Carol Steiner, a member of and spokesperson for Puncture the Silence-Stop Mass Incarceration Cleveland, organized last Tuesday’s protest on Public Square. It was the most visible and most disruptive of the responses to the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland and a grand jury’s decision not to indict now-former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in St. Louis. We caught up with Carol Monday morning to talk about her group, last week’s protests, and what’s to come in Cleveland’s ongoing response to police-involved shootings.
Sam Allard: So what is your group, exactly? How did it form?
Carol Steiner: In April, a group of older women formed the Puncture the Silence-Stop Mass Incarceration Movement and immediately endorsed the call put out by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network in New York City (founded by Carl Dix and Cornel West) for a month of mass resistance to mass incarceration, police terror and the criminalization of a generation. We set our purpose as raising awareness, fomenting a movement, and planning actions with others who are interested in opposing the new Jim Crow.
SA: The New Jim Crow? You didn’t coin that, did you?
CS: No, we were very inspired by Michelle Alexander’s book (also called The New Jim Crow), which gives an outline of how, in the last 40 years, the War on Drugs has filled American jails so disproportionately with people of color. We felt like we just had to do something about all those injustices.
SA: Were you all friends beforehand?
CS: Several of us read the book and sent out letters inviting people who we thought might be interested to come to a meeting. Eight people showed up to the meeting. That’s how we started. Even at that time, the news — Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis — things were just unacceptable. Very upsetting.
SA: What were you up to before last week’s protests?
CS: As I say, we did endorse the call for the nationwide month of resistance in October. Here in Cleveland, as elsewhere, we engaged clergy around doing sermons about stopping mass incarceration; we had an art show at the art palace on Kinsman; and then on Oct. 22 — that was sort of the culmination all across the country — we had what we considered a very successful protest on Public Square.
SA: But last week was your most visible action to date. What was the genesis there?
CS: The national network called for America to come to a halt if Darren Wilson was exonerated by the grand jury. As in other cities, we put out the call. The idea was that right now, we should disrupt business as usual and keep up the message that these police that are killing unarmed people need to be indicted and convicted for their crimes. And it wasn’t just Tuesday’s protest. We participated in the Black Lives Matter Friday at the Wal-Mart on Warrensville Road and the rally and vigil for the families down at Heritage Middle School on Saturday evening.
SA: The families of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams?
CS: Yes, and this was one week after Tamir was shot.
SA: How do you compare the November, 2012 car chase and the Tamir Rice shooting last week? Is it the same thing people are protesting?
CS: Well I think the 137 shots, and the chase, and [officer] Brelo on top of the car firing into the car, and each of the officers firing at least 20 shots, and 60-plus cars involved, that was very extreme. Tamir’s was extreme in another way. Why do you rush up to someone in a neighborhood park and just shoot? And then find out he’s a child? In a sense that these were both police killings and that there should be justice for these people, yes.
SA: All these people coming out to protest almost seems like a silver lining.
CS: We are very excited that there has been such an outpouring of people and that people have been so active, people from campaigns for reform that we wouldn’t necessarily focus on. We just think it’s wonderful. There are so many groups, so many people in the streets, and so many people who actually led us on Tuesday in the action. We didn’t have that planned.
SA: You mentioned last week that the Shoreway disruption was pretty much impromptu.
CS: Yes, moving down to the highway totally came from the crowd. And the fact that people were tweeting on the spot, and the press was there, tweeting on the spot, it allowed for people to join us. We swelled up to what we think was 300 to 350 people there. It was a little chaotic, but it was a wonderful thing. In much larger numbers and much more vocally, people are saying that this is not something we want to see happen. We want it to stop. And we’re gonna keep raising hell until it stops.
SA: You’re no stranger to protests though.
SA: Well, I’m up there in years so I’ve been through the black liberation struggles of the 1960s, fighting for black studies in the schools, against the war in Vietnam and all that. This is exciting, it kind of reminds me of that period.
SA: How so?
CS: The young people are saying, “What’s important here? Should black people be leading this without white people?” A lot of different views are being struggled out and that’s a wonderful thing. What’s the path forward? How are we gonna stop this?
SA: How are we going to stop this?
CS: That’s another thing that Michelle Alexander calls for, and we’ve adopted it as a mandate: Don’t be bogged down by legal reforms. We need a groundswell from this bottom up in this country. We need another social movement.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2014.
“We need another social movement.”
Perhaps that movement can start by cleaning up our communities and neighborhoods, emphasizing the importance of school to our children instead of telling them they are acting white when they work hard and succeed, helping police eliminate the gangs and drug dealers that control parts of our city where people are afraid to walk down the street or even sit on their front porch? Maybe lift up the hard working successful Blacks in our area so they are front and center providing the example for our young people to see? Perhaps the change needs to start in our attitudes and lifestyles? We’ve been marching and protesting for over 50 years now…..where has that gotten us? When are we going to overcome? It’s easy to blame society, police, whites, and government for all our problems but I am suggesting to you that first we take a long hard look in the mirror and see if there are changes we need to make as individuals and families, as a community, that will help bring about the changes we all seek and that you speak about here in this article. Preaching the hate of 50 years ago to children who never experienced it, teaching them they can’t trust authority and they have no chance of success doesn’t seem to be making a difference. Lord knows we’ve been doing that for over 50 years and where has it gotten us?
Who are kids nowadays looking up to, who are the role models and heroes in their lives? Are parents involved in their children’s lives, and trying to actually control what their children are exposed to? Here’s where 50 different excuses fly in about how that isn’t feasible and you can’t expect that. FIND A WAY if it’s that important to you, which it damn well should be if this is your child we’re talking about. Don’t try to pretend that this is entirely 100% another side’s fault (for example the police), when there is shared responsibility for making the world a better place. But no one wants to go that route, because it’s not flashy or sexy. No one is gushing over the parent that gives their child a safe environment or tells them no when they want to do something wrong. Everyone wants to be the flashy leader of a protest, standing in stopped traffic on the shoreway, because that’s flashy, that’s sexy, that’s power. But what helps more? The good parent, or the protest? If you’re a good parent, it’s like trying to prevent a child from getting sick. If you’re the protester, it’s like yelling to everyone how the child is sick. It’s not flashy, it’s not filled with glory, but it’s the most important role in the world, and it’s going to make or break our country going forward.
Does this group have a Facebook page or Twitter account that updates their activities?
And yes, blacks have been protesting for 50 years and where has it gotten them? While they are able to go into most public places without harassment they are still dealing with police brutality and job discrimination. Their unemployment rate is much higher than any other population in our country and their household net worth has drop precipitously in the last six years. Our cities are even more segregated than they were 50 years ago as the gap between rich and poor is now as high as it was in the 1920’s.
Maybe it’s the white ruling elite that has the problem in this country.