SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Peek beneath the pull-quotes and you'll find work that has often felt long and slow. (Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Paradigms Take Years to Shift
Don’t let anyone tell you the work is done.
Jun 09, 2020
Defund Police. Invest in Black Lives. What just weeks ago was a slogan is fast becoming law.
In just the last week, the Minneapolis school board resolved to cut their contract with city police in the schools. The mayor of Los Angeles announced that his city was considering cutting the city's police budget by some $150 million. Now, Minneapolis City Council has voted with a veto-proof majority to replace law enforcement with a "transformative new model of public safety."
Change is coming fast, and much of the media would have you believe it's as if by magic. But if it is magic, it's movement magic. Peek beneath the pull-quotes and you'll find work that has often felt long and slow.
Take one example. This week, The Laura Flanders Show reported on Newark, New Jersey, one of the big US cities that saw tremendous demonstrations against police racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
In 1967, Newark erupted in flames after the police beating of a black man in detention and the shooting death of a woman, Rebecca Brown, in her own home after troopers and members of the national guard opened fire.
This time around, thousands turned out to protest in Newark, but no one was arrested and there was minimal property damage. Why? It's a fifty-year story we begin to tell in this week's episode, but fast-forward to now, and you see a city that's embracing a new approach to public safety led by its leaders, funded by its council and implemented and informed by the city's residents themselves.
Change has been long in coming. Even before the rebellions of the 60s, people like Newark poet and activist Amiri Baraka were demanding a civilian review board, but they were blocked by the force and the police union. Numerous inquiries, reports and black appointments later, it took the election of Baraka's son Ras to get one approved.
Baraka convened a community council and brought in Aqeela Sherrills, a peace maker from Watts, to head up the Newark Community Street Team. Today, the Street Team doesn't just demand change from the police, it helps train them, and alongside the mayor's office, the department of health and the office of public safety, they look at violence as a public health issue with roots in redlining, deindustrialization, environmental racism, austerity, misogyny and centuries of white impunity and black trauma.
When Covid-19 hit, Sherrills and his team were declared essential workers. Some fifty-strong, the members were out with their neighbors, not just at the demonstrations, but day after day, all year. "This is an inflection point," Aqeela Sherrills told me this week.
A long overdue paradigm shift is happening. But paradigms take years of pushing. Extraordinary and all-important as these days are, don't let anyone tell you the work is done.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including "Bushwomen: How They Won the White House for Their Man" (2005). She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women's and girls' visibility in media, and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org
Defund Police. Invest in Black Lives. What just weeks ago was a slogan is fast becoming law.
In just the last week, the Minneapolis school board resolved to cut their contract with city police in the schools. The mayor of Los Angeles announced that his city was considering cutting the city's police budget by some $150 million. Now, Minneapolis City Council has voted with a veto-proof majority to replace law enforcement with a "transformative new model of public safety."
Change is coming fast, and much of the media would have you believe it's as if by magic. But if it is magic, it's movement magic. Peek beneath the pull-quotes and you'll find work that has often felt long and slow.
Take one example. This week, The Laura Flanders Show reported on Newark, New Jersey, one of the big US cities that saw tremendous demonstrations against police racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
In 1967, Newark erupted in flames after the police beating of a black man in detention and the shooting death of a woman, Rebecca Brown, in her own home after troopers and members of the national guard opened fire.
This time around, thousands turned out to protest in Newark, but no one was arrested and there was minimal property damage. Why? It's a fifty-year story we begin to tell in this week's episode, but fast-forward to now, and you see a city that's embracing a new approach to public safety led by its leaders, funded by its council and implemented and informed by the city's residents themselves.
Change has been long in coming. Even before the rebellions of the 60s, people like Newark poet and activist Amiri Baraka were demanding a civilian review board, but they were blocked by the force and the police union. Numerous inquiries, reports and black appointments later, it took the election of Baraka's son Ras to get one approved.
Baraka convened a community council and brought in Aqeela Sherrills, a peace maker from Watts, to head up the Newark Community Street Team. Today, the Street Team doesn't just demand change from the police, it helps train them, and alongside the mayor's office, the department of health and the office of public safety, they look at violence as a public health issue with roots in redlining, deindustrialization, environmental racism, austerity, misogyny and centuries of white impunity and black trauma.
When Covid-19 hit, Sherrills and his team were declared essential workers. Some fifty-strong, the members were out with their neighbors, not just at the demonstrations, but day after day, all year. "This is an inflection point," Aqeela Sherrills told me this week.
A long overdue paradigm shift is happening. But paradigms take years of pushing. Extraordinary and all-important as these days are, don't let anyone tell you the work is done.
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including "Bushwomen: How They Won the White House for Their Man" (2005). She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women's and girls' visibility in media, and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org
Defund Police. Invest in Black Lives. What just weeks ago was a slogan is fast becoming law.
In just the last week, the Minneapolis school board resolved to cut their contract with city police in the schools. The mayor of Los Angeles announced that his city was considering cutting the city's police budget by some $150 million. Now, Minneapolis City Council has voted with a veto-proof majority to replace law enforcement with a "transformative new model of public safety."
Change is coming fast, and much of the media would have you believe it's as if by magic. But if it is magic, it's movement magic. Peek beneath the pull-quotes and you'll find work that has often felt long and slow.
Take one example. This week, The Laura Flanders Show reported on Newark, New Jersey, one of the big US cities that saw tremendous demonstrations against police racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
In 1967, Newark erupted in flames after the police beating of a black man in detention and the shooting death of a woman, Rebecca Brown, in her own home after troopers and members of the national guard opened fire.
This time around, thousands turned out to protest in Newark, but no one was arrested and there was minimal property damage. Why? It's a fifty-year story we begin to tell in this week's episode, but fast-forward to now, and you see a city that's embracing a new approach to public safety led by its leaders, funded by its council and implemented and informed by the city's residents themselves.
Change has been long in coming. Even before the rebellions of the 60s, people like Newark poet and activist Amiri Baraka were demanding a civilian review board, but they were blocked by the force and the police union. Numerous inquiries, reports and black appointments later, it took the election of Baraka's son Ras to get one approved.
Baraka convened a community council and brought in Aqeela Sherrills, a peace maker from Watts, to head up the Newark Community Street Team. Today, the Street Team doesn't just demand change from the police, it helps train them, and alongside the mayor's office, the department of health and the office of public safety, they look at violence as a public health issue with roots in redlining, deindustrialization, environmental racism, austerity, misogyny and centuries of white impunity and black trauma.
When Covid-19 hit, Sherrills and his team were declared essential workers. Some fifty-strong, the members were out with their neighbors, not just at the demonstrations, but day after day, all year. "This is an inflection point," Aqeela Sherrills told me this week.
A long overdue paradigm shift is happening. But paradigms take years of pushing. Extraordinary and all-important as these days are, don't let anyone tell you the work is done.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.