Dear friends,
The recovery from the pandemic — the return to something that will serve as normal — is still a long way away. This is especially true for the thousands of workers who are not going to receive relief checks.
Support the New York Communities Organizing Fund, which is providing direct relief to undocumented people and others who have been excluded from federal relief measures.
It’s Wednesday, and the folks at The Frontline are ramping up to mobilize the public during Congress’s spring recess. Tonight’s call is about generating energy and support to create recovery policies and to win the legislative battles ahead.
Sign on for The Frontline’s Wednesday organizing calls!
What we want is a vision for the future, that does not depend on winning support in the Senate every time people want to build something that will last. I got an email yesterday from a project called Downtown Crenshaw, asking for support for their project to buy and redevelop the Crenshaw Mall for the community. The current issue is to convince investors in the mall to sell to Downtown Crenshaw Rising, “a true community-centered development with local ownership at every step of the process.” It sent me on a hunt for a definition of self-determination that I could almost recall. I found this quote from Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael), which was close enough to what I half-remembered:
In his 1968 book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, Carmichael explained his personal meaning of Black Power: “It is a call for Black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for Black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.”
The Downtown Crenshaw project is an example of self-determination, and we can uplift and amplify it.
Sign this petition to investors and decision-makers to urge them to accept the bid from Downtown Crenshaw Rising. Please pass this petition along to anyone you know in LA.
Of course, we cannot cede control of the Senate or of state legislatures to people who are determined to fight against democracy. To pass federal legislation to protect voting rights and to promote gun control requires democratic representation, which is very exactly what’s at stake right now. In an interview, Stacey Abrams described the danger of being the frog in the heating pot, unaware of the fate that awaits you. That, she said, was the voter suppression of the past fifteen years.
[I]t was fairly invisible to the untrained eye that voter suppression was sweeping across the country, especially beyond the boundaries of the south.
Stacey Abrams calls Republican efforts to restrict voting in Georgia ‘Jim Crow in a suit’ Read more
What is so notable about this moment, and so disconcerting, is that they are not hiding. There is no attempt to pretend that the intention is not to restrict votes. The language is different. They use the veil, they used the farce of voter fraud to justify their actions. Their new term of art is election integrity. But it is a laughable word or phrase to use. It is designed based on anything but a question of integrity. The truth of the matter is there is no voter fraud. The truth of the matter is we had the most secure election that we’ve had.
Support Fair Fight and the New Georgia Project.
The wave of anti-Asian hate crimes has not abated in NYC. We want to believe that our attendance at vigils and our social media posts against hate are meaningful; they may be. AND, we need to provide support for our neighbors. Anxiety is running high in communities around the city and the nation. The Asian Mental Health Collective was formed to provide mental health support and to “normalize and de-stigmatize mental health within the Asian community.”
Support the Asian Mental Health Collective.
with love,
L