W hen I first learned Espresso Royale was closing all of its locations in early June, it felt like just another thing fighting for my attention. Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — only two examples of white supremacy that have sparked recent uprisings — the news that the coffee chain was closing seemed rather insignificant. That’s not to say Espresso Royale’s closing, or the closing of any business predicted to not make it through the pandemic, won’t have a real impact for some of the 38.1 million Americans employed in the service and retail industries hit the hardest. Still, Espresso Royale’s closing did not seem like the greatest cause for concern at the time. As I have had more time to reflect on the news, I am left with all of my memories sitting at Espresso Royale, an incredibly important place for me and many of my peers throughout college. It was where we would study on countless mornings, afternoons, evenings and late nights; met with friends in between classes; went on or observed awkward first dates and organized to work on group projects. Espresso Royale was a reliable study spot where you were bound to run into people you knew. While my peers and I ostensibly went to Espresso Royale to study, my favorite memories there were when we barely got any work done at all. You could always count on finding someone to talk to when you were avoiding homework. As a very extroverted person who loves to procrastinate, I would often go to Espresso Royale between classes, even when I had no work to do, just to take refuge from the cold and find someone to chat with for a couple of minutes. While I stared at blank Word documents hoping my essay would type itself, I got to talk with friends or acquaintances about what was new in our lives, how we felt about school, where we were coming from and where we wanted to go. Since Espresso Royale was open until 11 p.m., we took shelter there for hours on end. During my junior year, I found myself bewildered by how much time my peers and I had spent at Espresso Royale’s State Street location, or ERSSL as we would commonly abbreviate it. It was impossible to walk into ERSSL without seeing at least three people you knew. One night — while I was once again procrastinating completing my course readings — I took this bewilderment online. On Feb. 20, 2017, a fellow Michigan Daily opinion editor and I started the Espresso Royale (State Street) Fan Club Facebook Group, an unofficial fan page for people — mainly myself — to post Espresso Royale memes and commentary. The posts in our unofficial fan club ranged from a variety of topics: jokes about Espresso Royale’s renovations or the infamous “coffee12” wifi password, photos of people drinking Espresso Royale in their 8 a.m. class, questions about how much to tip for a $2.50 latte and general posts about the Espresso Royale experience. There weren’t any rules dictating what was appropriate to post, as long as it was Espresso Royale-related. Despite the page never gaining more than 342 members, I reveled in the local fandom and small-town popularity the group provided me, loving the attention I got from strangers who grew to know me as “the Espresso Royale guy.” While it was all just for fun, our devotion to Espresso Royale left me with the same question that inspired me to start the page in the first place: Why the hell do we spend so much time at this coffee shop? My peers and I must have clocked hundreds of hours each at ERSSL. Given the wide array of coffee shops in Ann Arbor, I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Espresso Royale was not the greatest option in town. This is no fault of Espresso Royale. After all, how is one to compete with the likes of Literati Coffee or Roos Roast? Still, even without these elite alternatives around to serve as points of comparison, it’s not as if Espresso Royale was trying very hard. The coffee, service and seating, albeit reliable, were all just okay. One day during the summer after I graduated, I went into ERSSL with some friends to work on job applications only to find the A/C was out. This memory is representative of many ERSSL experiences: Showing up only to find something massively uncomfortable, yet staying for at least an hour anyways. While I would never go on the record saying ERSSL was perfect, the popular Zucchini bread, strong cups of coffee and camaraderie kept me coming back. With so many other great cafes to choose from, why did so many of my peers consistently congregate at ERSSL? There are certainly some pragmatic reasons. Espresso Royale’s State Street location was relatively accessible, convenient and open late. Espresso Royale’s prices were not radically different from other options nearby, such as Starbucks, but they generally let you use their space without buying anything. Their openness to letting people loiter in addition to the charm and $2 Latte Wednesday deal — a tradition celebrated like a holiday in the Espresso Royale Facebook group — made it a sufficient college study spot. You could find several friends in ERSSL on Wednesday mornings even when, to our collective horror, the latte deal was raised to $2.50 Latte Wednesdays. I am certainly not saying Espresso Royale’s storewide policy was to let anyone loiter. Although baristas tended not to care about people loitering, or were just too busy to notice, I have still seen Espresso Royale staff ask homeless residents to leave. The best solution to the lack of places to go without spending money in a city as unaffordable as Ann Arbor — whether to study, see friends or simply take refuge from the rain — is increased investment in affordable housing and public community spaces, not private coffee shops. P ast attempts at reform, even in Minneapolis, have been evidently ineffective and do not satisfy community demands. Instead of trying to change things from within the system — what reform sought to do — it is more essential to defund and dismantle the policing system that has dispro- portionately targeted and harassed Black communities for centuries. By divesting and funneling finan- cial resources away from policing agencies, we can instead build and invest in municipal programs that work to fix the underlying chal- lenges in communities — such as poverty, poor education, inad- equate housing, food insecurity, drug rehabilitation, mental health problems, etc. There is reasonable confusion over the true difference between police reform and defunding the police, creating subsequent hesi- tance over the latter. When evalu- ating your own confusion, it’s essential to listen to the voices that have been most impacted by the continuous overabundance of policing and surveillance. Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza stated, “When we talk about defunding the police, what we’re saying is invest in the resources that our communities need. So much of policing right now is generated and directed towards quality-of-life issues, homelessness, drug addic- tion, domestic violence. … But what we do need is increased funding for housing, we need increased funding for education, we need increased funding for quality of life of communities who are over- policed and over-surveilled.” When trying to disrupt a system that has been maintained through different mediums since slavery, we must have a mutual understanding of what we are hoping to disrupt and of what our ultimate end goal should look like. Many activists have advocated for reforming the police departments; others, for a defunding model that would strive to divest large funds from national police departments and equitably invest that money into commu- nity services. However, we have seen, with a prime example being the Minneapolis Police Depart- ment, that reforms are not success- ful. TIME reports that “the same reforms were recommended time and again over the past two decades in the MPD to increase account- ability, curb use-of-force violations and build up community trust — with seemingly little implementa- tion.” A recent movement called #8cantwait advocates for banning unnecessary measures of vio- lence, for requiring police officers to exhaust all alternatives before shooting and intervening and com- prehensive reporting, among other things. Organizers claim this initia- tive could reduce police use of force by 72 percent. However, many activ- ists are already criticizing this plan, calling it “copaganda” and saying it will improve policing’s war on the Black community, as it does not call for the removal of funds from police departments and does not address the entire issue of systemic racism and brutality within the institution. Decreasing police budgets is the first step in addressing the dis- proportionate amount of funding that police departments receive from the federal government. Calls for defunding do not mean the removal of efforts for pub- lic safety, but rather a demand to stop spending millions of dol- lars on military-style equipment for poorly trained police officers. The protests against police bru- tality and the greater system that Americans are witnessing and par- ticipating in right now are nothing new. From many past demonstra- tions — including the 2014 Fer- guson protests in Missouri that ushered in the Black Lives Matter movement to the 1992 Los Angeles riots to the 1965 Watts riots — we are reminded that the stringent acts of racial profiling, oppression and violence enacted by police officers on the Black community is a centuries-old problem. As dis- cussed in a recent editorial, mod- ern policing agencies in the U.S. originated from slave patrols and night watches, which were primar- ily constituted of white men using vigilante tactics to further control and oppress Black individuals. These groups worked for wealthy white slave owners to punish, cap- ture and return enslaved people who escaped or were believed to have violated plantation rules. These first police forces were over- whelmingly focused on respond- ing to, and punishing, what they considered disorderly, non-white behavior rather than actual crime. As American slavery gratingly matured into a depraved regime that denied Black people human- ity while still criminalizing their actions, they were considered capable of engaging in crime but “incapable of performing civil acts.” Similarly, while the 13th Amend- ment is credited with ending the concept of slavery we are taught in grade school, it stopped short of ending slavery for those convicted of crimes. The laws that once gov- erned slaves were replaced with Black Codes governing free Black individuals, soon making the new criminal justice system of America central to strategic racial control. These methods of oppression intensified whenever Black people asserted their autonomy or achieved any degree of success. For example, during Reconstruction, white poli- cymakers and other white people in positions of power invented offens- es used to target Black individuals. These included breaking strict cur- fews only for Black people, loiter- ing, vagrancy, not carrying proof of employment from a former slave owner, etc. Those caught for such actions were quickly apprehended and American slavery persisted in the form of convict leasing, where Southern states could lease their prisoners to large plantations, mines and railways — all for profit. Later, in the second half of the 20th century, a new political fear would emerge during protests over harsh inequalities and civil rights. Black and brown people are still disproportionately targeted by these policies that were not as explicitly racialized as the Black Codes, although their implemen- tation has been characteristically similar. Former President Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs,” “broken windows” policing, mandatory minimum sentences, three-strike laws, children tried as adults, etc., were all implemented. The rhetoric of “law and order” and subsequent focus on suppressing the Civil Rights Movement was adopted as a centerpiece for Nixon’s platform, which white authorities heavily utilized to criminalize Black indi- viduals fighting for equal rights. As “cracking down on crime” became a codified tune, no distinction was drawn between civil rights activists, traditional petty crimes and rebellions. Within the past weeks, we’ve seen President Don- ald Trump invoke the same racist rhetoric as he declared himself the “president of law and order” and also quoted a racist 1960s Miami police chief by tweeting, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Unfortunately, many prominent politicians, including Joe Biden, former vice president and pre- sumptive Democratic presidential nominee have not voiced their sup- port for what Black communities across the country are calling for and are instead “opposed to cut- ting police funding and believed more spending was necessary to help improve law enforcement and community policing.” Many activ- ists advocating against reforms at this time are calling for politicians to “read the room” and to listen to the people. However, many fear that instead of taking political risks to implement the much needed sys- tematic changes in this country, politicians are more worried about alienating moderate white voters. For example, in response to an uproar of protests against systemic racism and police brutality in May 2015, former President Barack Obama and a selected team crafted “The Final Report of the Presi- dent’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.” This report consisted of various reform approaches, many similar to those of the #8cantwait campaign circulating recently. These reforms have made no per- manent or effective progress and local activist groups are continuing to reject broader pushes for more reform-based training. Johnetta Elzie, a civil rights activist and organizer, stated, “People in power — politicians and policymakers — are still talking about reform. We’re beyond that. We’re over that. If they wanted reform, they would have done it six years ago when we actually had the chance to. But that’s not what happened.” Instead, it is time to reimagine the ineffective and systemically racist notions of policing agen- cies and their superficial proce- dural reforms by defunding the police and investing in specific, community-focused safety and prevention programs. Produc- tive steps forward could include the installation of multiple com- munity departments and facilities that interactively work with com- munity residents, to an equitable degree. This is suggested in the #8toabolition initiative, which was initially made by activist group Critical Resistance and was then reproduced by an ad team that cre- ated a website providing a variety of shareable graphics for social media. In Minneapolis specifically, a report was published in 2018 that outlined all the reforms the police department has embraced, includ- ing body cameras and various train- ing sessions that cover mindfulness, implicit bias and crisis interven- tion. The Minneapolis Police Department also forfeited money to training programs and better equipment, but there was little to no decline in Black fatalities caused by law enforcement. With that in mind, it is pertinent that a budget seeks to resolve the facets of life that often incite petty crime such as drug abuse, mental and physi- cal illness, food insecurity, poverty and the other impairments that disproportionately affect the dis- advantaged areas of the larger city. ALLISON PUJOL | COLUMN ‘When do you think the protests will stop?’ “ When do you think the protests will stop?” My mother asked me this when we were both sitting in the kitchen a few days ago. “Didn’t they arrest the cop who killed that guy? I don’t understand why there are all these violent protests still. And how does it benefit anyone to vandalize a building?” My mother is the daughter of two Cuban immigrants. My father is the proud son of two Cubans who also came to the United States decades ago. Many older members of my family, including my grandparents, have likewise voiced concerns about the legitimacy of the protests erupting around the country in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. One of my late relatives was imprisoned in Cuba for more than 20 years for his activities as a political activist. I have been wondering lately what he would have to say about my family’s response, given Cuba’s own history of protest. Likewise, political activism before and during the 90s in Cuba bears notable distinctions from the contemporary protests in the United States, but there are also important parallels. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Cuba lost its main trading partner as well as the source of much of its international political support. An economic crisis soon unfolded within Cuba, resulting in strict rationing, rolling blackouts (for up to 20 hours) and severe medicine shortages. In 1994, nearly a thousand Cubans gathered at Havana’s Malecon (a sea wall along the country’s capital known for its tourist appeal) to voice their frustrations. Protesters broke windows and destroyed property as others recorded the events unfolding, desperate for their voices to be heard. The uprising was effectively quelled on the same day it started because police shot, beat or threatened protesters who would not leave the streets. Nobody really writes much about this uprising. But many Cubans solemnly remember it, even if they no longer live on the island. Cuban-American communities should bear those parallels in mind when considering their role and respective privilege in the broader context of police violence against people of color. Despite the destructionist tactics used by protestors, the Maleconazo riot is a point of pride for many Cubans who now reside in the U.S. If my own community’s continued willingness to speak out against past injustice at the hands of Fidel Castro’s military and police force is any indication, many Cubans who now reside in the United States would not be so quick to condemn the Maleconazo riot more than 25 years ago. I struggle to imagine any of my grandparents criticizing those protestors who vandalized buildings in a display of their frustration against their country’s deteriorating economic conditions. No Cuban-American I know speaks out against those who stole boats that same year to flee to the United States. In some ways, the lack of understanding that many Cubans in my community have exhibited towards those protesting police brutality and the United States’ long legacy of systemic racism is surprising. In many ways, however, this reaction is predictable. Despite the history of anti-Latino sentiment in the United States, Latin American communities have not always been compassionate or responsible partners in the fight against racism. Even though people of Hispanic descent have been racially profiled by police or are increasingly the target of hate crimes, racism has been deeply internalized in many immigrant communities. As Karla McKanders, a clinical professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School, writes, instead of seeing themselves as natural allies in the fight for social and economic justice, many white and white-passing Cuban-Americans see themselves in competition with Black Americans. Furthermore, George Martinez, a professor of law at Southern Methodist University, writes that some Latinos “often sought to ‘pass’ as white … because they thought that becoming white insured greater economic, political and social security … [which] meant gaining access to a whole set of public and private privileges, and was a way to avoid being the object of others’ domination.” Like many privileged Cuban-Americans, I personally have been guilty of implicit bias and racism — both intentional and not — and am still learning how I can most effectively dismantle the subtle, yet powerful hatred that often exists in my own community. Whether these comments are intended to belittle Black activists or not, many of the critiques I have heard of the ongoing protests are nonetheless reflections of that same subtle hatred. Deflecting to concerns about property damage belittles the real and immeasurable pain that police brutality has inflicted upon Black communities. Responding to the international outcry over the irreplaceable loss of lives with reports of damaged vehicles or stores suggests that perhaps, in fact, you might not think Black lives matter as much mass-produced, replaceable objects from Target. (As an aside, it is never a good sign when a multi- million dollar corporation’s response to looting is more charitable than your own). Dismissing these protests as “violent” and thus irredeemable avoids an important discussion about why protests are taking place at all and does not consider the larger history of protests across the world. This response in particular also reflects a choice to be ignorant about the way the police have responded to protests about police brutality with more police brutality. The protests in the United States today are not about me or my family. I chose to write this article because I thought it was necessary to use my platform as an opinion columnist to purposefully critique the response many of my family members and members of my community have taken toward the protests and this country’s history of anti-Black racism. The way to begin to destruct internalized racism in our own homes and communities is to acknowledge privilege and have conversations about ongoing discrimination and injustice, no matter how painful or uncomfortable. Allison Pujol can be reached at ampmich@umich.edu. MAX LUBELL | CONTRIBUTOR The final $2.50 Wednesday latte Max Lubell is a graduate of the University of Michigan and can be reached at maxlubell@gmail.com. From The Daily: Divest to invest — the reality of dismantling the police O n Sunday, June 7, nine members of the Minneapolis City Council acknowledged that the current system of policing is not working and that they intend to “defund and dismantle” the city police department. Council President Lisa Bender stated, “(We need) to listen, especially to our Black leaders, to our communities of color, for whom policing is not working and to really let the solutions lie in our community.” While still in the process of planning exactly what these new, transformative and community-based initiatives may look like, the goal is to implement a model of public safety that actually keeps each community safe. Conversations of defunding and dismantling police departments have popped up all over the country, and many are concerned about what exactly this means. Read more at MichiganDaily.com Read more at MichiganDaily.com Read more at MichiganDaily.com 12 — Monday, August 31, 2020 Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com