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Thursday, July 14, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION
LARA MOEHLMAN
EDITOR IN CHIEF
JEREMY KAPLAN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
BRADLEY WHIPPLE
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
The shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile have, yet again, sparked
Black Lives Matter protests across the country, as well as in our own backyard. A
candlelight vigil was held Thursday evening in the Diag for Sterling and Castile. As
many as 200 community members marched through Ann Arbor Saturday afternoon
and almost 1000 marched Wednesday night to protest police brutality and support
the Black Lives Matter movement. The many voices crying out for justice have
proven that police violence is an issue worth discussing to Ann Arbor citizens. As
we see more of these voices of the Black Lives Matter movement and others speak
out, we also see the formation of new policy platforms that hope to mitigate police
brutality. For instance, “Campaign Zero,” which aims to create a world where “police
don’t kill people,” has proposed a multitude of practical solutions. Among them is
the notion of increasing community oversight of police officers. Policies like this one
would greatly help to reduce the countless tragic, police-related deaths and should
be enacted to ensure the safety and well being of all individuals.
A proactive approach to police oversight
FROM THE DAILY
KEVIN
SWEITZER
Perez for VP
W
ith the conclusion of
the
2016
presidential
primaries, presumptive
Democratic
nominee
Hillary Clinton
has
turned
her
attention
toward
presumptive
Republican
nominee Donald Trump and the
November showdown that awaits
them. While the 2016 election cycle
has proven itself to be anything
but normal, America finds itself at
a crossroads once again: one key
milestone remains that still mirrors
the bygone days of presidential
election campaigning.
The “veepstakes,” as they are so
cleverly called by many a political
pundit, is the mandatory process
of choosing a vice presidential
candidate to run and campaign with
the nominee. As the name suggests,
this process is more of a sweepstakes
than it is about political clout, as
the vice president rarely carries as
much responsibility or respect as the
president.
In the early days of this nation,
the vice president was chosen as the
second-place finisher in the general
election. As one can easily imagine,
this did not work out well, and as
the two party system emerged, the
parties started nominating their
own candidates for vice president.
This election year is no different, and
despite all of the calamity associated
with the election, Clinton will choose
a Vice President.
Every four years, pundits across
the nation talk about the benefits
of every political player for vice
president. However, at the end of
the day, the role of the vice president
is someone who can advise the
president, serve in the cabinet and
perform the duties of the president in
the case of the president’s departure
from office.
The last thing that Clinton needs
when campaigning against Trump
is another boring white man from
Ohio (sorry, Sherrod Brown) or
another lifelong politician with a
history of shady contributions (sorry,
Tim Kaine). Additionally, she cannot
afford to risk flipping a Senate seat
to the Republicans in a swing state
(sorry, Cory Booker). Even worse
would be an inexperienced or
potentially unprepared politician
who may not be able to perform the
duties of vice president (sorry, Julian
Castro). The only person fit for the
current political climate of 2016 is
someone who can use economic
experience to appeal to everyday
Americans, while understanding the
complex social identity issues that
are present in our nation today.
That’s
why
I
urge
Hillary
Clinton to choose the Secretary of
Labor Thomas Perez as her vice
presidential nominee in 2016.
The
son
of
Dominican
immigrants, the Harvard educated
Tom Perez spent much of his young
life in the civil rights division of the
U.S. Department of Justice, working
primarily in the areas of migrant
worker exploitation and hate crime
prosecution. Once he jumped into
the political landscape, he served
as the director of the Maryland
Department of Labor, Licensing and
Regulation before becoming the
head of the Civil Rights Division of
the Department of Justice. Perez
isn’t simply a Latina/o person who
will fire up the base, he is an avid
fighter for civil rights and the rights
of working Americans. As assistant
attorney general, he led many
investigations into police violence
and LGBT access to education, both
of which are extremely important
issues in our nation today.
As Secretary of Labor, he has
been seen as a progressive leader,
and has the support of many
organized labor groups, including
the largest congress of trade
unions, the AFL-CIO. Clinton can
work to repair any hard feelings
with the Bernie Sanders camp by
choosing a progressive labor leader
as her running mate. Perez has
spent his entire career fighting for
what is right and what is just. This
is the exact type of leadership that
Clinton hopes to have and can work
towards with Perez.
By choosing Tom Perez as her
running mate, Hillary Clinton will
be cementing her candidacy as
the candidacy of equality, fairness
and the rights of all Americans.
She already has the foreign policy
and economic experience to be a
great leader, and can use Perez’s
experience in civil rights advocacy
and labor relations to address the
key social issues of importance to
our country.
Donald
Trump
is
not
a
traditional presidential candidate,
and the 2016 election is one of the
most nontraditional elections of
all time. If Clinton wants to win in
November, she must do her best to
ensure that her entire campaign is
on the same page and has the same
goals in mind. Clinton/Perez 2016
will do just that, and is the best
team to defeat Trump in November.
—Kevin Sweitzer can be
reached at ksweitz@umich.edu.
Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Staten
Island and Ferguson. These are
the names of cities that have
suffered from extreme police
brutality. But what about Ann
Arbor? In the November of 2014,
Aura Rosser, a 40-year-old Black
woman, was fatally shot by an
Ann Arbor police officer when she
reportedly would not put down
a knife aimed at the officer. The
officer involved in the shooting,
David Ried, was not indicted,
though
many
local
residents
criticized the apparent lack of
transparency of the investigation
— similar to national speculation
surrounding
transparency
in
police misconduct cases. Though
the details of the Rosser shooting
contain
far
fewer
egregious
actions on the part of the police
compared to these other cases,
lessons can still be learned from
the judgment of the police.
One of these lessons should be
that civilians must be involved
in the response to incidents such
as this, just as “Campaign Zero”
recommends.
In
March,
the
Ann Arbor City Council voted to
consider a set of recommendations
put forth by the Ann Arbor
Human
Rights
Commission.
One of the recommendations
— to increase civilian oversight
— has been opposed by Police
Chief Jim Baird, for the time
being. One of the Human Rights
Commission’s recommendations
was the use of an independent
auditor to review the Ann Arbor
Police Department’s policies and
practices regarding misconduct
— a process Baird would like
a report from before enabling
civillian oversight. As the current
conversation stands, the civillian
oversight
committee
would
— independently of the Police
Department — review complaints
against police officers. Shooting
after shooting has proven there
is no time to wait. While we
understand the desire to table
the topic of a civilian oversight
committee,
the
wellbeing
of
citizens should be a proactive
matter, not a reactive one, and
discussion on how a potential
oversight
committee
would
function should continue.
Police brutality has happened
and will continue to happen in
every city across the nation,
including our own, until we take
a stand against violence. Let’s
have this conversation now, in
our own town, to ensure these
tragic shootings do not continue
to occur in our communities
in the near or distant future.
Ensuring
safety
and
justice
under the law for all citizens
demands a call to action. Let
Ann Arbor be the example the
nation so desperately needs; let’s
be the change.
Roland Davidson, Caitlin Heenan, Elena Hubbell, Jeremy
Kaplan, Madeline Nowicki, Kevin Sweitzer, Brooke White.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS