Help CR advance practical and inspiring campaigns fighting jail expansion, policing and imprisonment!

Hey everyone,

Thank you for checking out my fundraising page. I've been organizing for a few years and I wouldn't fundraise for every organization, but Critical Resistance–an organization halting police militarization, shutting down prisons, and envisioning healthy communities–is doing something special and important.

In addition to being a member––devoting up to 40 hours a month––I am also a monthly sustainer, and I'm asking if you could be one too. I want at least 10 people in my life to make monthly contributions averaging $20 a month to CR. Can you help me reach my goal?

Critical Resistance is a small, member-led organization that makes a big impact. I'm proud to be a member of CR because of our clear vision and long history of success. We fight police militarization, prison expansion, and we develop a long-term vision for what a world without prisons and policing looks like. What we’ve won is tangible: we’ve supported prisoner-led hunger strikes, we've halted prison construction in California, we’ve shredded gang injunctions in Oakland and shut down Urban Shield, the largest, federally funded SWAT training that militarize the police.

Having everyday people donate to CR — in whatever way they can — gives us the material resources we need to do this work without compromising our radical vision of a world without police or prisons.

Critical Resistance has chapters in Portland, LA, New York and Oakland. We are currently running campaigns to shut down jails, prisons, to cut police budgets and to fund community health. In San Francisco we're fighting to close the jail at 850 Bryant where 40% of people were houseless before being caged, and where 40% need mental health support, not a cage. We are made up of people formerly incarcerated, with family and friends incarcerated, and allies. With the United States caging 25% of the world's prisoners, when half of city budgets go directly to the police, we understand that police and prisons aren't made to protect us. We follow an abolitionist approach to organizing so that we can understand the difference between chasing our tails and winning something real. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59ead8f9692ebee25b72f17f/t/5b65cd58758d46d34254f22c/1533398363539/CR_NoCops_reform_vs_abolition_CRside.pdf

Personally I help to facilitate mail night where we respond to hundreds of letters a month from people in prison. We help connect them to services and information to fight their cases, to get healthcare, to find work upon being released, and so much more. All this work costs money. $20/month purchases 3 books per month for imprisoned organizers. To continue this work I would really appreciate any support for any of the organizations we work with. I’ll list some of those below. If you can donate to CR then I would really appreciate if you would consider a monthly donation. For example if you were going to give a one-time $200 donation, consider making it a recurring donation at $20 a month. CR is grassroots funded, like Bernie, and we want to stay this way so that we can be responsive to the people actually affected by these injustices and not to rich foundation donors.

In this request I'd also like to take it out of the theoretical realm and talk about something personal. Both my father and brother are in prison. My dad’s been in prison for 4 years and will continue until June 12, 2024 (my birthday, actually). He’s a Mexican immigrant. He moved here in his 20s and worked in kitchens until he found factory work. In 2015 he tried smuggling hella meth over the border and was caught. Now when he calls me from prison he sounds more terrified than I’ve ever heard him. Some of you might know about my mixed feelings for my dad. He hasn’t been the sweetest person to the rest of my family and he definitely needs to learn some accountability. The thing is, he’s not going to learn any accountability by being imprisoned for the War on Drugs. Prisons teach abuse, not consent, so in prison he’s learning to defend himself from sexual assaults from prisoners and guards. He’s learning how effective a person can be in using violence to control others. He’s learning to repress his feelings even more so as not to look weak. All this is going to make it much harder for him to upheave his toxic masculine behavior and to be a real person to those he’s hurt. And when he’s done they’re likely to deport him to Mexico. It’s been painful having him be in prison halfway across the country all this time. Despite his flaws, I still want a father and I still want love from men, and prisons make it hard to have either of these. I believe Critical Resistance and our allies have the vision for healing from toxic masculinity so that we can have real relationships with men.

All of this is really personal. If toxic masculinity has harmed you, if you think ppl with mental health issues deserve support, if you're afraid for our future, then let's fight prisons and policing. These structures aren’t here for us to grow. These things don’t support healthy communities––they rip them apart, sending home traumatized people who have even more burdens to work through before they can be there for those they love.

I work with Critical Resistance and I believe in what we’re doing. Become a monthly sustainer and, I promise you, we will use your money effectively.

Thanks everyone. <3

Check out our 2018 Report to see in more detail what we've accomplished this year: http://criticalresistance.org/crs-2018-annual-report/

Here are a few of the tangible things your monthly donation would pay for:

• $10 covers one day of parking for a campaign mobilization
• $15/month sponsors 45 newspapers to imprisoned people.
• $20/month purchases 3 books for imprisoned organizers.
• $20/month sponsors 2 political education workshops.
• $50 covers printing and materials for one political education workshop or skills training
• $75 covers food for a campaign, coalition or political education meeting
• $100 covers one month of printing campaign and outreach flyers
• $225 covers one round trip flight from the Bay area to a chapter city support campaigns and projects
• $270 covers one month of phone and internet, including answering daily collect calls from imprisoned organizers
• $290 covers one month of website hosting and digital secure email lists
• $300 covers one month of mailing political organizing resources to imprisoned organizers all across the country
• $350 purchases 50 medical kits for Oakland Power Projects Alternatives to Policing workshops
• $500 covers printing 150 full color People’s Reports for the Stop Urban Shield or No New Jails campaign
• $700 covers costs for a Training of Trainers session to skill up members to lead political education workshops and campaigns
• $1,000 covers meeting space for a 100-person all day organizers summit
• $1,500 covers food and travel expenses for an all-day organizers summit
• $2,900 covers one month of office rental + meeting space for our Oakland and National office in Downtown Oakland
• $4,000 covers one month salary for one organizer position. Paid organizers support our volunteer-led membership in keeping up with these campaigns.
• $12,000 covers printing and copying for the 3 issues of The Abolitionist newspaper to go to 5,800 imprisoned subscribers
• $34,000 covers one year of rent
• $47,000 covers one year staff salary to skill up and coordinate volunteer chapter members and campaigns

Partner orgs:

• List of orgs doing work directly confronting the detention centers at the border: http://www.streetsheet.org/?p=5261&fbclid=IwAR2odc6ZeNgQ9kwzZKurnNeXAxo3pfbCKIChrhNRCB_eGtYvOyjtALzkf4E
• Young Women's Freedom Center - They're the ones who led the coalition to close the Youth Jail in SF.
• Transgender and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) - Abolitionist org offering direct services to trans- and intersex identifying ppl impacted by the PIC.
• Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective - Exploring how to heal from harm. They offer a variety of workshops like the Apology Lab (which is really good!) aimed at increasing our collective capacity to take accountability and heal, and they work directly with people who've survived child sexual abuse and help them find accountability from those that've harmed them.
• All of Us or None - People who are formerly incarcerated and their families organizing to change legislation
• Survived and Punished - Organization of women who've been imprisoned and dealt with domestic abuse
• California Coalition for Women Prisoners - Does a lot more direct service work, getting health care and other things to people in women's prisons
• Californians United for a Responsible Budget - Fighting prisons and policing under the guise of a responsible budget.
• Community Ready Corps (and Allies and Accomplices)
• Anti Police-Terror Project - Pressuring Oakland Police Department to be accountable to the families of people they murder and harass, and working to cut OPDd budget to instead fund community health.
• Causa Justa/Just Cause - Tenants rights advocacy in east bay and SF
• Freedom Archives
• Ella Baker Center
• St. James Infirmary - A peer-to-peer sex worker health clinic and advocacy organization. They do a lot of rad on-the-ground abolitionist thinking
• Western Service Workers Association - Offers direct services to people in West Oakland, working on projects to keep lights and water on at people's houses, to fight evictions, feed people and more.