#CopFreeNYC statement: RAPP, VOCAL-NY, and the #NPIC
this statement was shared with copfreenyc.com and others via email on july 11. as of july 21, there was no response (though the website has added new statements, including one submitted to them by email on july 20, since this one was originally written and sent). it is therefore being reproduced below with minor edits.
First and most importantly, I support the statements of the survivors who’ve spoken out in recent weeks. Here’s to a world where the abusers, apologists, and complicit organizations respond by meeting the demands and goals they claim to support, instead of the mess of gaslighting and defensiveness that has come out so far.
In furthering the message of #CopFreeNYC and the goal of destroying the u.s. and all other imperialist nations, I would like to contribute a brief highlighting of the fact that Why Accountability is far from the only organization that openly collaborates with law enforcement in NYC.
The “about” page on the website for Release Aging People in Prison: RAPP Campaign states: “One of our most recent and critical partnerships is with the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, current and former members of law enforcement whose goal is ‘advancing justice and public safety solutions.’” The page goes on to list the numerous grantmaking foundations which support RAPP in what amounts to an advertisement for the nonprofit industrial complex (NPIC).
http://rappcampaign.com/about/
One of RAPP’s close organizational collaborators is VOCAL-NY, which also played an important role in the “occupation” of City Hall that began in late June. The fact that NYPD allowed this to happen, when just a few weeks earlier they responded with a surge of anti-Black terrorism and violence to Black people rising up against our oppressors and their oh-so-precious property, suggests that if we seek to fight the infiltration of neo-slave patrols into anti-oppression movements we need to identify and defend ourselves against structures and organizations that collaborate with the police — like nonprofits/NGOs and the massive foundations that pay for them to control movements — as well as individual agents of the state.
The expansion of the nonprofit system in the united states was a direct response to the surge of Black rebellions in the 1960s and an attempt to enforce so-called “integration” into an oppressor nation while simultaneously destroying the Black liberation movement. This is police work. And it is no coincidence that people who hold paid positions at nonprofits and other forms of social capital not only abuse Black people of marginalized genders and sexualities, but mobilize their clout to silence victims and protect the reputations of the organizations that supply their paychecks.
I hope these points can help guide Black revolutionaries, Black survivors, and those in REAL solidarity (not just when it’s convenient) to deepen our understanding of how grave our situation is — including within our organizations — so that we may better break our chains.
– SJ
