Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder accepted my invitation to visit our city, one of six cities, to listen to our concerns and suggestions.
In the wake of demands for action, the Obama administration has begun making important changes to end racial profiling, emphasize community-oriented policing and de-militarize police forces. However, much more needs to be done.
We are rightly outraged by the killing of unarmed young black men, weapons of war on our streets, and a criminal justice system that routinely fails our community. Parents in communities of color bear a terrible burden.
As the mother of two black men and grandmother of two black boys, I have had many painful but necessary conversations about how to behave and interact with law enforcement. No mother or grandmother should have to have these conversations, but they are necessary because black and brown children do not get the benefit of the doubt.
Over the past year, our country has awakened to the fact that, to some, the lives of our sons and daughters do not matter. The deaths of young African Americans are stinging reminders of our legitimate fears. These sentiments were echoed repeatedly at recent Oakland and Berkeley town halls. Hundreds told their stories of racial profiling, unjust sentencing and unequal treatment. This outrage is well-founded.
The statistics are heartbreakingly clear — our criminal justice system is broken.
African Americans receive longer sentences for the same crimes and directly and indirectly suffer from racial profiling. An African American is killed every 28 hours by a security officer. Action is overdue to reform this broken system — the time to act is now.
As we work to enact reforms, we must also recognize that law enforcement has a difficult job to ensure public safety. They too were part of the conversation with Attorney General Holder. It will take everyone to build trust and institute systemic change.
As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus’s Ferguson Task Force, I am working to tackle discrimination and injustice. I am proud to co-sponsor the Shield Our Streets Act (HR103) and the Grand Jury Reform Act (HR429) to increase investment in community-orientated policing and to ensure deadly force cases are heard by a judge.
I am also working with my colleagues to re-introduce the End Racial Profiling Act, Police Accountability Act and the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act in the coming weeks.
However, legislation is only one piece. We must make greater investments in police force diversity and racial sensitivity training. We must recognize that the legacy of slavery, manifested today in institutional racism, is part of the unfinished business of America, which must be addressed.
We need to continue investing in systemic reforms to promote education, create good-paying jobs, ensure affordable housing and eliminate poverty.
The time for policy change is today. We will need everyone’s help; we need the street heat. Peacefully march, register to vote, join civil rights organizations, call your legislators and demand action.
Fifty years ago in Selma, we saw young people change the course of history. Today, similar change and activism are again needed. We cannot wait; we cannot stand idle; we cannot fail to act because our children need us.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy