By George Kevin Jordan, AFRO Staff Writer

A collective of D.C. organizations and activists took to the streets during the President’s Day holiday to protest the Mayor’s $500 million in funding for police, as well as President’s Trump’s declaration of a National Emergency, pushing of billions of dollars for a wall and further milaterising of the border against refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers.

“We know that the Metropolitan Police Department does not keep us safe nor reduce crime,” said Kai Hartsfield of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100). “Investing in surveillance instead of resources for those most marginalized by the state to keep their communities safe is an affront to all of us. Locking our people behind cages and walls does not erase the issues that Washington D.C. or the U.S. faces, and we won’t stand by while Bowser continues to prioritize surveillance and police over people.”

A collective of D.C. organizations rallied to protest local and federal officials on President’s Day. (Courtesy Photo)

The coalition of groups present included BYP100, Black Lives Matter DMV, Mijente, They/Them Collective and UndocuBlack.

“The police that terrorize neighborhoods like Deanwood and Congress Heights in D.C. are the same ones who conspire and cooperate with I.C.E. to raid and terrorize community members who are immigrants,” said April Goggans of Black Lives Matter D.C. (BLM D.C.). “We cannot and will not be silent while people like Mayor Bowser throw money at police instead of funding housing, community safety initiatives and an equitable education for our children.”

Later, in a phone interview with the AFRO, Goggans explained how the rally came to encompass both a local and national rebuke of current policies.

“Originally the protest was just about bringing awareness to D.C.’s budget and how Mayor Bowser is pushing for more police under the guise of community safety,” Goggans said. “But we have a different view of what safety is which is more than just not having violent crime.”

“All of us have campaigns that center around sustained and state violence as well as how much we invest in them and how real safety would come investing in community in housing, investing in the food deserts.”

The organizations have multitiered campaigns to take a holistic approach to ensuring the safety of Black and Brown people both in D.C. and on the borders, including decriminalizing sex work, taking a public health approach to community violence and ending stop and frisk.

“There’s not a different mechanism of White supremacy,” Goggans added. “It’s the same sort of White supremacy that is behind this wall.”

The D.C. Metropolitan budget has stayed around $500 million each year from 2016 to the current, according to the Mayor’s FY2019 Budget proposal. The District has a proposed budget overall of $14.4 billion between local, federal and other funds. Simultaneously the District has seen an uptick in certain crimes including homicides over the last two years.

Meanwhile the ire over Trump’s National Emergency to build a wall culminated in several states suing the president and other officials in court.

Protesters were calling for a unified front of coalitions to combat racist and violent actions and legislation that the wall represents.

“How do we make sure our policy acts and our and organization acts protect folks who are vulnerable because of their documentation status?” Samantha Master of BYP100 said. “It requires maintaining a national and local connection to make sure we are amplifying the voices of undocumented people.”

Master also went on to connect the dots of police tactics both in the District and the border saying,  “ICE and the police operate in incredibly similar ways, they go through the same training and disappear people in the same way. These systems are unjust and they have to go.”