environmental and abolitionist activists in Atlanta ought to make all folks involved with the suitable to protest, the way forward for the surroundings and the rise of militarized police forces take discover.
At 5 am on June 6, after over 200 neighborhood members had spoken in opposition to shifting ahead with the ability, the Atlanta Metropolis Council voted to allocate $31 million in public funds towards building of a militarized police coaching heart dubbed “Cop Metropolis.” This was the latest growth in a fierce and violent battle over police enlargement and forest preservation in Georgia, and has repercussions properly past the state. In January, a younger protester was shot and killed by police in a shock raid on a protest encampment on the proposed website of the ability. Quickly afterwards 42 protesters have been arrested and outrageously charged with home terrorism. “Dissent is being criminalized,” warned Atlanta organizer Kamau Franklin.
On Could 31, three folks related to a authorized support and bail fund supporting the Cease Cop Metropolis protesters arrested earlier have been themselves arrested on false allegations of economic fraud and “cash laundering.” Even the decide within the case discovered the proof uncompelling. However, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp referred to the ecoactivists and abolitionists as criminals and pledged to prosecute them aggressively.
The scenario in Atlanta ought to alarm abolitionists and progressives in every single place. There we see an all-out assault on two actions — the environmental justice motion and the motion in opposition to policing and prisons — which have seen rising common help and affect in recent times.
Right here is the backstory for many who haven’t been following this battle: A $90 million militarized police coaching facility that can destroy 85 acres of the Weelaunee Forest simply outdoors Atlanta (however owned by town) has change into the epicenter of a fierce struggle round policing, environmental justice and the suitable to protest. This coaching heart is slated to incorporate “mock cities” to assist police rehearse tips on how to undermine and disrupt future protests of all kinds.
The battle in Atlanta is part of a much bigger story. With firms like Amazon, Wells Fargo and Delta backing the Atlanta Police Basis’s growth of this challenge the direct link between the police state and encroaching environmental degradation turns into apparent. Furthermore, Black and working-class persons are shedding their lives to each at a record pace. And when courageous neighborhood members and their supporters have stepped ahead to defend the forest and object to a coaching floor designed to additional good using state violence, they themselves have been systematically focused.
On January 18, 2023, the police killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a forest defender affectionately referred to as “Tortuguita” or “Tort,” after which stated they have been fired on first. Their very own official accounts contradicted their story and an independent autopsy confirmed that Tortuguita’s palms have been raised once they have been shot. Dozens of individuals have been arrested not lengthy after throughout one other raid on a Cease Cop Metropolis gathering, leading to outrageous fees of home terrorism.
As egregious as they may appear, the police assaults on activists in Atlanta don’t represent a brand new development. We all know that at least 1,700 environmental activists have been murdered around the globe previously decade. Company hitmen and state violence are used to bludgeon something that will get in the way in which of revenue and energy. Atlanta’s enterprise elite and political class have pulled from this playbook and have labored to misrepresent the motion because the work of “outdoors agitators.” It’s ironic to listen to traditional segregationist rhetoric from those that declare to uphold the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. The identical strains have been used in opposition to the Freedom Riders and voter rights volunteers, in any case, once they traveled to the South to take part within the Black Freedom Motion within the Nineteen Sixties.
Black pupil protesters, a coalition of motion organizations, and Black communities which are against Cop Metropolis are being outright ignored by a Black institution. Even when college students and school from traditionally Black schools and universities like Morehouse and Spelman joined the outcry in opposition to Cop Metropolis, Mayor Andre Dickens didn’t cease pushing for this facility. When the choice to log off on home terrorism warrants got here earlier than Fatima El-Amin, a Black decide, she signed them. And Atlanta’s Black cops have by no means damaged ranks with their white counterparts. This isn’t a easy matter that political illustration will type out for us; it’s a query that should be answered by abolitionist praxis, which implies each creating alternate options to police and prisons to realize harm-reduction, and persevering with the continuing work of constructing a extra simply society.
In our view, the cash that it takes to construct police coaching services can be higher spent advancing deteriorating infrastructure. Atlanta has the highest income inequality within the nation, and extra police gained’t repair that. Sources for well being care, housing, and training might change the politically preordained circumstances that create such oppressive situations.
The decision to cease Cop Metropolis is far greater than only one facility. It is usually related to the years-long struggle in opposition to the West Aspect Cop Academy in Chicago and in opposition to City Protect in Oakland. It is usually straight linked to the uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore and the large response to the general public execution of George Floyd. As a result of the forest the place the Metropolis of Atlanta needs to assemble the coaching facility consists of land that was taken from Muscogee Creek folks, resisting Cop Metropolis is straight linked to Indigenous struggles in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline and different extractive infrastructure. Neither company nor authorities elites need one other precedent of conscientious activists interrupting an unethical profit-driven challenge, which is why they’re waging struggle in opposition to the “Cease Cop Metropolis” motion.
The motion for the abolition of police and prisons, in addition to the pressing and rising motion for environmental justice, are two key pillars of a collective imaginative and prescient for a extra hopeful, egalitarian future. The concentrating on of organizers in Atlanta seeks to ship a harmful and chilling message to the bigger nationwide and international actions. We should oppose this effort and help and defend the Atlanta organizers now being attacked, harassed and persecuted for daring to talk reality to energy and set up for a extra simply future. We urge individuals who share our values and views on this query to help Atlanta’s upcoming week of motion to protest Cop Metropolis and defend these being harassed and prosecuted. We additionally help the referendum the community of activists plan to have on the November 7 election poll to ask Atlantans to determine if they need $90 million invested in a Cop Metropolis or in very important metropolis companies and applications.
