Milk Not Jails: Rural-Urban Partnerships Oppose the Prison Industrial Complex

I'm back home in Minnesota after the conclusion of the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, last Saturday. Host to this historic gathering of 15-20,000 social justice strugglers from progressive business owners to anarchists, Detroit was and remains on the front lines of capitalism's crisis. It's a city of contradictions. Thriving community gardens dot otherwise overgrown lots and abandoned buildings; friendly smiles mask neighborhoods plagued by violence and one of the nation's highest rates of police killings.

In my last article about the Forum, I mentioned Threat Management, the paramilitary-style firm hired to provide security at the USSF's official tent village. From a friend connected with the bicycle caravan camping there, I learned more.

"One of my friends on the caravan showed up at the village, saw the paramilitary guys, said 'Uh-uh,' and left to find housing on her own," she told me. "But in that village, there were also three full busloads of youth from out east, all under 18. The paperwork they had to do to just to get to Detroit was incredible, and all their parents had to sign waivers. So I guess the Forum needed those security guys to prove to the parents that the camp would be safe."

To us, that raised the question: Could we create a sort of safety without fences and guns, or prisons and police--a safety from below?

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2010
06/29
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