Spring Issue 24

2024

Creating Other Worlds: Abolition As A Portal To The Possible

Many of us are familiar with the idea of abolition from history lessons that link it with the fight to end chattel slavery in the United States. However, given this… Read More

A Call to Social Justice Movements & Organizations: Build collective safety AND fight the carceral state and state-sanctioned violence

More info here! https://www.muslimsforjustfutures.org/blog/acalltosocialjusticemovements Read More

What Happens When You Uproot a Cedar Tree?

what happens when you uproot a cedar tree? when the stories kept captive in its trunk lie dormant in the arab spring what happens when the roots have absorbed the… Read More

I don’t know your ocean, but I know our lakes

I don’t know your ocean, but I know our lakes. And I imagine the love I have for my lake is the same as you have for your ocean. I… Read More

Accountability and Transparency Now! How Detroiters Can Leverage Their Right to Civilian Oversight

Civilian Oversight in Detroit Today The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC) was established in 1974 to provide civilian oversight of the Detroit Police Department. The Office of the Chief… Read More

There should be no exception to the promise

Slavery was supposed to have ended with the end of the Civil War and the creation and ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. It was supposed to enshrine a… Read More

We demand freedom for all US-held Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War!

"It is extremely essential to support our political prisoners and prisoners of war. How else do we show our appreciation for their selfless labors and sacrifice on behalf of us… Read More

I Tried to Join the Police Force; It Was Toxic.

There is a famous quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which goes “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It is one that… Read More

Confessions of a Former Cop

It’s a hard pill to swallow when you are used for bad, Trying to go against the grain but you get why people are mad. The boys in blue represent… Read More

A Police Department with a City

Illustration by Amanda Matyas Israel has been called “not a country with an army, but an army with a country.” The proliferation of military equipment, tactics and culture… Read More

Care: A Revolutionary Idea for Responding to Crises

Photo by lance hicks Late one night, Grey received a call from a nurse informing him that his sibling had been forcibly injected with an antipsychotic after an altercation with… Read More

Song for Weelaunee

As helicopters chopped the sky above our heads and tear gas drifted on the breeze, police blocked an entrance to the massive law enforcement training facility they’re determined to build… Read More

Defend ALL or Defund ALL! Tales from a 70 year old #BadAssGrandma

Ok, so I’m not your everyday elder white lady. People often question what led me to be so involved in movement work. They wonder at this fierce older white lady… Read More

Concerts at The Cut and Jazzin’ at the Vanity

“Live music is the beating heart of our city. People look forward to engaging with it. It intertwines itself seamlessly into every facet of our identity. Beyond good eats, our… Read More

RESTLESS DEFIANCE

Yes we are nervous about tomorrow, about the future. Yes we care, and we carry the load. Yes we are insistent on a better world because we know it exists. … Read More

A New Threat to Anishinaabe territory: Transition Mines and The Green(washed) Talon Mine

A new era of corporate extraction is upon us, this time with a deceptive “green” veil. In the midst of the climate crisis, mining companies are positioning themselves as beneficiaries… Read More

Goliath Brown

Never knew equality after being subjected to prejudices spent worldwide. Chocolate, mahogany, sienna, hazel or olive, my actions have always been typified by the darkness of my skin. Perceived as… Read More

Be A lover Coloring Page

Printable coloring page! Please print it, color it, share it, and tag Riverise! Konstance Patton Ke-nee-go-keshek is an Indigenous American Artist, Muralist, Designer, and Oral Historian working between Detroit, Michigan,… Read More

So Much Bad News

Sometimes, when you get so much bad news you struggle to sort through it. What should be prioritized, what’s the point? Do I choose to report on the lady whose… Read More

Reflections on Mutual Aid: Mother Earth’s Call to Action for Regeneration

Living cooperatively is no easy task. As humans, we are all one species but we all have distinct fingerprints. This duality between self and group based identities might lead one… Read More

The State of the Young – The Young Voices Action Collective: Building New Realities, One Dream at a Time

Do you remember the dreams you had for the world when you were a child? What barriers kept you from making them a reality? Are they the same ones keeping… Read More

Riverwise Sacred Spaces: Concert Of Colors 2023

When She Found Me

I look out at the Atlantic. This is my view, everywhere I turn. I see it in my waking hour and something in there reminds me that… As much as… Read More

Holding Their Feet to the Fire

ShotSpotter is audio surveillance technology marketing itself as gunshot detection technology. City Council’s approval last fall of the Detroit Police Department’s (DPD) request to extend and expand ShotSpotter throughout the… Read More

Michiganders Unsatisfied with DNR “Denial” of Camp Grayling Expansion and New MOU

Photo credits to Kenny Karpov Camp Grayling is a Michigan National Guard (MNG) training center and part of the National All-Domain Warfighting Center located in Crawford, Kalkaska, and Otsego Counties.… Read More

Making and Baking A Greater Detroit Our Children Deserve

Too many Detroit children have inherited an unfortunate, unfair set of economic and educational inequities. Too often, when we speak or hear of Detroit, we hear or speak of scarcity… Read More

Say His Name: Porter Burks; Say What This Is: Genocide

I vividly remember the bodycam footage of the murder of Porter Burks in the early morning hours last October, shortly before settling into my workday as a psychiatrist who works… Read More

Cocooned and Covered

Author’s Note: Though I am not a member of the trans community, my niece and I co-created this piece about her journey of transition. We offer this story with the… Read More

NCOE Statement Opposing Transphobic, Homophobic, and Gender Violence

Image downloaded from Just Seeds https://justseeds.org/graphic/my-body-my-choice/. Visit Kill Joy and Just Seeds online to learn more and support! On Instagram @kill.joy.land, @la.onda.grafica and @justseeds “…the issues of race and class… Read More

Suicide, Violence, and Abolition

This March, thirty-four organizations in Detroit signed on to a statement in solidarity with the abolitionist #StopCopCity protests in Atlanta, denouncing the police killing of innocent people, calling to defund… Read More

The Return of Afrofuture Fest in 2023: Reflections on the Past and Communal Futures

The Return of Afrofuture Fest in 2023: Reflections on the Past and Communal Futures By Adrienne Ayers Afrofuture Fest originated as a 25th birthday party for myself on Anishinaabe Land at… Read More

Fat On Freedom

“Fat on Freedom” by Megan Douglass As we prepare for the long haul, we asked: What is guiding, fueling, feeding our work? All this conflict is a part of movement,… Read More

An Act of Love

An Act of Love By Laura Bailey Brandon We sat on a patchwork of blankets in a field, hugged by trees. We sat facing each other, knees bent against strangers… Read More

if a tree falls (and No One is around)

if a tree falls (and No One is around) (new liturgies against “representation”) Does it make a sound? The man was white that named the tree “no one,” and so… Read More

a riot is a prayer is a maybe is a yes—

a riot is a prayer is a maybe is a yes— (in praise of refusal, of the dark, of “yes;” in praise of every unknown regarding the world to be… Read More