#TRCnow Luna Aixin 月愛心 (they/them/它/它们) Profile picture
跨性别/非二进制 non-binary mixed race neuro-d settler on stolen MST territories, community planner, artist, anti-racism, ♍ https://t.co/DTfAYC6Yjl
24 Jul
I'm curious about MDG's call of discrimination. As far as I know, when I was married, I had to be forced to get less financial support because I was married. That included student loans and bank loans. I couldn't recuse citing marriage as a right against financial discrimination
I'm not rich like MDG who makes over $100k a year plus another $100k from her partner and plus the biz she owns.

So I cannot afford lawyers to have legal advice.

Human rights lawyers interested in pro-bono advice, would love for you to shed some light on this issue.
I can't pay you but I can cook nice food.
Read 19 tweets
23 Jul
My ama whom I love but am estranged from is in the hospital and possibly leaving. Her kidneys had failed. I've been prepping for news like these for 20 years. As a solo immigrant. This is the pain we carry knowing that we cannot be with loved ones when they pass.
I'm tired, exhausted and holding many pieces, remembering the labour of so many migrants who leave to find a place that loves them, only to face racism and hold grief this heavy.
I have written funeral apolpgy notes so many times in my mind and heart, for each of my fam, to ask forgiveness for not being able to be there for them, even though as a fam, we are stuck on abuse and pain.
Read 4 tweets
23 Jul
One death, one displacement, one forced removal, one policing related tragedy, one overdose, one accident, one incident, one, one, one, is all we need to demand change. Policing-caused death such as what has happened in CR, shatters a community and also our ways of relating
I don't know what it would take for council to listen to unhoused, poor, disabled and queer peoples about the need for alternatives from policing. You have an equity framework but it didnt work with this motion. You have reconciliation but it didn't work with this motion.
You have "thank you for coming to speak to us" courtesies but it didn't work with this motion. You forced us to sit through a full day with you just to tell us you would support more policing.
Read 6 tweets
23 Jul
I would like all 11 CPCs in so-called Vancouver to respond to this billboard and if billboards like these make it harder for them to provide the care they are providing.

I need CPCs to take a look at how VPD creates the CARE work they so passionately undertake as volunteers. A billboard owned by Jim Pattison by the Georgia Viaduct tha
Right here. Police is asking you to criminalize each other in our heads. They are intruding their very extreme idea of safety and effectively erasing our capacities and abilities to do this ourselves. They are not our trusted elders. Would you heed the advice of violencers?
I ask again. WHY does the VPD allow for messages like these, filled with innuendos and really bad relational messaging, to be shown in public? Because we gave them the power to police our culture and ways of being.
Show me one cop that isn't colonized by white supremacy.
Read 15 tweets
23 Jul
The first public comment to this piece is "you've lost me at equating vagrants with residents."

Welcome to so-called Vancouver.
This is why police brutality is accepted by folks who see residents as vagrants and makes up a decision about them. So far, the pro-CPC folks I have witnessed are not kind to those they don't see as residents; poor, disabled, queer, racialized and unhoused residents.
The small number of NPO liaisons also do not represent the vast number of VPD officers that are highly violent and problematic people to start with. I have seen many VPD police officers in action, spitting violent words and cuffing people without reason.
Read 10 tweets
22 Jul
I was cut off at 5mins while MPBIA gets extra time with the question "is there anything else that you wanted to say that you didn't have time for?"

(Starts at 10:19)

Just tracking the unfairness and racist behaviours of City of Vancouver's city council.
Call me petty but BIPOCs really don't get the same treatment as white folks.
#vanpoli has so much work to do such as honouring the equity framework they approved before this motion.

If you thought an equity framework could change councillors' behaviours and approaches, just watch how many more times they treat poor, disabled, queer folks.
Read 6 tweets
22 Jul
During yesterday's council meeting, I wasn't given time to finish what I was sharing. Here is the full script of what I shared to council, including an added point about the harms of the MPBIA's anti-poor judgments leading to a decision made without us.

Note that this contains what myself and others learnt from MPBIA about this conversation of the establishment of a Community Policing Centre and why having a BIA trying to solve social issues without direct ties to the community is such a bad idea.
Folks who shops at Mt Pleasant businesses, please consider speaking to them to not support the establishment of a CPC and let them know there are other alternative models that doesn't use policing as a model of community care and safety.
Read 10 tweets
22 Jul
Following council's decision yesterday to pass the CPC motion, this billboard signifies another reason why we don't need cops.

One. If a stranger was attacked and ran to me for help, and we have to time to call cops, should I let them die so I can call the VPD?
Two. Why aren't police asking folks to go to the 11 CPCs around to seek help?

Three. If I get hurt, harmed or attacked, probably means those who see this sign won't help me and cops aren't fast enough. I might even get arrested cause I create "distraction crime".
Five. Language used in this billboard targets those who are incredibly racist, classist, sexist, ablelist, and only knows policing to deal with every problem they have.
Read 6 tweets
22 Jul
Definitely a very disappointing outcome and unsurprised. However, I do want to acknowledge that we showed up as community, that we made ourselves heard, loud and clear that our non-relationship to policing is a non-negotiable.

I appreciate @christineeboyle's amendment.
@defund604 @pivotlegal @Amrit_HxH @erinconners_ @pipagaopoetry @sayhay37 @mmeenaakshii @TonyeAganaba and the other speakers that shared some heartwrenching stories. I am very sorry about the impacts this had on our traumas, and hence I am sending care.
@defund604 @pivotlegal @Amrit_HxH @erinconners_ @pipagaopoetry @sayhay37 @mmeenaakshii @TonyeAganaba I am sending love.

You stood up and out, and each of you gave me buckets to cry. For the postal worker person who shared your story, I am so, so sorry and horrid with your experience. I am sending you deep love.
Read 7 tweets
21 Jul
When it comes to community safety, I want to be able to choose the superheroes that I trust and believe can keep us safe. I choose Elders of these traditional lands. I choose mutual aid organizers. I choose community gardens. I choose community centres. I choose cultural centres
I choose transformative justice centres.

I choose healing centres.

I choose Neighbourhood Improvement Associations.

I choose mental health care and support and many Frontline workers.

I choose relationships.
I choose true community-led public safety.

I choose to not have guns pointed at fellow neighbours.

I choose to not have my neighbours be cuffee without reason.

I choose not to give policing more powers than they already have.

I choose not to invest in shields.
Read 8 tweets
21 Jul
In reflection of #JusticeforJared, I would say that Community Policing is one mechanism that the RCMP and VPD use to get away from being accountable of racist brutality. The guise of neighbourhood relationships is only another reason for police to justify their brutal actions.
Policing as a whole needs pausing. This mechanism public safety has been completed gutted out of compassion, understanding and tolerance.

I cannot sit here witnessing what happened to Jared and allowing for more policing in our communities.

CPCs are the police's ways of working with those they seem fit against those they seem don't. Not all community members are consider community to police. They consider many of us as jokes of the society and it tells by the way they treat us. It's systemic.
Read 27 tweets
19 Jul
When you call in to oppose this motion tomorrow, consider emphasizing the awesome work volunteers already do and suggest to remove policing from these centres and instead, make it about community care. True community care.
Volunteers should not need to be responsible for managing community relationships for the police department about their image.

Because CPCs cannot say anything when the VPD makes racist mistakes. They have zero powers to go against the something they might not agree with.
Follow @defund604, @pivotlegal for instructions for tomorrow's motion.

We have to stop this before it goes forward. We have to make a pause and take this opportunity to do proper consultation with the community and all CPCs.

Let's work on create care centers, not cop centers
Read 12 tweets
19 Jul
Something I shared in a meeting this morning. With 11 CPCs in Vancouver, Anti-Asian racism went up 717%, wrongful cuffing of Heiltsuk Elder Maxwell Johnson and grand-daughter, Tori-Anne, wrongful cuffing of retired judge, Selwyn Romily. Policing doesn't work. Care does.
Policing centres should cease to exist and be transformed to community well-being centres where true care can be provided as crime reduction. True community-led efforts start with those most impacted, not just biz and home owners. Renters, unhoused folks are community too.
The approval of this motion will further undermine, disrespect and create further harm to racialized and marginalized communitiee, not to mention increased danger to community members who are volunteering.

Volunteers SHOULD NOT do policing for free.
Read 14 tweets
18 Jul
Folks keep coming at me about me hating CPC volunteers and my calls to decenter policing.

Not one has taken what I am saying as direct feedback from a potential CPC user. If @sarahkirby_yung and @MountPleasantBC had bothered to conduct proper engagement, we wouldnt be here.
Everyone one of them kept mentioning that CPC volunteers are NOT COPS, receive training from many orgs and yet it's still referred to as a Policing Centre. Why?

No one has answered this question at all.
Like are CPCs unable to receive feedback from marginalized folks and expect us to just be ok with policing as an umbrella, while VPD assume racist positions?
Read 6 tweets
17 Jul
Folks who aren't traumatized by policing will NOT be able to understanding why Community Policing Centres are a barrier for many. Those who run CPCs know this. Policing is not trauma-informed, at all. Are we really wanting to "police" each other, all the time, every day?
We take policing for granted when we don't ask how are we enforcing policing attitudes between each other when public safety is linked ONLY to the police but not to community. And even when it's community-based, we use policing instead of community safety.

Why do we need to remind each other that the police is literally in every part of our lives, that all the racism, classism, sexism are all forms of policing. When will we start geniunely owning that community care is not policing. Policing CANNOT CAPTURE community care.
Read 6 tweets
17 Jul
The irony is here is that you have non-policing folks working in a "policing centre" and giving out naloxone. If they ain't cops, why have a "pretend cop" centre?

Why not call it a neighbourhood safety centre and remove connections to VPD?
No one arguing are daring to say they love policing or being connected to police. They think this is an attack on CPCs when it's not. This is a call-out of a racist system like the VPD being directly connected and the beneficiary of the work of community.
Im calling for CPC volunteers to assess why you are still getting training from the VPD when they haven't admitted to systemic racism and many other police brutality issues.

The #defund model is a community transformation model. It removes policing as a behaviour between us.
Read 9 tweets
17 Jul
If CPCs are not police and awesome volunteers doing community care work, WHY is it called a policing center and why do they receive training from the VPD?

This is not to smear volunteers. This is to question the reason of hiding community care behind policing. Image
I'll repeat this again. Lots of the good work that CPC volunteers do are not at question here, the issue is why is policing being centered? It's not a semantics issue or a naming issue. It's a policy design issue.

Community care is not community policing.
Community Policing's purpose as someone mentioned in a previous reply that they bridge the public and police. What does that mean for the police's public relations?

People will argue readily about the definition of social housing but won't say a thing about the def of CPCs.
Read 4 tweets
16 Jul
Instead of Community Policing Centres, I would love to see Community Learning Centres, Community Safety Centres, Community Healing Centres, Community Cultural Centres, Community Connection Centres, and more that's got nothing to do with policing.
As well as Neighbourhood Improvement Associations that's centred on racial, gender, disability, transformative justice frameworks.

Imagine if we, as neighbours learnt how to equalize and regulate societal power with each other without the need for policing.
Where community act like block chains and not viruses. Defunding the VPD should also translate to a needed transformation of where CPCs get their training from and how it is applied.

This motion speaks of none of that.
Read 8 tweets
16 Jul
Here's my argument. I know CPCs are good but that's not because it's policing. Providing mental health supports is not policing. Directing folks to resources is not policing. Being a safe place for people is not policing. So why is policing getting credit and a centre?
Folks supporting CPCs are insisting that volunteers are not cops. I know that. What I don't know is what has this got to do with policing? Good volunteers are everywhere. Doesnt mean there isn't a racist volunteer cop out there. or there isn't a transphobic volunteer out there.
The conflation of community care and community-led with policing is extremely troubling, given the level of chaos this city currently is in, the fact that VPD hasn't admit to systemic racism and that they have DIRECT access to volunteers with their training and ideologies
Read 4 tweets
21 Jun
@ElaineAlec talked about the importance of listening, to those who disagree.

I saw this reply to the op-ed and have been thinking about how we used to say that it takes a village to raise a children & how that isn't the case anymore. We have become so distrusting of each other
I reflected deeply on this statement. One thing that stuck for me is on how manipulative English as a language system is, when it comes to perpetuating linguistical segregation, and how the language system is "relationally opportunistic."
What that means for me is that the way we dialogue and debate even, is devoid of the considerations of relationships. We often choose "opportunity" over "relationship costs", like in wester economics systems.

We can learn so much here, in this example.
Read 8 tweets
21 Jun
Cause systemic racism creates so many barriers for the 2/3 to understand and accept that they can be "Non-racist" but ends up supporting systemic racism anyways. The systems keep getting way while individuals debate if they are racist.
When the upper beams are not right or righteous, the lower beams become crooked and non-righteous.

Colonial systems embed "land stealing" and "profiting" in land and housing practices, legalize it and they profit from it, sustaining the power they have.
Every time property taxes are paid to the colonial govt, we become even more implicit on supporting a historically racist system to perpetuate our lives, giving us the excuses of "retirements" and "inheritances" while ignoring the that the founders of the systems still profit.
Read 12 tweets