When did your organization, SoapBox Productions and Organizing, decide to join the No Cop Academy campaign? Why?
We caught word of the city’s plans and the campaign in summer 2017 and reached out the following October interested in collaborating with #NCA in some capacity. Part of SoapBox’s mission is in the multimedia curation and development of grassroots organizing efforts and creative projects geared towards structural change through means of education and entertainment. This campaign illuminates problems that have existed, particularly in Chicago, for decades around policing, machine politics, and responsible city spending. It offers the opportunity for youth and adult supporters to raise awareness and take action against the injustices that regularly and adversely affect the most marginalized in our city. Simultaneously, through its multiple avenues and dynamic forms of organizing, we saw a collaboration with #NoCopAcademy important to raise awareness for Rahm’s plans, and put a bigger microscope on larger, institutional problems in our city in order to re-configure narrative expectations. How does the City of Chicago have money for cops but not for kids’ schools?
How has your organization contributed to the campaign?
We worked with Asha, an Assata’s Daughter teen member, to create a micro-doc informing the laymen about the campaign and dismantling the false narrative that cop academies make communities feel safer. Additionally, we’ve also helped push content through our social media platform as well as hosted affiliates such as For The People’s Ruby Pinto, Black Lives Matter’s Kofi Ademola, and activist Camille Williams on “Bourbon ‘n BrownTown”, a podcast that critically analyzes media, politics, and culture while unpacking current events and social issues like #NoCopAcademy.
What has been your organization’s highlight of the campaign?
What strategies/tactics/frameworks does your organization bring to the campaign?
Our organizations brings a multimedia approach to a very dynamic conversation revolving around #NCA, police abolition, and organizing against federal systems on a local level. Through means of film, research, podcast, organizing, editorial, and social media we are able to be in control of the narrative while providing necessary content for those most affected by this.
Anything else to add?
Learn more and support SoapBox by visiting SoapBoxPO.com, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Check out Ruby’s episode Intersectionality, #NoCopAcademy, Activism Art, & Organizing the Newly Radicalized, Kofi’s episode Black History & Resistance in Chicago, Camille’s episode Electoral v. Radical Politics and all other “Bourbon ‘n BrownTown” on iTunes, GooglePlay, Spotify or at SoapBoxPO.com/podcast.
David A Moran – Multimedia Director
SoapBox Productions and Organizing
