Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Praxis

1. What can and will be done to hold police accountable for the violence that they enact in our communities? 

2. What happens when we question the fundamental assumption that police and policing are our only options for community safety?  

3. What is the vocabulary of our suffering and liberation?  

4. Is it acceptable for Indigenous people to use a #NativeLivesMatter variation of the #BlackLives- Matter hashtag?  

5. Does the language of “colonization” apply to both the Black and Indigenous experiences? 

6. Is language addressing the particular struggles of Indigenous people adequately incorporated into conversations about police violence?  

7. We were unable to summarize every case study in this guide, but ask readers to spend time looking up the cases we did not mention. The names of the primary victims in these cases are listed below:

   1. Ortiz Glaze 

   2. Roberto Rodriguez

   3. Janisha Fonville

   4. Tamara Loertscher 

   5. LaTanya Haggerty 

   6. Kendra James 

   7. Malissa Williams 

   8. Mya Hall

Additional Resources

Alternatives to calling the police

• We have created this guide based on the organizations mentioned in Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Other Study Guides

• Abolition Democracy by Angela Davis

• We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba

Articles 

• “Defunding the Police Will Actually Make Us Safer” by Paige Fernandez  

• “The forgotten minority in police shootings” by Elise Hansen 

Books 

• An Abolitionist's Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World by Patrisse Cullors 

Organizations 

• The Audre Lorde Project’s Safe OUTside the System Safe Neighborhood Campaign – Based in New York City, the Audre Lorde Project focuses on community organizing and radical nonviolent activism around issues including LGBT+ communities, AIDS and HIV activism, and more. The campaign gives community members the skills to respond to harm that does not rely on the police.   

• The Oakland chapter of Critical Resistance (CR) 

• Black Lives Matter 

• National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) 

Podcasts  

• Vox Conversations: “Imagine a future with no police” 

• Throughline: “Policing in America”  

Following local organizations doing the work, not solely abstract informational accounts 

• @audrelordeproject

• @kyccla

• @powerblossoms

• @criticalresistancepdx