The Advocate

(Bell Hooks Unscripted, by Apanaki Temitayo) "Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist." ― By bell hooks. Take note and take care.

(Artist and title unknown) "There is no real difference for users between a platform that has no policies against hate speech, incitement, and disinformation, and one which has such policies but does not enforce them." —V. Judah Khaykin. Take note and take care.

 *CONTENT NOTICE/TRIGGER WARNING: this post discussed racist police violence and contains links to images/videos of that content.* (“Stop Police Brutality” by Icy and Sot) On November 21, at around 11:10 AM, an unnamed SLPD officer tased an innocent and mentally ill member of our city's unsheltered community in another act of police brutality in our city. This happened within less than 30 seconds from when the officer first made contact with the victim. The officer was ostensibly responding to a complaint from a local business, the Downtown McDonald's, about an allegation of someone "acting crazy" and "throwing punches." However, no one was hurt. No property was destroyed. No one was armed. There was no reason or basis to assume the victim posed a danger to themselves or others. Even worse, despite assertions to the contrary by SLPD, the officer did not engage in deescalation or crisis intervention tactics. There is no evidence that the CATT program was call

( James Goldcrown’s mural #lovewall) "Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love." — Khalil Gibran, The Prophet Take note and take care.

( Attribution )   "Your life has been one long thread of hurt. Now, what will you mend with that thread?" — Paraphrase of @sagescrittore Sorry for the delay in posting! Take note and take care.

Signal boosting to amplify this incredible opportunity: "My name is Nguyen Pham, and earlier this year, I created the Mensa Foundation's first-ever Progress Pride Scholarship to lift and center marginalized students at the intersection of BIPOC and LGBTQ.   The Progress Pride Scholarship has just officially launched, and I'm spreading the word to drum up interest in the application.  Up for grabs are two $10k college scholarships -- the Foundation's largest scholarship awards ever -- for those who identify as BIPOC and LGBTQ and who have a demonstrated record of positive service to the BIPOC and LGBTQ communities.   An essay is all that's required up front, due January 15, 2022.  Open to all U.S. university students.  Awardee(s) will be selected in early 2022 and will then need to furnish a résumé/CV.   To help with promotion, I've assembled an info page at https://progresspride.org/ as well as an e-flier, included below and attached as a forwardable image.   W

A recent article from Shaila Dewan at the NY Times lays out some compelling complexities of nuance around policing, reimagining public safety, and the true costs of both. Rather than summarize, I have embedded the poignant points below. For the TL;DR version, the basic finding is that sometimes police can potentially help a little bit, but the costs are far more than the cheaper and greater gains from funding communities instead of more cops, and it's better from a moral and ethical standpoint. "With shootings and homicides surging in many cities, calls to redirect money to policing are rising. But evidence that hiring more officers is the best way to reduce crime is mixed: Beefing up a police force can help, but the effects are modest and far from certain. Those who study the question say any declines in crime have to be weighed against the downsides of adding more police officers, including negative interactions with the public, police violence and further erosion of public