The Cops off Campus Coalition at UCSD movement is taking place on the unceded Territory of the Kumeyaay People
Local Struggles
BIPOC Communities have been struggling against policing in the Territory of the Kumeyaay for 250 years, from torching the San Diego Mission in response to the capture and torture of escaped Kumeyaay [1] to the establishment of Chicanx Park instead of a CHP station [2] to the acquittal of Sagon Penn for killing and injuring SDPD officers in self-defense [3] to the police shooting and killing of Alfred Olango [4] to Black Livers Matter [5] and many others.
The Cops off Campus Coalition at UCSD exists within the context of these historical and current community struggles in our region. This page will document how we learn from, foster connections to, and are in solidarity with these Communities, and our broader connections to the struggles for Black and Indigenous liberation.
Please refer to the “San Diego Resources” section on the homepage and the “History of Policing” essay for more information.
Notes
[1] Stan Rodriguez (2020) Toppling Mission Monuments and Mythologies (video: 17 minutes)
[3] Charles Landon and Bill Scott (19988) I Claim Myself: The Sagon Penn Incident
[4] Saturday Rally, Marches and Protests for Alfred Olango
[5] Black Lives Matter: San Diego
Struggles Across so-called North America, also known to some Indigenous Nations as Turtle Island
Under Construction
Please refer to the “Further Learning” section of the homepage for more information about and materials from organizations and groups across the country.
Struggles Across the Globe
Under Construction
As this website’s History of Policing essay discusses, the anti-Black and anti-Indigenous roots of U.S. policing are located in the exploitative and oppressive systems of slavery and colonialism. During the colonial period, authorities, institutions, and ordinary citizens policed indigenous and black bodies to extract and control their labor, limit their political, economic, and social power, and protect the settlement of and access to land acquired forcefully. Policing served a similar function in the other sites of European colonialism, leaving behind a global legacy that marks most of these societies in ways that parallel the status quo of the contemporary U.S. criminal “justice” system. In many nations today the Indigenous, Blacks, and those in the struggle against institutional racism, cultural erasure, political injustice, the lack of land rights, environmental destruction, and deep economic and social inequalities face state violence on a regular basis. Even in many African countries where Black rule has been reinstated for several decades, capitalist priorities, colonial structures of the government and economy, and regional imbalances of global power continue to promote anti-Blackness decades after independence. The faces of the leaders may have changed, but in numerous societies the manner that colonial authorities built and organized the political economy to benefit the “Global North” and select members of the national elite remains largely in-tact. As a result of these and other historical factors, Blacks and Indigenous groups living in nations such as Nigeria, the Philippines, Australia, and Brazil are still engaged in the fight for the freedoms that political independence never produced. Contemporary racial injustice in Europe is also par for the course.
Global Struggles Against Anti-Blackness and Anti-Indigeneity
Brazil:
In 2016 a federal report stated that the Brazilian police killed more people in five years than the U.S. police kills in thirty. [FOOTNOTE: See, Brazilian Black Coalition of Rights pamphlet, September 2019.] Many Black activists refer to the high number of police and extrajudicial killings of Afro-Brazilians as genocide. The Indigenous, particularly those in the fights to maintain territorial and land use rights and to protect the environment, are murdered at alarming rates as well. In addition, both Indigenous and Black Brazilians have been the most devastated by the COVID crisis.
Links:
Black Brazilian Coalition for Rights Pamphlet
BBC article re: Black Lives Matter in Brazil
The World article re: Black Lives Matter Protests in Brazil and Colombia
IWGIA Article re: Indigenous Constitutional Rights, COVID, and Ecocide
DW Short Documentary on Indigenous Resistance Against Illegal Logging
The World Article re: Indigenous Fight to Protect their Communities from COVID
Black Perspectives Article: re Black Researchers and Activists Respond to COVID-19
Haymarket Books Webinar on COVID, Bolsonaro, and Black and Indigenous Resistance in
Nigeria
Nigerian activists against police brutality started the #EndSARS movement in 2017, but the movement took off in October of 2020, particularly among Nigerian youth. Demonstrators were met with violence and many were killed, yet they managed to push the government to disband SARS, or the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a “security” force infamous for its widespread violent harassment and abuse, torture, extortion, and unlawful killings. [FOOTNOTE: See Sada Malumfashi, “Nigeria’s SARS: A Brief History of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad,” October 22, 2020, Aljazeera.] Demonstrations have continued despite this move by the state, as Nigerian youth demand broad social justice reforms and distrust the government to alter the deadly modus operandi of policing in the country.
Links:
Guardian short video explainer of the EndSARS movement
BBC Article re: Nigerian Women leading the End Sars Protest Movement against Police
Global Citizen Article re: Feminist Coalition in Nigeria, End Sars, and More
Australia
BBC article re: Protests against Aboriginal deaths in police custody in Australia
United Kingdom
BBC article and video re: Blacks Lives Matter in the UK
CNN video and article re: Fighting for Black Lives Matter in Britain
Namibia
The Conversation article re: #ShutItAllDown in Namibia - the fight against gender-based
Philippines
IWGIA Article re: Indigenous Struggles in the Philippines