In response to the killing of Freddie Gray, Mya Hall, and others by the Baltimore Police Department, the protests in the street, and the mobilization of the National Guard to enforce a nightly curfew the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) issued the following statement:
“Our hearts are with the family and loved ones of Freddie Gray, a 25 year old Black man who was brutally and senselessly beaten by six officers of the Baltimore Police Department. Gray’s injuries were so horrific that his spine was severed during the encounter, and he later died from the injuries that he sustained. Just a few weeks prior, Mya Hall, a Black trans woman, was killed by the same police department.
Our country is at a critical juncture, forced to face with broken hearts the impacts of a broken democracy and economy. Since the beginning of this year alone, a Black person has been killed by police at the rate of one every eight hours. Every eight hours a mother loses their child to violence at the hands of the very people who took an oath to protect and serve.
Our country is at a critical juncture. Since the beginning of this year alone, a Black person has been killed by police at the rate of one every eight hours.
Baltimore is no different. Baltimore is 63% Black. 24% of people in Baltimore live below the poverty line, and there is a twenty year difference in life expectancy between those who live in the most affluent neighborhoods, and those who live just six miles away in the poorest neighborhoods. Since 2011, Baltimore has had to pay over $5.7 million to more than 100 families whose relatives have been killed or violently attacked by the police. All of the victims were Black – including a pregnant woman and an 87 year old grandmother.
That’s why it’s appalling that so much of the media coverage has expressed outrage at broken windows, yet very little for the broken families that are hanging on by a thread, holding the tatters of our economy and our democracy together.
We can and must do better to focus our attention and our action in the places where it belongs – getting to the root causes of why a rebellion is raging in Baltimore.
We know that change is coming, and that change is never convenient. Real change requires ruptures in our collective consciousness and disruptions in our everyday habits. What is happening in Baltimore is a rupture and a disruption that deserves our attention, our love, and our commitment to the birth of a new world that upholds the right to dignity and fairness for all.”
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