Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
Anti-Racist Organizers Win as Seattle Council Votes to End Youth
Incarceration
Marcus Harrison Green
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Yes! Magazine
After a three-year crusade of protest, agitation, and organizing, a Seattle
City Council meeting on September 21 brought a major victory to a diverse
coalition of youth-prison abolitionists and anti-racist organizers.
“We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the youth activists.”
In a 9-0 unanimous decision, Seattle’s City Council passed a resolution that fully endorses the goal of zero-percent
detention of youth [1],
and called for the city to develop policies eliminating the necessity of their
imprisonment.
While Council Member Mike O’Brien introduced the resolution in a committee
meeting last week, it originated with three organizations that advocate for the
abolition of juvenile incarceration: Ending the Prison Industrial Complex
(EPIC), Youth Undoing Institutional Racism (YUIR), and the Seattle branch
of the anti-racist organization European Dissent.
“We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the youth activists,” said
Council Member Nick Licata prior to the resolution’s passage. “They’re the ones
who created the huge pressure on the county and also the city.”
Seattle’s movement for ending youth incarceration picked up speed after the
same city council in 2012 voted overwhelmingly (8-1, with only Kshama Sawant
opposed) to fund the replacement of an existing youth detention facility with a
new one. What struck organizers at that time was the $210 million poured into
the facility.
“I was here the day all except Council Member Sawant voted to build a youth
jail with $200 million of our tax money,” asserted white anti-racist organizer
James Kahn, addressing the city council. “The movement did not stop after those
defeats. The movement could not stop or end until we stop putting children in
cages.”
African Americans make up about 8 percent of Seattle’s population, yet
account for more than 50 percent of the city’s incarcerated adolescents on any
given night, according to a letter by King County Executive Dow Constantine.
Organizers drummed up support not just against the prison, but also toward
ending juvenile imprisonment anywhere in the 206 area code by knocking on
doors, frequenting city council hearings, and speaking out at community
meetings.
Besides pushing for a moratorium on juvenile incarceration, the resolution
also calls for the city to fund community-based organizations that are already
engaged in anti-racist work and have been working to eliminate youth detention.
The amount of funding was not specified.
“This resolution could be seen by some as an act of good faith, that
nothing else changes. And I think that’s absolutely right,” O’Brien said,
speaking to those in attendance moments before the vote. “This is a very
important step today for the city to take this action, but it by itself does
nothing to change the reality.”
O’Brien was referencing that, as a resolution, the measure is nonbinding,
meaning the city isn’t legally mandated to enact it. However, to attendees,
many of them organizers who had dedicated the last three years of their lives
to this movement, there is a moral and human imperative that its promises be
fulfilled—not just for the city but also for the United States.
“I think the city council members are gatekeepers, just like anyone else,
and if they’re committed to an anti-racist vision, they’re going to have to
make sure they’re centering themselves in the community,” said Senait Brown,
one of EPIC’s lead organizers, who could barely contain her jubilation after
the resolution passed.
“Our job is to build our community, to build our analysis, to build our
strength, to build our resilience, to keep tight about what standard it is that
we want to see for black youth in Seattle, and that’s what we’re going to
continue to do, to continue to hold every institutional body accountable to
that.”
Marcus Harrison Green wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Marcus is a
YES! Reporting Fellow. He is the founder of the South Seattle Emerald. Follow
him on Twitter @mhgreen3000.
Source URL: https://portside.org/2015-10-03/anti-racist-organizers-win-seattle-council-votes-end-youth-incarceration
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has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
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