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Anti-Racism: Adults: Policing & Prison

books, videos, online resources for individual and group study/discussion on racism, antiracism and white supremacy culture

Books

An Abolitionist's Handbook     Be a Revolution     Defund Fear     Gideon's Promise     How the Word Is Passed               Letters to the Sons of Society by Shaka Senghor          "Prisons Make Us Safer"     25159334               Tangled Up in Blue by Rosa Brooks     Ten Lives, Ten Demands     United States of Grace: A Memoir of Homelessness, Addiction, Incarceration, and Hope     We Do This 'Til We Free Us     BL_WeRefuseToBeSilent_Cover_9781506491110c     You Mean It or You Don't: James Baldwin's Radical Challenge

Local Resources

Bryan Stevenson: Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. Hope is our  superpower | NITVSee the Equal Justice Initiative interviews and the movie based on Just Mercy.

Dr. Gary Green of United Theological Seminary moderated this important conversation in the Plymouth Congregational Church series: Disrupting White Supremacy: Reimagining Public Safety: Confronting the Problem of Policing, featuring Jaylani Hussein ( CAIR-MN), Rev. Nekima Levy-Armstrong, JD (lawyer and activist), and Rev. Dr. DeWayne Davis (lead minister of Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis).

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The U of M's Center for Urban & Regional Affairs offers researched insight in Over-Policed and Under-Protected: Public Safety in North Minneapolis (11.17.20)

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United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities offers a list of Resources and Actions Amidst amidst the Chauvin Trialand the Death of Daunte Wright, including opportunities for Prayer/Meditation, Holding Memory, Changing Policies, Impacting Public Discourse, and Engaging Our Emotions.

The Dept. of Public Safety, the MN Nat'l Guard and MN State Patrol, established Operation Safety Net, a central, reliable source to counteract misinformation during the trial of Derek Chauvin. Share accurate information with congregations to stay safe, connected and informed.

Reporting on Minnesota's new Americans — Sahan Journal

Sahan Journal is the only independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit digital newsroom fully dedicated to providing authentic news reporting for and about immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota, chronicling the struggles, successes and transformations of Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color, whose stories are often overlooked by traditional news organizations.

See What Should I Consider Before Protesting a Police Killing? and When Will We Achieve Police Reform in Minnesota?

Video

Before You Call the Cops' BLM video goes viral...again - YouTube

Tyler Merritt's Before You Call the Cops is powerful watching. Get to know him!

Dr. Gary Green of United Theological Seminary moderated this important conversation in the Plymouth Congregational Church series: Disrupting White Supremacy: Reimagining Public Safety: Confronting the Problem of Policing, featuring Jaylani Hussein ( CAIR-MN), Rev. Nekima Levy-Armstrong, JD (lawyer and activist), and Rev. Dr. DeWayne Davis (lead minister of Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis).

Throughline

NPR's throughline presents American Police

African American Policy Forum short film: The Unequal Opportunity Race

Award winning film by Ava DuVernay; focuses on the history of racism in America and the rise of the prison industrial complex

This documentary follows the police of Oakland, California, as they reform and face the challenges of corruption, commitment and cataclysmic change.

An award-winning, timely profile of WeCopwatch, an organization that seeks to disrupt the ever-present challenge of police violence by filming the police as a non-violent form of protest.

Told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice, Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the Ferguson uprising.

Webinars & Curriculum

Blogs, Podcasts & Articles

Reimagining Safety and Liberation Without Police

MARLENE SANCHEZ

'For those of us who aspire to an equitably shared multiracial democracy, freedom and safety require, at minimum, dominion over your own body and responsibility for the well-being of the larger community, including those with less power and fewer resources.'

Abolition Through the Ages: Reform Versus Transformation, Then and Now

Just as slavery couldn’t be reformed and had to be ended, policing can’t be reformed and has to be abolished, say leaders of modern-day abolitionist movements.

Demonstrators from the Black Lives Matter movement march.

Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images

What Does Accountability Look Like Without Punishment?

by Mariame Kaba & Josie Duffy Rice & Reina Sultan

 MAY 25, 2021

Demonstrators link arms during a protest on April 23, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Activists with the group Freedom Fighters D.C. gathered on Friday for the first of three days of rallies calling to abolish the police.

What happened when the city of Rochester, NY, defunded the police? See The Independent article here.

Civil Rights Coalition Letter on Federal Policing Priorities

Signed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries and The United Methodist Church - General Board of Church & Society

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The U of M's Center for Urban & Regional Affairs offers researched insight in Over-Policed and Under-Protected: Public Safety in North Minneapolis (11.17.20)

Call To Mind: Spotlight On Black Trauma And Policing (MPR) - with Angela Davis hosting Spotlight on Black Trauma and Policing, a live virtual community conversation including Resmaa Menakem and Justin Terrell.

In Front of Our Eyes & 74 Seconds: Podcasts from Minnesota Public Radio, available on all major podcasts apps.

Derek Chauvin has been found guilty, but there is much work still to be done including sentencing and additional trials of other officers. “In Front of Our Eyes” followed the trial providing weekly updates on this monumental case, and the consequences it holds for the city and country. 

 

  “74 Seconds” followed the story of another black man shot and killed by    police. In July 2016, the world watched a man die, live on their phones, after a traffic stop in suburban Minnesota. This is the story of that man, Philando Castile, and the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, who is about to go on trial in his death. It sits at the intersection of race, policing, justice and safety in America. A lot can happen in 74 seconds.

The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons

Kaepernick Publishing & LEVEL publish 30 stories that point to a future that puts the needs of the community first

Scroll through the blog for a four-part series on Policing and the Church.

Enough is Enough!

The Kaleo Center blog included a link to Uprising Minnesota, “A regularly updated site on how to support Black organizing in the Twin Cities”; Jae Hyun Shim’s excellent article about how we came to this moment in Minneapolis; and Mariame Kaba’s NY Times article, Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.