For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Tunde Osazua
(404) 771-2844
outreach@blackallianceforpeace.com
Atlanta Organizations Demand End to Cop City Project
Atlanta officials to further militarize city with new police training facility
SEPTEMBER 3, 2021—Black Alliance for Peace-Atlanta condemns Cop City, a proposed police training facility on the city-owned Old Atlanta Prison Farm. That is why BAP-Atlanta joins several organizations today to protest at the site of the proposed construction, using the slogan #StopCopCity. The march and rally will take place from 6-8 p.m. starting at 25 Peachtree St SE, Atlanta, GA 30303.
Participating organizations include Community Movement Builders, Community Movement Builders Affiliate Group, Showing Up for Racial Justice, A World Without Police, The S.O.U.L, Endstate ATL, In Defense of Black Lives ATL Coalition, ATL Radical Art, Friends of the Congo, The Atlanta Homeless Union, Sol Underground, and the Sunrise Movement.
Artist’s rendering of the aerial view of Cop City, a proposed police training facility in Atlanta, Georgia.
To put Cop City in context, Atlanta uses the 1033 program, through which the U.S. Department of Defense transfers military equipment to local state and federal law enforcement agencies. Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) is the local manifestation of the “Deadly Exchange” program, in which U.S. and Israeli police and Israeli military share hyper-militarized policing techniques and technology and physically travel to zionist Israel to engage in this exchange.
“Police are called to colonize communities of ALL oppressed folks to carry out the standard imperialist orders, with every intent to do more harm on behalf of the state than actually serving any positive purpose,” says BAP-Atlanta member Khamansha Raphael.
Black people in the United States have a colonial relationship with the larger society. It is a relationship characterized by institutional racism. This colonial status operates in three areas: Politically, economically and socially. We are politically stunted, with our political decisions made for us due to a lack of power. We are economically disenfranchised, depending on larger society. This is maintained by a social order that designates police in our communities as occupying forces.
In this regard, we can see how domestic and global imperialism are counterparts.
“Police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of Black, Brown, and other oppressed groups of people,” says BAP-Atlanta member Salome Ayuak.
We can’t trust elites’ promises to abolish or defund police—policing and incarceration are big business and managed by Democrats and Republicans. Therefore, state violence has no opposition party. Communities that want to dismantle police departments will need to build the collective power to do that work themselves. This is how we can fight efforts like Cop City and defeat the war on African/Black people.
Banner photo: Police officers brutalize protesters near the CNN Center in Atlanta on May 29, 2020. (Mike Stewart/AP)