4TH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM PRESENTED BY POINT SOURCE YOUTH
LIBERATION, ABOLITION AND ENDING YOUTH HOMELESSNESS ErrDaisha Floyd, Community Organizer, People's Safety Coalition + PSY YAC Member Oluchi Omeoga, Co-Founder, Black Visions Collective K Agbebiyi, Social Worker + Organizerzer
AT A GLANCE We can’t talk about liberation without centering abolition: dismantling and defunding systems, practices, and institutions causing harm. We need to defund harmful systems, re-invest those funds into our communities and learn how community care works as an alternative to the criminal justice system, abusive policing, and statesanctioned violence. Learn how carceral institutions fuel homelessness, how youth are affected via the cradle-to-prison pipeline, and how dismantling and defunding structurally violent institutions holds the key to thoughtful funding for the social service programs our communities need to achieve liberation.
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WE RECOGNIZE THAT A HUGE SOURCE OF CONFLICT AND PEOPLE BEING CRIMINALIZED IS THAT THEY DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO THEIR BASIC NEEDS BEING MET. -K. AGBEBIYI KEY TAKEAWAYS You can’t hold people accountable through coercive measures. We have to create the conditions to where someone wants to seek accountability. We can create those conditions by building community. Local governments can implement a divest/invest strategy by defunding the police and investing in education, housing, and healthcare. We recognize that a huge source of conflict and people being criminalized is the sheer fact that their basic needs aren’t being met and they don’t have access to resources to meet their needs. Ending youth homelessness and police abolition have the same end goal of liberation for all and a society that cares for everyone rather than criminalizing them.
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ACTIONS TO TAKE 1. Pay attention to local government budgets and organize around the way taxpayer dollars are being allocated in your community. Push back against overspending on punitive measures and under spending on community care. 2. Commit to self-awareness and regularly observing your own behaviors. Notice opportunities to defund the cop in your head and invest in the visionary today-tomorrow is too late. 3. Open your purse. Get invested in a long-term commitment to sharing your resources and giving up your power so those who are unfairly marginalized can be built up.
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Q+A
What do people mean when they say ‘defund the police’? When people say they want to defund the police that means that they want to defund the police. When people call to defund the police, it doesn't mean that they’re envisioning a world where there’s no harm or conflict or abuse--they’re actually envisioning a world where those things are handled in a way that still respects the humanity of everyone who is involved and further violence isn’t instigated.
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IN-DEPTH How do budgets have an impact on what state-run institutions are able to achieve? How do we reconcile seeing budgets for education and essential social programs decrease while defense and police budgets seem so massive and untouchable? When we look at budgets, we see an overemphasis on military and police spending from the federal level all the way to the local level. When you pull your budget up for your city--check out how much of it goes to policing. We can organize around pushing local governments to invest in community--from mental health care, to housing, to education. Locally, budget organizing is a strategic fight that we can monitor and push back against as citizens. Budgets show you exactly where the State’s priorities lie--they’re a great entryway for people to start engaging more with abolition because money is tangible and can be understood as such.
How are ending youth homelessness and working toward a world in which community care replaces harmful policing systems interlocking struggles? People who are highly criminalized or have identities that are highly criminalized are more likely to end up homeless. Instead of actually supporting people or giving them resources, the State has decided that it’s more important to make sure we punish them because that ends any form of interrogation into why people end up homeless in the first place, especially youth. We have to shift from the predominant individualistic mindset to a communal mindset and understand that what we do affects everyone. To end the institution of policing, we have to end the same institutions that cause homelessness: white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? What are some of the biggest challenges to making abolition a reality? It’s very hard to actually be an abolitionist--personal transformation can be the most challenging part of being an abolitionist--one has to let go of so much and see the humanity in everyone, regardless of their decisions. It’s common and easy for people to slip into a lip service practice rather than taking actions to dismantle systemic oppression. It takes real commitment to learn how oppressive systems live inside us. We have to look deep within ourselves, past where we’re entrenched in capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, and surrender to the fact that we’re eternal students who will oftentimes be wrong. Nevertheless, we have to keep learning and moving forward toward abolition.
USE AFFIRMATIVE LANGUAGE WHEN YOU CAN. CONSIDER ABOLITION THE POSSIBILITY FOR SOMETHING NEW AND INCREDIBLE. WHY SAY ‘DEFUND THE POLICE’ WHEN YOU COULD SAY ‘INVEST IN COMMUNITY’ AND GIVE PEOPLE THE SPACE TO IMAGINE A LIBERATED WORLD?
RESOURCES & LINKS Read: 'I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin's Life in Letters' 'Freedom is a Constant Struggle' 'Are Prisons Obsolete?' Learn about what folks are doing: Survived and Punished No New Jails Watch: ‘Youth and our Criminal (In)justice System: A Dialogue on the School to Prison Pipeline and Mass Incarceration’ with Mariame Kaba Structural Racism and Barriers for Youth in the COVID-19 Pandemic
You can find this webinar at pointsourceyouth.org