Main image: “Intelligent Mischief” – Aisha Shillingford & Terry Marshall
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“This visionary bill divests our taxpayer dollars from brutal and discriminatory policing and invests in a new vision of public safety—a vision that answers the call to defund the police and allows all communities to finally BREATHE free.
We are rising up against all the ways that the criminal-legal system has harmed and failed to protect Black communities. The current moment requires a solution that fundamentally shifts how we envision community-care and invest in our society. History is clear that we cannot achieve genuine safety and liberation until we abandon police, prisons, and all punishment paradigms.” – breatheact.org
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Last Thursday, 19 November 2020, TeenVogue published an opinion piece written and submitted by Patrisse Cullors, co-founder and Executive Director of Black Lives Matter (BLM). In the op-ed, self-avowed “trained Marxist” Cullors introduces readers to a piece of legislation she has helped author called, the BREATHE Act. Although it has not yet been made into an official bill, Congress critters Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib announced the proposed legislation this past July in a press conference celebrating the BREATHE Act. It has Congressional support, in other words.
What is the BREATHE Act?
First thing that’s good to know is, the BREATHE Act is presented by the Electoral Justice Project of the Movement for Black Lives – aka, Movement for Black Lives’ 501(c)4 Electoral Justice Project. BLM is not just about the street party. Black Justice is an organised movement spearheading many social justice programs. Organisers present clearly defined and well-mapped goals and have the resources to work toward realising same. That means big money lobbyists, politicians and industry are involved. These extra players give We, the People, some pushback leverage against nonsensical, entitlement-complex driven ideas that we do not need a penal system or law enforcement agencies in the US of A.
If not for any other sane and rational reason, this ‘Merican believes proposed legislation for the BREATHE Act ought be dismissed as incredibly racist policy – systemically racist, in fact. Let’s allow Ms. Cullors to explain in her own words what the BREATHE Act, “a legislative love letter to Black people,” aims to accomplish for US of American citizens who happen to be black or brown. Patrisse Cullors op-ed as epublished on the TeenVogue website in its entirety (emphasis added):
“Police terror and mass incarceration do not exist in a vacuum. In our country, harm and punishment have invaded every aspect of society, and have done so with surgical racial precision. We see it in the ways we address drug dependency and mental health crises by disproportionately putting Black and Brown people behind bars instead of providing holistic treatment. We see it in inhumane panhandling laws and cash bail that punishes people for being poor. We see it when we suspend Black children from school and give them detention at disproportionate rates. At each step, our government has legitimized punishing Black and Brown people. It is not surprising, then, that the police commit harm and violence against Black and Brown bodies with impunity—and at alarming rates.
We need to radically reimagine our concept of justice and safety. For too long, we have addressed harm with reciprocal harm. Our elected and appointed officials catered to our worst retributive instincts, resulting in mandatory minimums, sentencing enhancements, and over-policing. What did it get us? An unaddressed drug dependency and mental health crisis, jails overflowing with Black and Brown people, and too many lost loved ones to count.
What we need now is a focus on health and healing. While some pundits and naysayers saw calls to defund the police and invest in Black communities as pipe dreams, our movement did what it always does. We listened, we got to work, and we wrote the BREATHE Act. While it has not been introduced into Congress just yet, we do have champions: Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib spoke at the press launch for the bill. We want the next Presidential administration to prioritize the passing of this powerful modern day civil rights legislation. We built the roadmap to take us away from harm and towards health and healing—now, we hope they follow it.
The BREATHE Act is a legislative love letter to Black people. When I read it for the first time, it made me emotional to finally see a law that made me and my community feel seen and our needs addressed. That is what we have been missing for too long. Practically speaking, the BREATHE Act is a landmark civil rights bill. It takes bold, progressive steps to build public safety systems that work for all of us, no matter what community we come from.
When we say we need to rethink harm and punishment, that cannot just be personal reflection. Our policymaking needs to follow suit. That is what BREATHE is.
It starts by divesting federal resources from vehicles of harm and punishment like policing and incarceration. That means slashing enormous police budgets. That means decriminalizing drug use and repealing other federal laws that have for too long been used to disproportionately criminalize Black women, children, and families. BREATHE will put us on the road to police and prison abolition, letting our loved ones out of federal prison and immigration detention facilities and building nurturing reentry systems to welcome them home and put them on the path to success and citizenship.
But that is just the start. It is a healing process. Next, BREATHE takes steps to build healthy and thriving communities. We know that communities know best how to keep themselves safe. That’s why BREATHE will provide organizations rooted in their communities with the funds to create public safety systems uniquely tailored to their community’s needs and incentivize states to decarcerate and defund.
From there, the sky’s the limit for what our communities can be. BREATHE invests in education justice, housing justice, and environmental justice and fighting systemic, institutional racism because we know safety isn’t more police in the streets. Safety is a place to call home, water you can drink and air you and breath, and schools that help our kids be their best.
Finally, BREATHE seeks to address past wrongs. We want to radically reimagine public safety and take our communities in a new direction, but we cannot gloss over 400 years of harm. BREATHE will study and establish reparations programs, fulfill the federal government’s commitments to indigenous people, and build more accountability in our democracy by expanding the franchise and rooting out the ghosts of Jim Crow.
The future of BREATHE is up to us. A world where transformative and restorative practices replace punishment is within reach. Few took our calls in the streets seriously, so we wrote our own law; one that speaks to our movement. It’s up to us now to fight to make it a reality. This past election, our movement swept into the halls of power. Elected officials like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush represent the power our community is building in the political sphere. It is up to us to keep pushing. We voted at historic rates. Now we must keep the pressure on and stay engaged.
BREATHE can be our reality, but only if we fight for it.”
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So, what do y’all think? Does the BREATHE Act (named to honor Eric Garner and George Floyd’s last words while in police choke holds) seem like good-for-the-nation, sensible legislation ensuring all US of Americans their right to pursue happiness? Or, would all citizens following all laws, equally, help make the world a better place? 😉
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See Also: Operation Ivory Coast