We Do not Represent Chicago as a Whole Until we RECANT our letter to CPD

[Orion]

Our letter to the CPD is racist by endorsing "every member" and needs to be removed.  I have drafted a rewrite that is far closer to my personal views.  I pulled some punches to try to make it more complacant for those of you who don't want to call a spade a spade:

 

Attention Police Officers of Chicago,

As you now know, Occupy Chicago is a non-violent, democratic movement actively seeking to end the abuse of corporate oligarchy in America, which is responsible for returning our society to disparities both economic and political.

Since September 23, we have staged a constant demonstration in front of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank on Jackson and LaSalle to inspire the changes we seek and to bring about the power, prosperity and freedom that has been the essence of rhetoric and a distinct possibility ever since those founding fathers wrenched these lands from the hands of the natives and enriched themselves through the sweat of the poor and enslaved.

 

We represent the interests of the 99% of the population, the 99% who work every day in order to provide for ourselves and our families.  Mere days ago we wrote to you because some of us believed that members of the police were a large and important part of the working class and unrepresented 99%.  Our goal was to indicate a respect and support for the Chicago Police Department and all its members, with the hopes of creating an open flow of communication between Occupy Chicago and CPD so that we could work together to maintain an environment of safety and cooperation as we continue our demonstration in front of the Federal Reserve, and Chicago as a whole, indefinitely until our goals have been achieved. 

 

We did this not from the naïve position of the uninitiated.  We know you.  We have no illusions as to who you are.  To assume that the police exist to enforce the law or fight crime is akin to beginning an analysis of military policy with the premise that armies exist to repel invasions.   We know that the ends that an institution pursues are not always those that it claims.  We occupy Chicago with a healthy skepticism about the official slogans and publicly traded justifications for your very existence as an institution.  We are familiar with the Summerdale eight; looking back with the knowledge that, like cockroaches, if one officer is dirty then there is an entire infestation. 

Gearing up to protest, we knew our history.  1968 burns brightly in the memory of the American zeitgeist; the world will never forget your billy clubs, tear gas and mace.  You violated the civil rights of the youth of the 60s just as you do today as you decide to try to silence us.  Why, your need to suppress was so intense that you even attacked a member of the British Parliament.  But, far more shameful than any of this, we remember the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.  We remember how you lied and claimed that you were attacked.  Though many of us are young we know of these things and too about the wife of Phillip Murphy, the fates of Robert Russ and LaTanya Haggarty; these things even after the endless abuses of Jon Burge. 

We offered you the olive branch.  You were given your chance to rise above your own nature, to rise above your pinkerton past.  We are returning our culture to one where a PATRIOT Act is sleeping in the street.  We will sleep in our streets until that is all that a patriot’s act needs to be.  In this interest we had hoped against hope that you would see your own reflections in our eyes and seek to unchain yourselves from your corporate-stooge-chains.  We still invite you to do so.  We still believe that in every human heart there exists a spark of goodness.  We were willing to bend our very natures and common sense; to use the essence of one of America’s greatest poets and pump his sentiment into our request of you but now we can only quote him as we feel sorry for you: “America, when will you be angelic?”

We stand in stark contrast to each other CPD.  Occupy Chicago is firmly a movement of non-violence and we do not in any way seek to incite conflict or hostility through antagonism or aggression.  We continually reaffirm this message to all our participants, both new and old in order to maintain peace. 

But you tell us to leave our own streets.  Our democratic protest is called illegal in front of the FED, a corporatist entity with practices that lead to starving babies, war, pestilence and rampant homelessness.  You have decided to follow the lead of your New York Brethren and tell us that we do not have the basic rights that this country’s constitution assures to its citizens.  In rebuffing your commands to leave the streets of downtown Chicago we call your attention to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.” 

We know that you grow tired of watching us develop our list of grievances but honestly, the situation that the corporations and our politician’s complacency has placed us in has left us in the position of having to compile a very long list.  The CPD is violating the most fundamental of American liberties.

If you would like more information then visit our website, http://www.occupychi.org, or stop by Jackson and LaSalle in person to talk with us in person about our goals and message.  A special thanks to all those officers who’ve already quite the police force.  Abandoning a system of white supremacy and exploitive capitalism is extremely helpful and accommodation to us in the difficult beginning stages of our demonstration.  Your support is immeasurable and inspiring.

Peace, Love, Empathy

[m_x]

Wonderful letter Orion.  Seriously, it was moving.   We need to get a statement like this out to more than just the cpd but to the public.

 

America, when will you take off your clothes?

[blacklite911]

I agree with a lot of your letter but your letter doesn't represent the feelings of everyone involved either. 

[Apple20]

Sorry, I may have missed this, but can you explain what part was racist and the change that was made.  Thanks so much!

[Orion]

By endorsing a police department that is currently defending itself for the torture of over 200 black men to force confessions for crimes that they are innocent of.  The same department that assassinated civil rights organizers in the 60s we are making a racist statement.  

I was extremely disturbed by this letter when I joined OC and decided that through dialogue we could move past it.  That time has come.  We need to make this change now.

I cannnot be a member of an organization that makes implicitly racist statements.

[Orion]

Sorry, that was really poor use of grammar, but you get my point, right?

[m_x]

Orion said:

By endorsing a police department that is currently defending itself for the torture of over 200 black men to force confessions for crimes that they are innocent of.  The same department that assassinated civil rights organizers in the 60s we are making a racist statement.  

I was extremely disturbed by this letter when I joined OC and decided that through dialogue we could move past it.  That time has come.  We need to make this change now.

I cannnot be a member of an organization that makes implicitly racist statements.

Thank you for bringing that up: http://www.democracynow.org/20.....nder_jon 

 

How quickly people forget. 

[smigs]

"Where there' injustice, I always believe in fighting.  The question is, do you fight to change things or to punish?  For myself, we are all such sinners....  And if we really want to change things, there are better things than derailing trains or slashing someone with a sword."  Mohandas K. Gandhi

MY OPINIONS:

Some members of the police force have forgotten their humanity and the humanity of others.  MOST have not.  Occupy Chicago cannot right the wrongs of every injustice.  The focus must be narrow to be most broadly inclusive.  We have gained support by our reputation, the same reputation that has earned us housing.   

By cooperating with requests, having a positive liason, we keep OUR OWN humanity, and appeals to the general public who must identify with us; see our humanity as their own.  Ordinary folks struggling to hang on don't want conflict with CPD who are their brothers, sons and neighbors.  

How we frame our response to the police is about US, not them.

Peace.

[Orion]

It is about us if we endorse people torturing and murdering people.  Especially when those acts are racially motivated.

What are we standing for if not freedom and equality?

Do you want to know where Ghandi learned passive resistance from?

His wife.  Explain that one and then tell me if you you want to follow his lead.

Anyway, he told his people to throw themselves on the oppressor's swords.

[DavidMichael]

I agree with smigs.  I believe that letters like this miss the bigger picture and muddy up what should be a few clear and concise goals that our organization should have.  Additionally, they alienate us from the general public who we claim to represent, many of them who are very happy that there is a police force in place which does many good things to protect them from the many people who do bad things.

 

The real problem is corporations financing and co-opting our political system.  Everything else is a symptom of that problem, and that should be our focus, not brow beating a few cops who are working a gig for a few bucks, or bringing up facts that hundreds of years age some very smart people did some very bad and unenlightened things by owning slaves.  focus on the bigger picture and we will have success.