Cop City
I want to write this month’s blogpost about the creation of “cop city” nearby Atlanta. Cop city is a part of the continued militarization of police forces in the US who are then deployed against communities of colour to maintain the status quo of neoliberal capitalism and white supremacy through racialized violence. Further, the site of cop city, which would create a military-style large training facility for police would be located in Weelaunee Forest, which is predominantly next to communities of colour. Thus, the space that the facility takes up is a clear sign that the police intend to use violence to maintain white supremacy and crush dissent. The proposed space is also being constructed on land historically belonging to indigenous Muscogee people. The state’s creation of cop city on this land is therefore a continuation of colonial forms of dispossession and displacement.
Further, cop city is bankrolled by large corporations like the Koch brothers and Coca Cola. These corporations are more than happy to bankroll police violence, which can crush any dissent against neoliberal capitalism and the endless drive for accumulation of profits. For these corporations, the displacement and violence inflicted upon communities of colour by militarized police is part and parcel of maintaining their power.
In fact, the main reason that cop city has come more into the news is because of the police murder of Manuel Teran, also known as Tortuguita, who was an activist protesting against cop city. Teran’s brother, Daniel Esteban Paez, was interviewed after the murder of Tortuguita, and as Paez discovered, “I quickly found out, [the police] are not investigating the death of Manuel — they’re investigating Manuel”. This supposed investigation of Tortuguita also follows the arrest of other protesters against cop city for domestic terrorism. Of course, the state will use the full power of the law and of its militarized police to stifle protest and maintain white supremacy.
The framings of these arrests for domestic terrorism and the subsequent protests in Atlanta against cop city and the murder of Tortuguita have, of course, been framed as more domestic terrorists seeking to destroy property and cause chaos. The city of Atlanta and the Governor of Georgia have declared a state of emergency and will bring in armed national guards after protests escalated against Atlanta police. The response to these protests indicate that those in power may be alright with a few restrictions on police carrying weapons or on giving more training to police but actual anti-police protests will be met with violence and severe punishments to the protesters.
The intimate connections of politicians in power and large corporations with cop city and bankrolling police violence is hardly surprising. Rather, it reveals the historical roots of police and state violence in maintaining white supremacy and capitalism and crushing those who would seek to overthrow it. Indeed, historical roots of policing in the US lie in slave patrols in the South tasked with arresting escaped slaves and enslaving them once again. In the US, in particular, state violence is rooted in manifest destiny and the ruthless dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples by white settler-colonialists. In a sense, cop city represents an evolution towards ever-more extreme forms of militarization of police who know that the laws and those in power will support them when they inflict racialized violence and crush women, people of colour, queer people and disabled people when they dare speak out against white supremacy. As I have argued in previous posts, understanding the history of hetero-patriarchy, white supremacy and racial violence is crucial to understanding how power is maintained and how violence is wielded by the state today. Understanding this history is also about realizing the importance of dismantling these oppressive systems. It is through the courage of people like Tortuguita that another world or worlds is possible.
