Defund and reallocate: a community discussion on the police with Alma Brooks and El Jones [video]

Following the June police killings of Chantel Moore, a member of Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, in Edmundston and Rodney Levi, a member of Metepenagiag First Nation, in his home community near Miramichi, newly formed Solidarité Fredericton organized to have Wolastoqiyik grandmother and land defender Alma Brooks and Halifax-based poet, educator, journalist and activist El Jones discuss action on the police.

Watch the event here:

The event was organized in counsel with Wolastoq Grand Council Chief Ron Tremblay and was supported by Mayworks Fredericton and the NB Media Co-op that has published Aditya Rao’s popular commentaries on police spending and banning racist carding by the police.

When a participant asked for recommendations on what to read, the Zoom chatroom filled with the following works and authors:

Defundthepolice.org

Defund12nb.org

The Broadbent Institute’s Policy Options for Defunding the Police and Creating Alternative Services of Safety and Support

Robyn Maynard’s Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present

Desmond Cole’s The Skin We’re In: A Year of Resistance and Power

Pamela Palmater

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Glen Coulthard

Chelsea Vowel’s Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nation, Métis and Inuit Issues in Canada

Art Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson’s Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call

Brenna Brandhar’s Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land and Racial Regimes of Ownership

To find out more about Solidarité Fredericton, an anti-capitalist group committed to organizing on a feminist and anti-racist basis, email fredericton.solidarity@gmail.com.