In response to Jamala Rogers’ column, “FOP fosters ‘us vs. them’ mentality,” I agree that the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) lobbied for the passage and signing of the “Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu National Blue Alert Act of 2015” and that the FOP is the world’s largest organization of law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, that is where our agreement ends relative to her article.
Read the rest of Kevin Ahlbrand’s response here.
The attempt to seize local control from the citizens of St. Louis will be met with organized—and might I add–hostile resistance (think pension, think future raises). That’s because citizens voted for local control of their police department in 2013 by a majority of citizens. That historic vote was the result of more than a decade of tireless organizing under the leadership of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression (CAPCR).
Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris’s conversation about worker power, the labor movement, social justice, and podcasting with Jamala Rogers and Bianca Cunningham, co-hosts of Convergence Magazine’s Black Work Talk, and Adam Keller and Jacob Morrison, co-hosts of The Valley Labor Report.
Racial capitalism is a grinder of our very humanity. Black Lives Matter is not just a slogan; it is a daily reminder to resist the infectious virus of self–loathing and self-destruction spawned and perpetuated by our oppressors.
