blacklivesmatter Archives - The Social Breakdown

#BlackLivesMatter Miniseries 3: Defunding the Police

ABSTRACT

We’re continuing our #BlackLivesMatter miniseries and exploring what it means when people demand that we defund the police. Annually the U.S. spends around $115 billion on police departments– an amount that has tripled over the past 40 years. So supporters of #BLM are calling for divestment from police as one way to combat police violence and aggression. What does defunding look like? How would it happen? And wait, wait, wait, with less police won’t crime go up?! Tune in here to learn more.

Keywords

#BlackLivesMatter, social movements, race, racism, police brutality, police violence

Sources

Check out this article from the Guardian “What does ‘defund the police’ mean?” that finds that over the past 40 years, the budgets for police departments across the US have tripled in funding amounts to roughly $115 billion this year.
See stats on police budgets in the city and county of Honolulu

Watch this fantastic documentary on PBS for FREE called “The Interrupters” that’s about a community program in Chicago that acts to “interrupt violence” in communities of gang violence and disputes, and its efficacy.
If you have some money, donate to Minneapolis community organization, Reclaim the Block! No amount is too small!
Calls for defunding police have led to progress! On Sunday June 7, the Minneapolis City Council voted to dismantle the city’s police force after it was decided that it was impossible to reform the police, and instead that community public safety measures would be better.
Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti announced that $100-$150 million of the LAPD budget will be reinvested into minority communities!
Penn mentioned how one whistleblowing police officer was framed as having a mental crisis for calling out fellow cops on their behavior, and was thrown into the psych ward. Well, his name was Adrian Schoolcraft, and you can read about his story here. FYI the NYPD settled Schoolcraft’s resultant law suit for $600,000 in 2015.
Check out our episode on mythbusting crime where we discuss decreasing crime rates, SOC107: Who you gonna call? Crime busters!
We also talk about the argument of “is crime/violence a produce of nature or nurture?” here in this episode, SOC110: Violence: Nature vs. Nurture.
We cited the article, “Evidence that curtailing proactive policing can reduce major crime” by Christopher M. Sullivan & Zachary P. O’Keeffe
Check out Alex Vitale’s bomb.com book “The End of Policing” to learn more (and it’s currently free as an e-book)!

#BlackLivesMatter Miniseries 2: Vive la Resistance!

Note: This is a re-release of an old episode we did back in November 2017. While we were not discussing resistance and social movements in the context of George Floyd’s murder and the #BlackLivesMatter protests, we still believe the content is relevant today.

Abstract

Resist! It’s such a buzzword with deep historical roots, but what exactly is resistance? What does it mean to resist and to struggle? How can we resist? What are some strategies or ways to resist? Many social issues are now at the forefront of the global conversation, especially with Trump’s presidency, from racism to sexual harassment, to basic human decency. Resistance is a difficult and long-drawn out process – it’s not for us, it’s for our children. It’s not for today, but for tomorrow. Change can’t happen without resistance, so join us this week to learn more!

Keywords

Sociology, resistance, social movements, social change, protest

Resources

Maria Hynes (2013) “Reconceptualizing Resistance: Sociology and the Affective Dimension of Resistance”
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (Angela Davis 2016)
“#MeToo: Social media flooded with personal stories of assault” (CNN)
“How to Make Fun of Nazis” (New York Times)
Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare) (Chenoweth & Stephan 2012)
Peter Norman, the Australian Olympic athlete. “The third man: The forgotten Black Power hero” (CNN)
“Colin Kaepernick, Who Began Anthem Kneeling, Files Complaint Against N.F.L.” (New York Times)
Compassion Fatigue (Psychology Today)
Matt Buck playing the sousaphone alongside a KKK rally.
Ellen’s Spotify playlist to blast when you’re resisting a protest (a.k.a. counter-protesting).
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Planned Parenthood
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
“In Search Of The Red Cross’ $500 Million In Haiti Relief” (NPR)
Breast Cancer Awareness month is in October (that’s when we recorded the episode, even though the episode was released in November!)
Check out some of these websites to make sure your charity is legitimate and effective!
Dapper dogs in bow ties – can you resist this??

#BlackLivesMatter Miniseries 1: What is #BLM?

Abstract

The #BlackLivesMatter social movement has been gaining momentum after the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota on May 25, and protests have been seen around the world and in every state in the U.S. We here at the Social Breakdown have been trying to figure out how we can do our part in the movement, and this miniseries is one of the results. So, the first episode of our #BlackLivesMatter miniseries is about the BLM movement itself. Who created it? How is it organized? What is BLM calling for? And why should you not say, “But, but, don’t All Lives Matter??” Tune in here to learn more.

Transcript

You can find the transcript for his episode here. Big ups to Sam Yuan for helping transcribe this one for us!!

Keywords

#blacklivesmatter, social movements, protest, police, race, racism

Sources

Read more about Black Lives Matters.
The Pew Research Center recently published an article titled, “10 Things We Know About Race and Policing in the U.S.” where they found, “Black adults are about five times as likely as whites to say they’ve been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity (44% vs. 9%), according to the same survey. Black men are especially likely to say this: 59% say they’ve been unfairly stopped, versus 31% of black women.”
Learn more about Breonna Taylor’s killing in Louisville, KY.
Also, do your part and email, call, and tweet at the Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher and demand the arrest and charging of the three officers who killed Breonna.
- https://ag.ky.gov/Contact-Us/Pages/default.aspx
- https://louisvilleky.gov/government/mayor-greg-fischer
KPOP stans are being allies to the BLM movement by taking over anti-BLM hashtags in some fantastic ways.
Watch this documentary about BLM titled, “Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement” on YouTube
Penn recommends the following books:
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- The End of Policing by Alex Vitale is currently free as an e-book
And SAGE Publications (a collection of academic journals) has opened access to alllllll their articles regarding policing, police violence, race, racism, etc.
Ellen ended the episode with a quote from an NPR Fresh Air episode where Queen Terry Gross interviewed Historian Eric Foner on the Reconstruction period, which you can listen to here:
- The insightful quote from Dr. Foner: “ I think African Americans have a very different view of what freedom is than most white people, and that’s because of different historical experiences. I think – this is a gross oversimplification, which you can find many exceptions to, but still I think a lot of truth in it – most white people in this country think freedom is something they have and that somebody often is trying to take away from them. Most black people in this country think that freedom is something they are aspiring to achieve. It’s a process. It’s something to be fully gained in the future. And that is a basic difference which affects their views on many, many aspects of our society, whether it’s the law, the criminal justice system, the economic system, et cetera.”

Tag: blacklivesmatter

#BlackLivesMatter Miniseries 1: What is #BLM?

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