[Note: this thread by Nick Estes reminds us—especially now that Ypsilanti will be given a few hundred thousand tax dollars which its mayor has earmarked for hiring more cops—that we need to abolish, not remedy, the system of policing.]

1. we are conditioned to view police violence in the spectacular. what evidence shows us is that “routine” policing is the most deadly.
 
2. the “cop logic”—that poc & native ppl are an invariable threat—normalize “stop & frisks” & “safety checks.”
 
3. how much the state intervenes in one’s life (e.g., welfare, medicaid, dss, etc.) determines precarity. more intervention = more precarity
 
4. police intervene in one’s life precisely at the moment of vulnerability/crises—when health/social care is withheld or denied.
 
5. for native ppl, state intimacies are deadly. if you do not die from the failure of health & social care, the police will finish the job.
 
6. “finishing the job”—the logic of elimination—encompasses the carceral institutions of juvenile detention, foster homes, jails, prison
 
7. elimination is not merely physical extermination, but rather removing “surplus” native life from the land & imprisoning it.
 
8. murdered by police is not an anomaly but a logical outcome of carceral elimination—altho it is not the principle form of discipline.
 
9. police merely respond to the social, political, legal, economic crisis of native life—the failure to honor treaty rights, sovereignty, etc.
 
10. an abolitionist stance would be abt divestment/investment. divestment from police/military. investment in treaty rights.
 
11. investment in treaty/indigenous rights include: land, health, political autonomy, economic justice, education, environmental justice.
 
12. to uphold treaty/indigenous rights means to fight for a living social wage & fundamental human rights w/ land restoration/protection.
 
13. the murder of native children like Jason Pero is the settler state’s renunciation of its own humanity & human & indigenous rights.
 
14. the police have murdered 6 native men & 1 native child in 20 days & currently imprison countless relatives in jail & on parole.
 
15. for the usa, if it’s only tool is a hammer, then all native issues look like a nail. we must think beyond murderous police.
 
16. it is irresponsible to “turn away” from maws of the state, where most of our young relatives are trapped. we must confront it head on.
 
17. Jason Pero was not an activist. this pernicious system will find you no matter what (& it will kill). whether you resist or not or “turn away” from it, in its jaws are many of our young ppl & most vulnerable.