thenation--2020-06-04--Trump Is Deploying Troops Against Americans, and Military Leaders Are Abetting Him

I imagine that these are difficult days to be a professional soldier serving in the armed forces of the United States .
As a long-ago soldier myself , I hope they are .
That is , for the sake of our republic and for the military professional ethic , I hope that members of the officer corps are deeply troubled by the apparent willingness of the Trump administration and Trump ’ s acolytes in Congress to insert US military regulars into situations where they don ’ t belong .
President Trump has put our troops in a terrible bind .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ defend the Constitution of the United States .
Yet they are also sworn to obey the orders of their commander in chief .
Trump appears intent on forcing our men and women in uniform to choose one or the other : Do as I say , or honor the Constitution .
This is both deeply unfair and profoundly dangerous .
More disturbing still , neither the defense secretary nor chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appears to grasp the predicament in which the troops are being placed .
Or , if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become complicit in the problem .
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley , the JCS chairman , show every sign of indulging President Trump ’ s apparent enthusiasm for employing regulars to impose order in American cities , even if that means , in effect , waging war against American citizens .
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’ More in this series Sounding more like a field marshal than the civilian charged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has opined that “ the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace , the quicker this dissipates.
” The “ battlespace ” in which Esper proposes to “ mass ” US forces consists of neighborhoods where Americans live .
Why the defense secretary feels called upon to make such pronouncements remains a mystery .
Commanding troops in the field does not fall within his statutory mandate .
Yet , truth be told , Esper ’ s inflammatory and more than slightly idiosyncratic views on this matter are not of any particular interest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and few of them leave a lasting mark .
The memorable ones , like Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld , are remembered chiefly as architects of disaster .
Whether Esper is a knave or a fool remains a matter of dispute .
Already by June 3 , he was sounding a less belligerent note , arguing for the commitment of US troops only as a “ last resort.
” Whatever Esper ’ s actual views , it ’ s a safe bet that when he leaves office , no doubt returning to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whence he came , he will be instantly forgotten .
As defense secretary , Esper does at least have this excuse : He is a political appointee .
In that sense , his supine attitude toward the president , something of a signature in the age of Trump , is hardly surprising .
In contrast , senior military officers are not political appointees .
They are expected to be above politics .
For this reason , the outrageously unprofessional misconduct of General Milley is far more troubling .
Now , permit me to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compass will find working for Trump to be a challenge .
The president appears to consider himself a sort of omnipotent god-emperor unbound by law or precedent or even human decency .
That said , no one forced Milley to accept the appointment as JCS chairman .
He had to have had at least some inkling of what he was signing on to .
So when Milley learned that Trump had “ put him in charge ” of suppressing dissent in American streets , he should have heard alarm bells going off .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ call with state governors , Trump had touted Milley as “ a fighter , a warrior , and a lot of victories and no losses.
” Neither germane nor accurate ( what victories ? )
, Trump ’ s characterization of Milley further signaled that something was fundamentally amiss : No longer a senior military adviser to the president , Milley was becoming , at least in Trump ’ s eyes , an instrument of presidentially ordered coercion targeting US citizens .
Not only was Trump engaged in traducing the American tradition of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was also recruiting the US military ’ s top-ranking officer as a co-conspirator .
Wittingly or not , Milley had become an accomplice in subverting the profession that was his life ’ s calling .
Did he understand the dangerous waters into which he was being lured ?
Giving him the benefit of the doubt , perhaps not .
Yet , later that same day , Milley ’ s conscious complicity became evident to all .
Outfitted in battle dress , the rotund general accompanied the equally rotund commander in chief on Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ front of St. John ’ s Episcopal Church across from the White House .
By participating in this blasphemous stunt , Milley not only disgraced his XL-sized uniform but also crossed an important line : Faced with the choice of adhering to professional standards or of publicly joining the bulging ranks of presidential lackeys , he chose the latter .
Together , Trump and Milley have brought the nation precariously close to a Bonus March moment , which ought to give pause to anyone who cares about the integrity of the armed forces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of World War I who in 1932 descended in droves on the capital , hoping to persuade Congress to advance the payment date on bonuses scheduled for disbursement in 1945 .
The Great Depression persuaded veterans that they ought to receive the money now , not later .
When President Herbert Hoover and the Congress disagreed , some 10,000 Bonus Marchers and family members stayed on , establishing an encampment alongside the Anacostia River .
While peaceful , they were not peaceful enough for the president .
Persuaded that a Bolshevik-inspired insurrection was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ army units stationed near Washington to suppress the uprising before it could materialize .
Under the personal direction of Gen. Douglas MacArthur , the army did just that , employing tanks and tear gas and putting the torch to the “ Hooverville ” that the Bonus Marchers had erected .
The “ Battle of Anacostia Flats ” thereby ended in a decisive victory .
It also badly sullied the reputation of the United States Army .
Military Leaders Have an Extraordinary Choice to Make as the Nation Protests With General Milley playing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Battle of Lafayette Square ” —the use of force to clear the way for Trump to visit St. John ’ s Episcopal—replayed that supposed victory from 1932 .
Thus has Marx ’ s dictum of history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce received further affirmation .
Yet the preposterously farcical nature of this episode—Trump striding across Lafayette Square to display sacred scriptures with which he is demonstrably unfamiliar—should not detract attention from the seriousness of the context in which this event unfolded .
Trump and his latest favorite general @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil-military relations , now piled on top of several other ongoing crises .
The origins of the others , involving race relations , the economy , and public health , are complex .
The civil-military crisis differs in that Milley himself could easily have averted it .
Granted , doing so would have required demonstrating some backbone .
“ No , Mr. President , we don ’ t do that .
With all due respect , sir , I won ’ t do that.
” Uttering those words might have cost Milley his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his professional reputation , which has now been obliterated .
To their credit , some retired senior officers have spoken up to denounce the way that Trump , with Milley as his uniformed sycophant , is dragging the US military into matters where it has no place .
Among those registering their dissent is former JCS chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey , a most honorable officer .
In words that Milley ought to have directed to Trump , Dempsey has written , “ America is not a battleground .
Our fellow citizens are not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former Marine , Gen. James Mattis , Trump ’ s first defense secretary , was notably blunt , charging the sitting president with making “ a mockery of our Constitution.
” Yet inside the Beltway , retired senior officers—too many of them preoccupied with monetizing their military careers—retain minimal influence .
My guess is that General Milley doesn ’ t much care what Dempsey or Mattis have to say .
It ’ s certain that their views carry no weight whatsoever with Trump .
Trump Is Using the Military to Hide His Weakness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself to become a presidential stooge is one that Milley himself and his fellow four-stars can resolve .
Taking responsibility for his mistakes , Milley could—and should—resign from his office and retire .
Granted , little in Milley ’ s prior conduct suggests that he possesses the moral fiber needed to take that self-sacrificing step .
Alternatively , Milley ’ s colleagues on the Joint Chiefs can render his continued service as JCS chairman untenable .
They can do this making it clear—first privately and then , if need be , publicly—that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Again , sadly , this is unlikely to happen .
The stewards of the military profession are not known for policing their own ranks .
One day , in the not so distant future , military students attending staff colleges may well read about Milley as a case study of a senior officer failing in his responsibilities , at best through cravenness and at worst through sheer cowardice .
That would at least be something .
Yet , as a practical matter , the best we can hope for in the near term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appointment expires in September 2021 , the Senate will choose not to renew his contract .
While this would constitute no more than a minor rebuke , it would be better than ignoring his failings altogether .
The message to the officer corps would be salutary .
For the moment , however , let us concede that Milley will likely retain his place within Trump ’ s retinue of loyal apparatchiks .
Of course , for Trump , loyalty only goes one way .
General Milley would do well to keep his bags @ @

I imagine that these are difficult days to be a professional soldier serving in the armed forces of the United States. As a long-ago soldier myself, I hope they are.
That is, for the sake of our republic and for the military professional ethic, I hope that members of the officer corps are deeply troubled by the apparent willingness of the Trump administration and Trump’s acolytes in Congress to insert US military regulars into situations where they don’t belong.
President Trump has put our troops in a terrible bind. Their highest obligation is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet they are also sworn to obey the orders of their commander in chief. Trump appears intent on forcing our men and women in uniform to choose one or the other: Do as I say, or honor the Constitution. This is both deeply unfair and profoundly dangerous.
More disturbing still, neither the defense secretary nor chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appears to grasp the predicament in which the troops are being placed. Or, if they understand it, they have chosen to become complicit in the problem. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the JCS chairman, show every sign of indulging President Trump’s apparent enthusiasm for employing regulars to impose order in American cities, even if that means, in effect, waging war against American citizens. George Floyd Protests The Federal Government Is “Affirming Everything That Black People Have Been Saying” Ibrahim Hirsi You Cannot Stop Us From Proclaiming “I, Too, Am America” Maya Wiley In Minneapolis, the Cycle of Police Violence Continues Alyssa Oursler and Anna DalCortivo
Sounding more like a field marshal than the civilian charged with presiding over the Pentagon, Esper has opined that “the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace, the quicker this dissipates.” The “battlespace” in which Esper proposes to “mass” US forces consists of neighborhoods where Americans live. Why the defense secretary feels called upon to make such pronouncements remains a mystery. Commanding troops in the field does not fall within his statutory mandate.
Yet, truth be told, Esper’s inflammatory and more than slightly idiosyncratic views on this matter are not of any particular interest. Defense secretaries come and go, and few of them leave a lasting mark. The memorable ones, like Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld, are remembered chiefly as architects of disaster. Whether Esper is a knave or a fool remains a matter of dispute. Already by June 3, he was sounding a less belligerent note, arguing for the commitment of US troops only as a “last resort.” Whatever Esper’s actual views, it’s a safe bet that when he leaves office, no doubt returning to the upper echelons of the military-industrial complex from whence he came, he will be instantly forgotten.
As defense secretary, Esper does at least have this excuse: He is a political appointee. In that sense, his supine attitude toward the president, something of a signature in the age of Trump, is hardly surprising. In contrast, senior military officers are not political appointees. They are expected to be above politics. For this reason, the outrageously unprofessional misconduct of General Milley is far more troubling. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
Now, permit me to stipulate that anyone with a functioning moral compass will find working for Trump to be a challenge. The president appears to consider himself a sort of omnipotent god-emperor unbound by law or precedent or even human decency. That said, no one forced Milley to accept the appointment as JCS chairman. He had to have had at least some inkling of what he was signing on to.
So when Milley learned that Trump had “put him in charge” of suppressing dissent in American streets, he should have heard alarm bells going off. During that subsequently leaked June 1 phone call with state governors, Trump had touted Milley as “a fighter, a warrior, and a lot of victories and no losses.” Neither germane nor accurate (what victories?), Trump’s characterization of Milley further signaled that something was fundamentally amiss: No longer a senior military adviser to the president, Milley was becoming, at least in Trump’s eyes, an instrument of presidentially ordered coercion targeting US citizens. Not only was Trump engaged in traducing the American tradition of a studiously apolitical officer corps; he was also recruiting the US military’s top-ranking officer as a co-conspirator.
Wittingly or not, Milley had become an accomplice in subverting the profession that was his life’s calling. Did he understand the dangerous waters into which he was being lured? Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps not.
Yet, later that same day, Milley’s conscious complicity became evident to all. Outfitted in battle dress, the rotund general accompanied the equally rotund commander in chief on Trump’s infamous Bible-toting photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House. By participating in this blasphemous stunt, Milley not only disgraced his XL-sized uniform but also crossed an important line: Faced with the choice of adhering to professional standards or of publicly joining the bulging ranks of presidential lackeys, he chose the latter.
Together, Trump and Milley have brought the nation precariously close to a Bonus March moment, which ought to give pause to anyone who cares about the integrity of the armed forces. The Bonus Marchers were destitute veterans of World War I who in 1932 descended in droves on the capital, hoping to persuade Congress to advance the payment date on bonuses scheduled for disbursement in 1945. The Great Depression persuaded veterans that they ought to receive the money now, not later. When President Herbert Hoover and the Congress disagreed, some 10,000 Bonus Marchers and family members stayed on, establishing an encampment alongside the Anacostia River.
While peaceful, they were not peaceful enough for the president. Persuaded that a Bolshevik-inspired insurrection was brewing, a panicked Hoover ordered regular army units stationed near Washington to suppress the uprising before it could materialize. Under the personal direction of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the army did just that, employing tanks and tear gas and putting the torch to the “Hooverville” that the Bonus Marchers had erected. The “Battle of Anacostia Flats” thereby ended in a decisive victory. It also badly sullied the reputation of the United States Army. The Choice Military Leaders Have an Extraordinary Choice to Make as the Nation Protests Andrew McCormick
With General Milley playing a less svelte version of MacArthur, the “Battle of Lafayette Square”—the use of force to clear the way for Trump to visit St. John’s Episcopal—replayed that supposed victory from 1932. Thus has Marx’s dictum of history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce received further affirmation.
Yet the preposterously farcical nature of this episode—Trump striding across Lafayette Square to display sacred scriptures with which he is demonstrably unfamiliar—should not detract attention from the seriousness of the context in which this event unfolded.
Trump and his latest favorite general have collaborated in instigating a crisis in civil-military relations, now piled on top of several other ongoing crises. The origins of the others, involving race relations, the economy, and public health, are complex. The civil-military crisis differs in that Milley himself could easily have averted it.
Granted, doing so would have required demonstrating some backbone. “No, Mr. President, we don’t do that. With all due respect, sir, I won’t do that.” Uttering those words might have cost Milley his job. But he would have preserved his professional reputation, which has now been obliterated.
To their credit, some retired senior officers have spoken up to denounce the way that Trump, with Milley as his uniformed sycophant, is dragging the US military into matters where it has no place. Among those registering their dissent is former JCS chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, a most honorable officer. In words that Milley ought to have directed to Trump, Dempsey has written, “America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy.” As befits a distinguished former Marine, Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s first defense secretary, was notably blunt, charging the sitting president with making “a mockery of our Constitution.”
Yet inside the Beltway, retired senior officers—too many of them preoccupied with monetizing their military careers—retain minimal influence. My guess is that General Milley doesn’t much care what Dempsey or Mattis have to say. It’s certain that their views carry no weight whatsoever with Trump. Trump and His Military Trump Is Using the Military to Hide His Weakness Jeet Heer
The problem Milley has created by allowing himself to become a presidential stooge is one that Milley himself and his fellow four-stars can resolve. Taking responsibility for his mistakes, Milley could—and should—resign from his office and retire. Granted, little in Milley’s prior conduct suggests that he possesses the moral fiber needed to take that self-sacrificing step.
Alternatively, Milley’s colleagues on the Joint Chiefs can render his continued service as JCS chairman untenable. They can do this making it clear—first privately and then, if need be, publicly—that they have lost confidence in his leadership. Again, sadly, this is unlikely to happen. The stewards of the military profession are not known for policing their own ranks.
One day, in the not so distant future, military students attending staff colleges may well read about Milley as a case study of a senior officer failing in his responsibilities, at best through cravenness and at worst through sheer cowardice. That would at least be something. Yet, as a practical matter, the best we can hope for in the near term is that when Milley’s two-year appointment expires in September 2021, the Senate will choose not to renew his contract. While this would constitute no more than a minor rebuke, it would be better than ignoring his failings altogether. The message to the officer corps would be salutary.
For the moment, however, let us concede that Milley will likely retain his place within Trump’s retinue of loyal apparatchiks. Of course, for Trump, loyalty only goes one way. General Milley would do well to keep his bags packed.


thenation--2020-06-04--‘Starve the Beast’: A Q&A With Alex S. Vitale on Defunding the Police

In 2015 , Minneapolis was one of six cities selected by Barack Obama ’ s Department of Justice to pilot a new kind of policing .
Said to be grounded in rigorous social science research , the new initiative aimed “ to build trust ” between the police and the community being policed .
The Minneapolis Police Department would undergo implicit bias training , wear body cameras , and practice mindfulness and “ racial reconciliation ” as part of a three-year , $ 4.75 million project tied to Obama ’ s “ My Brother ’ s Keeper ” campaign .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ then–Attorney General Eric Holder as “ groundbreaking.
” Five years later , the May 25 death of George Floyd , a 46-year-old black man , casts a harsh light on years of expensive police reform initiatives .
A white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd ’ s neck for several minutes while three other officers variously kneeled on his torso and legs or stood by and watched as he gasped , “ I can ’ t breathe.
” Observers filming the incident begged Chauvin to release his knee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he lost consciousness .
He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital less than two hours after police arrived on the scene .
To many who saw it , the display of brutality by the Minneapolis PD signals the failure of police reform .
Can a police force that behaves this way be reformed through anti-bias training and diversity initiatives alone ?
Alex S. Vitale , a sociologist at Brooklyn College and the author of The End of Policing , told me ( on the day that Chauvin was arrested and charged with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) that milquetoast , technocratic reforms are a dead end .
The only leverage left , he pointed out , is to cut police budgets and shrink police power .
“ We must starve the beast , ” he said .
In Vitale ’ s telling , mainstream reform initiatives like the one Minneapolis tried years ago do not wrestle with the history of policing in America .
“ The reality is that the police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and tightly managing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he writes in The End of Policing .
Those who bear the brunt of police use of force , he continues , are “ those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements.
” The police were initially called on Floyd because he allegedly used a counterfeit $ 20 bill to make a purchase at a local grocery store .
Floyd was a bouncer , and like millions of others , he was out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic .
While protesters gathered around the country , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police reform efforts , the necessity of cutting police budgets , and what happens next .
This interview has been edited for length and clarity .
achary iegel : In the aftermath of George Floyd ’ s death , caught on camera and watched by millions of people , does the cycle of police violence ever feel like déjà vu to you—repeating what ’ s happened with other incidents of police brutality you ’ ve followed ?
lex S. itale : All the time .
And that ’ s one of the motivations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a period of about 20 years , we see a continuous pattern of high profile police abuse incidents that stimulate these localized , powerful uprisings that then turn into demands to indict this officer , disband this unit , or hire a few more black police officers .
And then the movement falls apart and nothing changes .
I thought it was important to try to lay out a program for making radical changes in policing that might actually reduce the problems that it ’ s producing for those who are most heavily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deeper analysis that said that we ’ re not going to fix these problems by jailing a couple of killer cops or giving them body cameras or making them take implicit bias training .
Instead , we need to directly challenge the scope and power of policing .
We need to take their budgets away , take their toys away , take their authority away in as many dimensions as we can .
After six years of attempted police reforms , we have nothing to show for it .
Even if some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theory , police leaders refuse to properly implement them .
The only leverage that remains is to starve the beast .
That is a language they can understand , and it has the benefit of reducing their scope and power at the same time .
ZS : Millions of dollars have already been spent “ reforming ” the Minneapolis Police Department .
Just before talking to you , I was reading a report published by the department in 2018 that states , “ MPD has become a national leader in procedural justice initiatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ All MPD sworn and non-sworn personnel are trained in 24 hours of procedural justice theory and application , including implicit bias training and historical trauma.
” According to the document , the officer who kneeled on George Floyd ’ s neck and the others who stood by went through this training .
What is “ procedural justice , ” and does it work ?
The Only Solution Is to Defund the Police AV : Minneapolis was one of a half dozen cities that were selected by the Department of Justice for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these procedural justice training types to go into Minneapolis and fix policing by surveying the public , surveying officers , setting up dialogue sessions , and implementing implicit bias training .
The point of all that , intellectually for them , is to restore the public trust in policing .
And the research behind this is that if the police take the time to talk to people about why they ’ re doing what they ’ re doing , listen to everyone ’ s side of the story , and act in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better about the outcome , even if they get a ticket , even if they get arrested .
Procedural justice has become the dominant form of police reform .
This is what was at the heart of Obama ’ s task force on 21st century policing .
It ’ s a long list of all these kinds of procedural reforms designed to get people to quit protesting the police and obey police orders by getting the police to be friendlier and more respectful .
ZS : Where do you think this approach goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that this approach does not ever deal with questions of substantive justice .
What is the actual mission of policing and what is its actual impact on people ?
So , instead of questioning why we ’ re using police to wage a war on drugs , they respectfully ask the narcotics units to take anti-bias training .
It completely ignores the fact that the War on Drugs is an inherently racist legal program designed by politicians to meet a racist political agenda .
And they just have nothing to say about that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theory , yet it ’ s morally and intellectually and scientifically bankrupt .
What they never measure are the number of arrests , the amount of police use of force , the justness of the arrests that are made , the ethics of why we ’ re using police to manage homelessness and mental health problems or wage a war on drugs .
ZS : Just days before George Floyd ’ s killing , you wrote an op-ed calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to cut the NYPD budget by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has brought a lot of attention to the disparity in city budgets , where spending on police is far higher than on public health , schools , and housing .
Since the majority of police budgets go to paying salaries , do these cuts ultimately call for fewer police ?
AV : It doesn ’ t necessarily mean wholesale firings of police .
We can use attrition , but I also think that we should be using job transfers and not just for police , but for jails and prisons , too .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to work , doing something positive for communities .
If you talk to people in policing and corrections and ask them if they had the option of working in a jail or , for the same pay and benefits , could work in a community center and coach football or mentor teenagers…the vast majority of them would much rather have that community job .
But there are no such jobs like that .
The police department and the corrections department are always hiring and community centers aren ’ t .
And when they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half the salary and half the benefits .
So this budget battle is about getting cities to reprioritize how they deal with the very real needs of the most disadvantaged communities that are subjected to the most intensive policing .
When austerity politics produces problems like mass homelessness , mass involvement in black markets , untreated mental health and substance problems , those problems are turned over to the police to manage , and people who need help are criminalized .
ZS : What other aspects of the budget need to be shrunk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to reduce the headcount .
But in addition , in our proposal in New York , we identified increases in spending on high-tech items , like money for body cameras , money for closed-circuit surveillance , and technology like StingRay tracking devices and ShotSpotters [ acoustic sensors that detect gunshots ] —all these things bloat the police budget .
So stopping the expansion of their surveillance capacities is also a concern .
ZS : Much of your book is dedicated to the history of the police suppressing social movements .
Do you think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a reaction , leading to more surveillance and suppression ?
AV : We ’ re at the beginning of another round of heightened conflict .
And it ’ s important to keep in mind that all policing is political policing .
Policing is created as a form of government authority to manage resistance to exploitation .
That ’ s what we ’ re seeing happening .
People are being subjected to exploitation .
The police are part of that process .
And then when people resist , policing is used to put that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when push comes to shove , all policing is about the suppression of social movements .
But they always try to couch it in this language of legitimacy , which is to say , they try to say , “ Well , we just enforce the law .
We use the minimum force necessary .
We try to be professional.
” AV : They will always do what they have to to suppress any real threat to the status quo .
They will try to use dialogue in many cases , but if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , infiltration , disruption , and arrests .
And as our movements escalate and become more powerful and more threatening , the political policing will become more intensive and also more obvious .
ZS : Others have called for abolishing the police , abolishing ICE and prisons .
Do you consider yourself an abolitionist ?
AV : I think what the abolition movement adds to the conversation is a deep skepticism about the ability to reform institutions whose normal functioning is inherently unjust .
In that sense I consider myself a part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my own thinking about these institutions .
I understand abolition as about a process more than an outcome .
No one ’ s in a position to flip some switch and then tomorrow there are no police or prisons .
The question is “ What is the process we use to analyze and change these institutional relationships ?
” And it ’ s not giving them body cameras ; it ’ s taking away their toys , it ’ s reducing their budgets , it ’ s closing down their institutions and replacing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ build stronger and healthier communities .
Rather than giving police another $ 50 million for body cameras and training , I say let ’ s take $ 200 million away and get them to shut down some of what they do , and take some of that money and put it into things like community-based mental health services and community-based anti-violence initiatives .
What ’ s important here is that we try to create a new understanding of what we mean by justice that is not rooted in punishment and revenge , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to restore relationships , to strengthen communities .
ZS : George Floyd ’ s family wants his name to be remembered .
Moving forward , what can make this incident of police brutality have an impact and throw a wrench in the cycle we ’ re in ?
AV : I think that we have to get beyond the narrative that the solution to this is just to jail killer cops .
That is a degraded notion of justice that is rooted in the same language of punishment and revenge that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
Instead , we need to talk about accountability at both the interpersonal level and institutional level .
Obviously these people should not be police officers , and they have to be put in a situation where they are taking steps to repair some of the harms in ways that actually build up the community .
But there also has to be institutional responsibility and accountability , both for the police and the political leadership of the city .
So that means a political intervention .
And I think the most effective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ term is for these budget interventions to say , “ We ’ re going to take away the scope of your power and we ’ re going to make a demand that will directly result in new resources for our communities .
”

This article appears in the July 13/20, 2020 issue.
In 2015, Minneapolis was one of six cities selected by Barack Obama’s Department of Justice to pilot a new kind of policing. Said to be grounded in rigorous social science research, the new initiative aimed “to build trust” between the police and the community being policed. The Minneapolis Police Department would undergo implicit bias training, wear body cameras, and practice mindfulness and “racial reconciliation” as part of a three-year, $4.75 million project tied to Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” campaign. The national reform program was described by then–Attorney General Eric Holder as “groundbreaking.”
Five years later, the May 25 death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, casts a harsh light on years of expensive police reform initiatives. A white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes while three other officers variously kneeled on his torso and legs or stood by and watched as he gasped, “I can’t breathe.” Observers filming the incident begged Chauvin to release his knee and check Floyd’s pulse as he lost consciousness. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital less than two hours after police arrived on the scene.
To many who saw it, the display of brutality by the Minneapolis PD signals the failure of police reform. Can a police force that behaves this way be reformed through anti-bias training and diversity initiatives alone? Alex S. Vitale, a sociologist at Brooklyn College and the author of The End of Policing, told me (on the day that Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder for Floyd’s death) that milquetoast, technocratic reforms are a dead end. The only leverage left, he pointed out, is to cut police budgets and shrink police power. “We must starve the beast,” he said.
In Vitale’s telling, mainstream reform initiatives like the one Minneapolis tried years ago do not wrestle with the history of policing in America. “The reality is that the police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and tightly managing the behaviors of poor and nonwhite people,” he writes in The End of Policing. Those who bear the brunt of police use of force, he continues, are “those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements.” The police were initially called on Floyd because he allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill to make a purchase at a local grocery store. Floyd was a bouncer, and like millions of others, he was out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic.
While protesters gathered around the country, I spoke with Vitale about the failures of police reform efforts, the necessity of cutting police budgets, and what happens next. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
—Zachary Siegel
Z achary S iegel: In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, caught on camera and watched by millions of people, does the cycle of police violence ever feel like déjà vu to you—repeating what’s happened with other incidents of police brutality you’ve followed? Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
A lex S. V itale: All the time. And that’s one of the motivations for writing the book. Watching over a period of about 20 years, we see a continuous pattern of high profile police abuse incidents that stimulate these localized, powerful uprisings that then turn into demands to indict this officer, disband this unit, or hire a few more black police officers. And then the movement falls apart and nothing changes. I thought it was important to try to lay out a program for making radical changes in policing that might actually reduce the problems that it’s producing for those who are most heavily policed.
I wanted to provide this deeper analysis that said that we’re not going to fix these problems by jailing a couple of killer cops or giving them body cameras or making them take implicit bias training. Instead, we need to directly challenge the scope and power of policing. We need to take their budgets away, take their toys away, take their authority away in as many dimensions as we can.
After six years of attempted police reforms, we have nothing to show for it. Even if some of these reforms were capable of working in theory, police leaders refuse to properly implement them. The only leverage that remains is to starve the beast. That is a language they can understand, and it has the benefit of reducing their scope and power at the same time.
ZS: Millions of dollars have already been spent “reforming” the Minneapolis Police Department. Just before talking to you, I was reading a report published by the department in 2018 that states, “MPD has become a national leader in procedural justice initiatives around the nation.” It says that “All MPD sworn and non-sworn personnel are trained in 24 hours of procedural justice theory and application, including implicit bias training and historical trauma.” According to the document, the officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck and the others who stood by went through this training. What is “procedural justice,” and does it work? Related Article The Only Solution Is to Defund the Police Alex S. Vitale
AV: Minneapolis was one of a half dozen cities that were selected by the Department of Justice for a procedural justice intervention. The DOJ funded these procedural justice training types to go into Minneapolis and fix policing by surveying the public, surveying officers, setting up dialogue sessions, and implementing implicit bias training. The point of all that, intellectually for them, is to restore the public trust in policing. And the research behind this is that if the police take the time to talk to people about why they’re doing what they’re doing, listen to everyone’s side of the story, and act in a procedurally proper manner, then people feel better about the outcome, even if they get a ticket, even if they get arrested.
Procedural justice has become the dominant form of police reform. This is what was at the heart of Obama’s task force on 21st century policing. It’s a long list of all these kinds of procedural reforms designed to get people to quit protesting the police and obey police orders by getting the police to be friendlier and more respectful.
ZS: Where do you think this approach goes wrong?
AV: The problem is that this approach does not ever deal with questions of substantive justice. What is the actual mission of policing and what is its actual impact on people?
So, instead of questioning why we’re using police to wage a war on drugs, they respectfully ask the narcotics units to take anti-bias training. It completely ignores the fact that the War on Drugs is an inherently racist legal program designed by politicians to meet a racist political agenda. And they just have nothing to say about that. So procedural justice is the reigning theory, yet it’s morally and intellectually and scientifically bankrupt. What they never measure are the number of arrests, the amount of police use of force, the justness of the arrests that are made, the ethics of why we’re using police to manage homelessness and mental health problems or wage a war on drugs.
ZS: Just days before George Floyd’s killing, you wrote an op-ed calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to cut the NYPD budget by $1 billion. The coronavirus pandemic has brought a lot of attention to the disparity in city budgets, where spending on police is far higher than on public health, schools, and housing. Since the majority of police budgets go to paying salaries, do these cuts ultimately call for fewer police?
AV: It doesn’t necessarily mean wholesale firings of police. We can use attrition, but I also think that we should be using job transfers and not just for police, but for jails and prisons, too. We should take people and put them to work, doing something positive for communities. If you talk to people in policing and corrections and ask them if they had the option of working in a jail or, for the same pay and benefits, could work in a community center and coach football or mentor teenagers…the vast majority of them would much rather have that community job. But there are no such jobs like that.
The police department and the corrections department are always hiring and community centers aren’t. And when they do hire, it’s at half the salary and half the benefits. So this budget battle is about getting cities to reprioritize how they deal with the very real needs of the most disadvantaged communities that are subjected to the most intensive policing. When austerity politics produces problems like mass homelessness, mass involvement in black markets, untreated mental health and substance problems, those problems are turned over to the police to manage, and people who need help are criminalized.
ZS: What other aspects of the budget need to be shrunk?
AV: The primary thing is to reduce the headcount. But in addition, in our proposal in New York, we identified increases in spending on high-tech items, like money for body cameras, money for closed-circuit surveillance, and technology like StingRay tracking devices and ShotSpotters [acoustic sensors that detect gunshots]—all these things bloat the police budget. So stopping the expansion of their surveillance capacities is also a concern.
ZS: Much of your book is dedicated to the history of the police suppressing social movements. Do you think the uprisings across the country will spark a reaction, leading to more surveillance and suppression?
AV: We’re at the beginning of another round of heightened conflict. And it’s important to keep in mind that all policing is political policing. Policing is created as a form of government authority to manage resistance to exploitation. That’s what we’re seeing happening. People are being subjected to exploitation. The police are part of that process. And then when people resist, policing is used to put that down, to repress it. So when push comes to shove, all policing is about the suppression of social movements. But they always try to couch it in this language of legitimacy, which is to say, they try to say, “Well, we just enforce the law. We use the minimum force necessary. We try to be professional.”
ZS: The procedural language is a cover…
AV: They will always do what they have to to suppress any real threat to the status quo. They will try to use dialogue in many cases, but if necessary, they will use tear gas, infiltration, disruption, and arrests. And as our movements escalate and become more powerful and more threatening, the political policing will become more intensive and also more obvious.
ZS: Others have called for abolishing the police, abolishing ICE and prisons. Do you consider yourself an abolitionist?
AV: I think what the abolition movement adds to the conversation is a deep skepticism about the ability to reform institutions whose normal functioning is inherently unjust. In that sense I consider myself a part of that movement, and that analysis drives my own thinking about these institutions. I understand abolition as about a process more than an outcome. No one’s in a position to flip some switch and then tomorrow there are no police or prisons. The question is “What is the process we use to analyze and change these institutional relationships?” And it’s not giving them body cameras; it’s taking away their toys, it’s reducing their budgets, it’s closing down their institutions and replacing them with the things that actually will build stronger and healthier communities.
Rather than giving police another $50 million for body cameras and training, I say let’s take $200 million away and get them to shut down some of what they do, and take some of that money and put it into things like community-based mental health services and community-based anti-violence initiatives. What’s important here is that we try to create a new understanding of what we mean by justice that is not rooted in punishment and revenge, but rooted instead in trying to build people up to restore relationships, to strengthen communities.
ZS: George Floyd’s family wants his name to be remembered. Moving forward, what can make this incident of police brutality have an impact and throw a wrench in the cycle we’re in?
AV: I think that we have to get beyond the narrative that the solution to this is just to jail killer cops. That is a degraded notion of justice that is rooted in the same language of punishment and revenge that we don’t want to apply to us. Instead, we need to talk about accountability at both the interpersonal level and institutional level. Obviously these people should not be police officers, and they have to be put in a situation where they are taking steps to repair some of the harms in ways that actually build up the community.
But there also has to be institutional responsibility and accountability, both for the police and the political leadership of the city. So that means a political intervention. And I think the most effective way to do this in the short term is for these budget interventions to say, “We’re going to take away the scope of your power and we’re going to make a demand that will directly result in new resources for our communities.”


thenation--2020-06-05--When Shelter Comes Down to the Luck of the Draw

June rent is due this week , and for millions of tenants , the options for relief are running out .
After a brief pause , about half of US states are now allowing evictions again .
The number of people paying rent with their credit cards has risen sharply , available data suggests , and hundreds of thousands have joined rent strikes since March 2020 , according to a national coalition coordinating rent strikes by those who can ’ t or won ’ t pay this month .
This article was reported in partnership with Type Investigations .
With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sight , and evictions resuming in several more states , including Nebraska , Mississippi , and Rhode Island , this week , whether renters can keep a roof over their heads may literally be up to chance .
Some state and local governments are putting federal coronavirus-response dollars toward emergency housing assistance , but with the need outstripping available funding , at least 10 cities in six states have are relying on lottery systems to disburse funds .
A small fraction of renters who apply get help , while everyone else misses out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McKarthy , who jumped at the opportunity to enter a lottery for rent assistance provided by the city of Miami last month .
“ The thing opened at noon , and by 12:01 , my application was submitted , ” he told me .
The president of his local screen actors ’ guild , McKarthy typically earns a living with commercial gigs , but filming has dried up this year .
The personal-training business he runs also shut down in March , when the city issued a stay-at-home order .
That has left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1,680 this month for the apartment he shares with his 4-year-old son in one of the country ’ s most expensive metro areas for renters .
After launching on May 4 , Miami ’ s Emergency Rental and Utility Assistance Program will provide up to $ 1,500 for those who lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19 ( among other criteria ) , a lifeline in an area hard-hit by tourism and service industry layoffs .
But the $ 2 million allocated from federal and state funding won ’ t be enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is using a computerized lottery to pick which renters get a break .
After 50 years of cuts to federal housing funding , rationing affordable housing via lotteries is now normalized , and today only about a quarter of low-income households that qualify for housing assistance ever receive it .
But during a pandemic , the stakes of a housing lottery are higher than ever .
Evictions were set to resume in Florida this week as nearly 6,000 renters who entered Miami ’ s lottery waited to hear whether or not they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second , Governor Rick Scott announced that he would delay them for another month .
In the meantime , City of Miami staff are working their way down the list of randomly assigned numbers to check required documentation , which includes legal immigration status , and send payments out directly to landlords and utility providers .
A spokesperson said they hoped to be able to assist 1,300 households before the money runs out , but did not comment on whether or how many payments had gone out so far .
The computer assigned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , meaning that he is almost certainly out of luck .
“ How they decide who gets help and who doesn ’ t , I don ’ t really understand the logic to it , ” he said .
“ But I ’ ve always been someone others can count on , so I just have to hope some of that will come back to me now.
” The lotteries like the one in Miami are the outgrowth of a massive shortfall in resources to address the Covid-19-related economic collapse .
The National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States needs an additional investment of between $ 76 billion to $ 100 billion just to keep the lowest-income households stably housed over the next year .
The CARES Act provided roughly $ 2.5 billion to maintain existing public and subsidized housing programs , $ 4 billion for emergency homelessness funding , and $ 5 billion in grants that cities and states can choose to use toward emergency housing , but must also rely on for other aspects of Covid-19 response such as small-business assistance .
In that context , dozens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mix of federal , state , and local funding .
In almost every instance , the need among low-income renters has overwhelmed resources by several orders of magnitude .
Boston , Austin , and Chicago all ran their own lotteries for rent relief ; in Chicago , more than 80,000 renters applied for 2,000 available grants .
Cities relying on first-come , first-served systems have had equally dramatic results .
Last month , for example , the city of Houston exhausted its $ 15 million rental assistance fund 90 minutes after applications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s progressive elected officials are moving to fill the void created at the state level , where the state ’ s Supreme Court allowed eviction hearings to resume last month .
Across four counties in North Texas , at least 1,100 evictions were filed while a statewide moratorium was in effect , according to a news report , and are now working their way through the courts .
Travis County , where Austin is located , began hearing eviction cases again this week .
To help its residents , Austin ran a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 10,000 applications and dispersing $ 1.2 million in payments to about 1,500 households , according to District 4 Council Member Greg Casar .
In the meantime , Austin Mayor Steve Adler extended the city ’ s eviction moratorium through July 25 , and City Council members passed an ordinance giving tenants an additional 60-day grace period to come up with back rent once a landlord begins eviction proceedings .
Those protections also give the city more time to scale up rental assistance .
“ Whether or not you have housing should absolutely not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me .
“ Cities are trying to plug holes that the federal government should be addressing .
Now , given that lack of action , we basically have to piece something together that we weren ’ t built to do.
” To stretch dollars as far as possible and avoid paying inflated rents in gentrifying neighborhoods , the city has been asking landlords to accept whichever is lower of two rent values : the amount charged to tenants in their leases or fair-market rent as set by the Department of Housing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small step in the direction that some housing activists are urging .
They point out that rental assistance , through lotteries or other systems , is overwhelming state and local budgets while leaving some landlords largely unscathed .
A recent report by the Action Center on Race and the Economy ( ACRE ) calls for corporate- and private equity-backed landlords like Kushner Companies , Blackstone , and Starwood Capital to cancel rent for the duration of the pandemic .
The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that owners of pass-through businesses will receive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the next 10 years in addition to the nearly $ 50 billion funneled to real estate through the 2017 tax cuts .
Last month , The Wall Street Journal reported that investors are “ flocking to mega-landlords ” that , with plenty of cash on hand , look poised to scoop up distressed assets and expand their businesses as the result of the pandemic .
“ We don ’ t want to set up a system where corporate landlords who are sitting on cash are able to get more cash when they don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said Maurice BP-Weeks , co–executive director of ACRE .
The real-estate lobby has been vocal in its advocacy for a federal solution also favored by many housing nonprofits : a $ 100 billion rental assistance fund , which was included in the HEROES Act passed by the House of Representatives last month but is expected to fail in the Senate .
While this measure would amount to some of the most expansive federal support ever offered to low-income tenants , it would still be “ totally inadequate to the scale of the problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elected officials at all levels of government should think about solutions that ask that more of the cost of relief be borne by companies able to shoulder it .
Absent those solutions , it ’ s hard to say what will happen in places like Miami , where the temporary reprieve granted to renters will run out again on July 1 .
More than 800 evictions have been filed in Miami-Dade County since mid-March , according to Alana Greer , executive director of the legal nonprofit Community Justice Project .
Those may well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s eviction moratorium , but that will have to be sorted out in the courts .
Florida ’ s harsh eviction laws , under which tenants have no guarantee to a day in court , and the state ’ s dysfunctional unemployment system , one of the slowest in the nation to process claims , make the situation especially perilous .
Miami resident Mercedes Zamora is waiting to challenge an eviction that violates federal law , according to her attorney at Miami Legal Services .
A veteran with three children who has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Metrorail since March , Zamora lives in a multifamily building with a mortgage backed by Fannie Mae .
Under the CARES Act passed by Congress in March , owners of buildings with federal subsidies or federally backed mortgages are prohibited from filing for eviction for the nonpayment of rent until the end of July , but there is little enforcement .
Zamora , who suffers from PTSD , said that her landlord served her with a notice after she missed April ’ s rent , and that she has been unable to contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zamora ’ s downstairs neighbor moved out after the onset of the pandemic , and Zamora suspects the apartment has since been turned into an Airbnb .
“ I know she has other buildings , and I know she ’ s getting money from strangers going in and out of the building , ” she said of her landlord .
“ I ’ m pretty sure that I ’ m the one without other options .
”

June rent is due this week, and for millions of tenants, the options for relief are running out. After a brief pause, about half of US states are now allowing evictions again. The number of people paying rent with their credit cards has risen sharply, available data suggests, and hundreds of thousands have joined rent strikes since March 2020, according to a national coalition coordinating rent strikes by those who can’t or won’t pay this month. This article was reported in partnership with Type Investigations.
With no large-scale federal action on housing in sight, and evictions resuming in several more states, including Nebraska, Mississippi, and Rhode Island, this week, whether renters can keep a roof over their heads may literally be up to chance. Some state and local governments are putting federal coronavirus-response dollars toward emergency housing assistance, but with the need outstripping available funding, at least 10 cities in six states are relying on lottery systems to disburse funds. A small fraction of renters who apply get help, while everyone else misses out.
That was the case for John McKarthy, who jumped at the opportunity to enter a lottery for rent assistance provided by the city of Miami last month.
“The thing opened at noon, and by 12:01, my application was submitted,” he told me. The president of his local screen actors’ guild, McKarthy typically earns a living with commercial gigs, but filming has dried up this year. The personal-training business he runs also shut down in March, when the city issued a stay-at-home order. That has left McKarthy struggling to come up with $1,680 this month for the apartment he shares with his 4-year-old son in one of the country’s most expensive metro areas for renters.
After launching on May 4, Miami’s Emergency Rental and Utility Assistance Program will provide up to $1,500 for those who lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19 (among other criteria), a lifeline in an area hard-hit by tourism and service industry layoffs. But the $2 million allocated from federal and state funding won’t be enough to support everyone, so the city is using a computerized lottery to pick which renters get a break. After 50 years of cuts to federal housing funding, rationing affordable housing via lotteries is now normalized, and today only about a quarter of low-income households that qualify for housing assistance ever receive it. But during a pandemic, the stakes of a housing lottery are higher than ever. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Evictions were set to resume in Florida this week as nearly 6,000 renters who entered Miami’s lottery waited to hear whether or not they’d be chosen. At the last second, Governor Rick Scott announced that he would delay them for another month. In the meantime, City of Miami staff are working their way down the list of randomly assigned numbers to check required documentation, which includes legal immigration status, and send payments out directly to landlords and utility providers. A spokesperson said they hoped to be able to assist 1,300 households before the money runs out, but did not comment on whether or how many payments had gone out so far.
The computer assigned McKarthy the number 5,853 out of 5,867, meaning that he is almost certainly out of luck. Current Issue View our current issue
“How they decide who gets help and who doesn’t, I don’t really understand the logic to it,” he said. “But I’ve always been someone others can count on, so I just have to hope some of that will come back to me now.”
The lotteries like the one in Miami are the outgrowth of a massive shortfall in resources to address the Covid-19-related economic collapse. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that the United States needs an additional investment of between $76 billion to $100 billion just to keep the lowest-income households stably housed over the next year. The CARES Act provided roughly $2.5 billion to maintain existing public and subsidized housing programs, $4 billion for emergency homelessness funding, and $5 billion in grants that cities and states can choose to use toward emergency housing, but must also rely on for other aspects of Covid-19 response such as small-business assistance.
In that context, dozens of cities have cobbled together rental assistance from a mix of federal, state, and local funding. In almost every instance, the need among low-income renters has overwhelmed resources by several orders of magnitude. Boston, Austin, and Chicago all ran their own lotteries for rent relief; in Chicago, more than 80,000 renters applied for 2,000 available grants. Cities relying on first-come, first-served systems have had equally dramatic results. Last month, for example, the city of Houston exhausted its $15 million rental assistance fund 90 minutes after applications opened.
In Austin, the city’s progressive elected officials are moving to fill the void created at the state level, where the state’s Supreme Court allowed eviction hearings to resume last month. Across four counties in North Texas, at least 1,100 evictions were filed while a statewide moratorium was in effect, according to a news report, and are now working their way through the courts. Travis County, where Austin is located, began hearing eviction cases again this week. Related Article The Art of Eviction Joshua Hunt
To help its residents, Austin ran a lottery in May, receiving more than 10,000 applications and dispersing $1.2 million in payments to about 1,500 households, according to District 4 Council Member Greg Casar. In the meantime, Austin Mayor Steve Adler extended the city’s eviction moratorium through July 25, and City Council members passed an ordinance giving tenants an additional 60-day grace period to come up with back rent once a landlord begins eviction proceedings. Those protections also give the city more time to scale up rental assistance.
“Whether or not you have housing should absolutely not depend on a lottery,” Casar told me. “Cities are trying to plug holes that the federal government should be addressing. Now, given that lack of action, we basically have to piece something together that we weren’t built to do.”
To stretch dollars as far as possible and avoid paying inflated rents in gentrifying neighborhoods, the city has been asking landlords to accept whichever is lower of two rent values: the amount charged to tenants in their leases or fair-market rent as set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That’s a small step in the direction that some housing activists are urging. They point out that rental assistance, through lotteries or other systems, is overwhelming state and local budgets while leaving some landlords largely unscathed. A recent report by the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE) calls for corporate- and private-equity-backed landlords like Kushner Companies, Blackstone, and Starwood Capital to cancel rent for the duration of the pandemic. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that owners of pass-through businesses will receive $170 billion in tax benefits over the next 10 years in addition to the nearly $50 billion funneled to real estate through the 2017 tax cuts. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that investors are “flocking to mega-landlords” that, with plenty of cash on hand, look poised to scoop up distressed assets and expand their businesses as the result of the pandemic.
“We don’t want to set up a system where corporate landlords who are sitting on cash are able to get more cash when they don’t really need it,” said Maurice BP-Weeks, co–executive director of ACRE.
The real-estate lobby has been vocal in its advocacy for a federal solution also favored by many housing nonprofits: a $100 billion rental assistance fund, which was included in the HEROES Act passed by the House of Representatives last month but is expected to fail in the Senate.
While this measure would amount to some of the most expansive federal support ever offered to low-income tenants, it would still be “totally inadequate to the scale of the problem,” said Weeks. That means elected officials at all levels of government should think about solutions that ask that more of the cost of relief be borne by companies able to shoulder it.
Absent those solutions, it’s hard to say what will happen in places like Miami, where the temporary reprieve granted to renters will run out again on July 1. More than 800 evictions have been filed in Miami-Dade County since mid-March, according to Alana Greer, executive director of the legal nonprofit Community Justice Project. Those may well be in violation of the governor’s eviction moratorium, but that will have to be sorted out in the courts. Florida’s harsh eviction laws, under which tenants have no guarantee to a day in court, and the state’s dysfunctional unemployment system, one of the slowest in the nation to process claims, make the situation especially perilous.
Miami resident Mercedes Zamora is waiting to challenge an eviction that violates federal law, according to her attorney at Miami Legal Services. A veteran with three children who has been unable to work her job at the Metrorail since March, Zamora lives in a multifamily building with a mortgage backed by Fannie Mae. Under the CARES Act passed by Congress in March, owners of buildings with federal subsidies or federally backed mortgages are prohibited from filing for eviction for the nonpayment of rent until the end of July, but there is little enforcement.
Zamora, who suffers from PTSD, said that her landlord served her with a notice after she missed April’s rent, and that she has been unable to contact her to work out an arrangement. Zamora’s downstairs neighbor moved out after the onset of the pandemic, and Zamora suspects the apartment has since been turned into an Airbnb.
“I know she has other buildings, and I know she’s getting money from strangers going in and out of the building,” she said of her landlord. “I’m pretty sure that I’m the one without other options.”


thenation--2020-06-05--This Is the Sound of Gentrification

This Is the Sound of Gentrification

With storefronts shuttered , new buildings abandoned before they ’ re completed , and the whole economy imploding in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis , the topic of gentrification may seem less urgent than it was a few months ago .
Yet as the composer Ted Hearne brings home in Place , an extraordinary work of genre-collapsing music written with the poet Saul Williams , gentrification is not just a potent symbol of the tyranny of late capitalism ; it ’ s part of a complex of problems more profound and more destructive than gouging rents , artisanal boutiques @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oratorio ( for lack of a better term that would do justice to its uniqueness ) , Place is a concert-length work of 19 songs or movements—though none of the pieces here is a song in the conventional sense , even as many of them adopt electronics and process voices through the aural Snapchat-filter effects associated with contemporary pop .
Hearne , a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018 , and Williams , a writer and performer who has released nine fiercely serious albums of his own , began working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to collaborate on a piece for the Liquid Music Festival in Chicago in 2016 .
Written under commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Beth Morrison Projects ( an influential sponsor of experimental vocal works ) , Place made its debut as a concert/multimedia extravaganza at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in October 2018 , with Hearne conducting a group of six singers and 18 instrumentalists , including a chamber ensemble and an R & B band .
A performance by the commissioning orchestra at Disney Hall was scheduled for March 24 of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be canceled along with the rest of the LA Philharmonic ’ s spring season .
Fortunately , a studio recording has now been released , and it shows Place to be a monumental work of aural art—one that needs no A/V dressing-up to cast light on the horrors that gentrification exemplifies , reflects , and perpetuates .
As Williams writes in one selection , “ A Thought , ” recited in back-and-forth syncopation by him and the singer Ayanna Woods : Gentrification is a generational conversation that has gone by many names .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ back to the city without acknowledging why you left .
White flight .
White flight .
White flight .
Now that winter is over , you ’ re flying back .
Will you bring your old viruses with you ?
Will you push us away ?
Are you capable of playing and living with others ?
Or will you find reasons , very sane and honorable reasons , for pricing us out , for placing us in camps , prisons , squats… .
eraaaaaaaaaasure .
The form of Place follows the method of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got to know each other , they realized they had both lived part of their lives in Fort Greene , Brooklyn , but saw the place—and their place in it—from irreconcilably different points of view : one of privilege and one more marginal .
Hearne wrote the bulk of the libretto to the first part of the oratorio , confronting his whiteness and his awkward status as an empathetic gentrifier .
He takes up his feelings of guilt with a candor about the limits of his understanding that prevents the piece from coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One whole song is built from the excerpts of an interview the director Patricia McGregor conducted with him in preparation for the multimedia version of Place : Hearne mumbles and stutters , drifts off and never quite articulates what he thinks about cultural displacement .
That lack of understanding—and the privilege that allows a white male to live successfully with it—becomes the theme of the song .
Inertia , or the racial power structure that engenders it , is the music ’ s engine .
To make the second part of Place , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ libretto to Williams , who responded with a text that Hearne then set to music ; it ’ s performed on the record by Williams and a group of other singers , augmented on one song by the Chicago Children ’ s Choir .
The tone of both the language and the music shifts from tentative rumination and irresolution to discontent and forceful social protest .
In the dramatic climax of the oratorio , “ Beneath the ruins are older ruins , ” Woods sings over the grim hammering of orchestral noise : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forces in contemporary music today , draws freely from countless traditions—symphonic music , indie rock , gospel , hip-hop , pop , electronica—filtered through his emotionally open mind and combined with styles he seems to have invented himself .
He embraces the use of found materials : samples of Erykah Badu , Nina Simone , Modest Mouse , and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs ; snippets of text from James Baldwin ’ s The Fire Next Time ; a passage from Zora Neal Hurston ’ s “ How It Feels to Be Colored Me.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ repurposing a theme—the musical embodiment of the geo-social appropriation inherent in gentrification .
As Hearne has said in an interview about Place , “ Can the societal hierarchies and patterns that influenced the creation or reception of music be separated from the music itself ?
Are the same ideologies responsible for structures of systemic racism—redlining , displacement , housing insecurity—inextricably embedded in a piece like [ Handel ’ s ] Messiah ?
” It is no slight to the individual accomplishments of either Hearne or Williams to recognize that , in collaboration , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unshakably powerful musical statement on a complex and vital theme .
As Williams reminds us in the final words of “ Beneath the ruins are older ruins , ” race hate , avarice , and power lust are contagions as dangerous as any virus :

With storefronts shuttered, new buildings abandoned before they’re completed, and the whole economy imploding in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, the topic of gentrification may seem less urgent than it was a few months ago. Yet as the composer Ted Hearne brings home in Place, an extraordinary work of genre-collapsing music written with the poet Saul Williams, gentrification is not just a potent symbol of the tyranny of late capitalism; it’s part of a complex of problems more profound and more destructive than gouging rents, artisanal boutiques, and empty luxury developments.
An oratorio (for lack of a better term that would do justice to its uniqueness), Place is a concert-length work of 19 songs or movements—though none of the pieces here is a song in the conventional sense, even as many of them adopt electronics and process voices through the aural Snapchat-filter effects associated with contemporary pop. Hearne, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018, and Williams, a writer and performer who has released nine fiercely serious albums of his own, began working on Place not long after they met to collaborate on a piece for the Liquid Music Festival in Chicago in 2016. Written under commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Beth Morrison Projects (an influential sponsor of experimental vocal works), Place made its debut as a concert/multimedia extravaganza at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in October 2018, with Hearne conducting a group of six singers and 18 instrumentalists, including a chamber ensemble and an R&B band. A performance by the commissioning orchestra at Disney Hall was scheduled for March 24 of this year, but it had to be canceled along with the rest of the LA Philharmonic’s spring season. Fortunately, a studio recording has now been released, and it shows Place to be a monumental work of aural art—one that needs no A/V dressing-up to cast light on the horrors that gentrification exemplifies, reflects, and perpetuates.
As Williams writes in one selection, “A Thought,” recited in back-and-forth syncopation by him and the singer Ayanna Woods:
Gentrification is a generational conversation that has gone by many names. We should not discuss what brings you back to the city without acknowledging why you left. White flight. White flight. White flight. Now that winter is over, you’re flying back. Will you bring your old viruses with you? Will you push us away? Are you capable of playing and living with others? Or will you find reasons, very sane and honorable reasons, for pricing us out, for placing us in camps, prisons, squats…. eraaaaaaaaaasure.
The form of Place follows the method of its composition. When Hearne and Williams got to know each other, they realized they had both lived part of their lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, but saw the place—and their place in it—from irreconcilably different points of view: one of privilege and one more marginal. Hearne wrote the bulk of the libretto to the first part of the oratorio, confronting his whiteness and his awkward status as an empathetic gentrifier. He takes up his feelings of guilt with a candor about the limits of his understanding that prevents the piece from coming off as pandering or woke-boy piety. One whole song is built from the excerpts of an interview the director Patricia McGregor conducted with him in preparation for the multimedia version of Place: Hearne mumbles and stutters, drifts off and never quite articulates what he thinks about cultural displacement. That lack of understanding—and the privilege that allows a white male to live successfully with it—becomes the theme of the song. Inertia, or the racial power structure that engenders it, is the music’s engine.
To make the second part of Place, Hearne gave the first part of the libretto to Williams, who responded with a text that Hearne then set to music; it’s performed on the record by Williams and a group of other singers, augmented on one song by the Chicago Children’s Choir. The tone of both the language and the music shifts from tentative rumination and irresolution to discontent and forceful social protest. In the dramatic climax of the oratorio, “Beneath the ruins are older ruins,” Woods sings over the grim hammering of orchestral noise:
I need a million mouths to say this
but I only have this one.
A million bright ambassadors
of mourning mothers’ Sun.
Hearne, among the most adventurous creative forces in contemporary music today, draws freely from countless traditions—symphonic music, indie rock, gospel, hip-hop, pop, electronica—filtered through his emotionally open mind and combined with styles he seems to have invented himself. He embraces the use of found materials: samples of Erykah Badu, Nina Simone, Modest Mouse, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; snippets of text from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time; a passage from Zora Neal Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” In the process, he makes repurposing a theme—the musical embodiment of the geo-social appropriation inherent in gentrification. As Hearne has said in an interview about Place, “Can the societal hierarchies and patterns that influenced the creation or reception of music be separated from the music itself? Are the same ideologies responsible for structures of systemic racism—redlining, displacement, housing insecurity—inextricably embedded in a piece like [Handel’s] Messiah?”
It is no slight to the individual accomplishments of either Hearne or Williams to recognize that, in collaboration, they have created something monumental, an unshakably powerful musical statement on a complex and vital theme. As Williams reminds us in the final words of “Beneath the ruins are older ruins,” race hate, avarice, and power lust are contagions as dangerous as any virus: