Building a world where Black lives truly matter Fund communities, not police. June 1, 2020 We at the Chicago Torture Justice Center rise, raise our fists, and cry out at the murder of George Floyd along with his family, those who loved him, and the people of Minneapolis. We stand with the protestors in Chicago, Louisville, Atlanta, Sacramento, Boston, Birmingham, Oakland, Sioux Falls, and all the other cities—big and small, in the U.S. and around the world—where communities are taking to the streets to say enough is enough. We are enraged—not only over the loss of George Floyd but over the pandemic of police brutality that continues to threaten and claim the lives of many other Black people in this last month alone, in Kentucky, Georgia, Texas, New York, and beyond. Our rage is part of our grief; our grief is part of our healing; and rage, grief and healing together fuel our desire and our struggle for a world in which Black people are free. A world in which Black lives truly matter, a world in which Black people are able to drive, jog, shop, breathe, bird-watch, and sleep—free from the threat of white, carceral terrorism. Just as our healing is political, our grief is also political. And so we name that the impact of these murders and acts of violence perpetrated by the state (historically and in the last few days against protestors) is real and it is systemic. This racialized violence does harm that is physical, psychological, and spiritual. It causes trauma to individuals and to communities as a whole. The genocide upon which the United States was founded and built leaves us with legacies of generational trauma (and always, too, legacies of generational fortitude and survival). And when we see videos of Black lives murdered on television, of police in militarized gear marching with batons and attacking protestors, or the narratives being blasted by the media clearly indicating more outrage for the loss of commercial enterprises than human life—we are retraumatized. There is trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma. We at CTJC stand with George Floyd’s family in calling for accountability and with all who demand justice for their loved ones murdered by police. We also know that 400+ years of racialized violence and killing will not be absolved by the arrests nor the firings of individual police officers. We demand accountability that is grounded in a radical call to action. We demand not just apologies for harm done, but repentance and real change that can end and repair harm. Our specific demands include: 1. Reparations for Black and Brown communities devastated by racialized police violence across the U.S. 2. Immediate divestment in the budgets of police departments by 50%, with those funds reallocated to resources for those most impacted by violence in our communities. This means an immediate increase in funding for public health, mental health, education, housing, PPE for frontline workers, etc. Reparations are not some distant future. We look to the historic 2015 Reparations Ordinance in Chicago as a model for how this can be done. Through the ongoing work of the Chicago Torture Justice Center we continue the long road of politicized healing in action. This moment clarifies what we know: that our healing is political, our political work is healing, and that the road to reparations is a living commitment. We will continue to organize, fight, tell our stories, lament, care for our bodies, make space for individual and collective rage, and nurture joy, while we build this new world inside the shell of the old.
chicagotorturejustice.org