I’ve Been Longing for One Thing
My entire life, I’ve been longing for one thing--to feel safe. That’s what my parents have always wanted for me too. Before I was 6 months old, my parents left the Southside of Chicago and moved our family to a small town in Wisconsin. They believed proximity to white folks would give us access to resources they never had; they thought it would keep us safe.
By the time I reached elementary school, they realized that despite how hard they tried to get us to assimilate, our Blackness made us a target. That’s when I first had “the talk”. This wasn’t a conversation about periods, puberty, and sex; this was the conversation reserved for Black children. A conversation about everything we should and shouldn’t do to protect ourselves from violence at the hands of white folks and to protect ourselves from the cops. For a while I believed this to be true: that if I got good grades, stayed out of trouble, respected those in positions of power, that I would be safe.
Then I learned about Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice. And I realized that I will never be safe in this country, Black people will never be safe. What’s worse is that when we are murdered, White people are going to dig into our past to find any shred of evidence that can be used to paint us as criminals or otherwise justify our deaths. Black people who have done illegal shit or caused harm deserve to live just like anyone else. Let me repeat that: Black people who have done illegal shit or caused harm deserve to live just like anyone else!
“Let me repeat that: Black people who have done illegal shit or caused harm deserve to live just like anyone else!”
We are here today to honor Jacob Blake, Trayford Pellerin, Salaythis Melvin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, David Jones, Brandon Tate-Brown, Daniel Prude, Dijon Kizzee and so many others we have lost to police and white vigilante violence. Right now, Jacob Blake is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back 7 times. He was handcuffed to his hospital bed because the Kenosha Police Chief, Daniel Miskinis, blames Jacob Blake for being shot. The Police Chief is also excusing the actions of a White Supremacist, blaming the victims for being shot and painting Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero.
WE DEMAND JUSTICE. Call (262) 653-4135. That’s the number to demand the resignation of Kenosha’s Police Chief Daniel Miskinis.
WE DEMAND JUSTICE AND WILL FIGHT EVERYDAY UNTIL BLACK PEOPLE ARE SAFE IN THIS COUNTRY.
I am so honored to be here today and feel hopeful about the amount of people joining the uprising. But I’m also tired. White people have no idea the terror that Black folks experience everyday, often in secret, when no one is filming, right here in Philadelphia. We are struggling to breathe and learn and live free of terror.
Reclaim Philadelphia is committed to building power so that we can end structural oppression. Our Mass Liberation work is centered on abolishing police and ending mass incarceration in Pennsylvania. And there is so much standing in our way as we fight for the abolition of police, surveillance, and prisons. Given who is in the Mayor's Office and on City Council, we know it will be a long road to victory. But hear me when I say:
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CANNOT REST UNTIL IT’S WON.
In our pursuit of abolition, today we have 4 demands for city council, DA Krasner, and Mayor Kenney.
Defund the Police: City Council passed a budget that gives over $720million to the PPD. All while 1 in 4 Philadelphians live in poverty; our communities need safe and affordable housing, harm reduction, healthcare, libraries, childcare, and food. Right now, only 6 members of Council support defunding the police. I’m going to read the names of council members that are standing in the way, and I want you all to commit to calling and emailing them: Council President Darrell Clarke, Mark Squilla, Curtis Jones, Bobby Henon, Cherelle Parker, Cindy Bass, Brian O’Neill, Maria Quinones-Sanchez, Allan Domb, Derek Green, and David Oh. We call on all members of city council to commit to a divestment plan that reduces the PPD budget by at least 15% every year and work with community organizations to create a plan for dismantling the PPD.
Give Control to the Community: We must abolish the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Advisory Commission. We need direct democratic community control of the police department to ensure that communities most harmed by destructive policing have the power to hire and fire officers, to determine disciplinary action, to control budgets and policies, and to subpoena relevant agency information. While the FOP contributes to represent PPD in the collective bargaining process, we demand a seat at the negotiation table to ensure more transparency and stronger discipline get added to the city’s contract with the FOP. Anything less will guarantee police will continue to commit atrocities without accountability.
End the War Against Black and Brown People: Since this country’s inception there have been named and unnamed wars on our communities. We demand an end to the criminalization, incarceration, and killing of our people. This includes: the removal of police from schools; an end to the use of past criminal history to determine eligibility for housing, education, licenses, voting, loans, employment, and other services and needs; an end to the mass surveillance of Black communities; and an end to the use of technologies that criminalize and target our communities; an end to the separation of Black families through the forcible removal of our children by the Department of Human Services; and and End to the City’s interaction with ICE.
#FreeOurPeople and Stop the Spread of COVID-19: Conditions inside jails, prisons, and detention centers have always violated human rights, but the current conditions are far worse. On August 10th, the Philadelphia Department of Prisons took the dangerous move of unexpectedly relocating over 100 cis women, trans people and gender non-conforming people held at Riverside Correctional Facility (RCF) to two different facilities with worse conditions, Mod 3 and Alternative Special Detention (ASD). Incarcerated women in these facilities describe deplorable conditions and the high risk of exposure to COVID-19 as a result of a rushed move in the midst of a pandemic. The women were given no warning of the move, leaving family members unaware of their whereabouts and unable to contact them. We demand that the City of Philadelphia release everyone from ASD and Mod 3 now. We demand that the First Judicial District and the District Attorney stop caging people pretrial and that Mayor Kenney and the City of Philadelphia permanently #ShutDownDC. We believe the only way to safely close the Detention Center is releasing people, not putting the lives of cis women, trans people and gender non-conforming people at risk by moving them into worse conditions with no ability to socially distance in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
We must stand together and fight TOGETHER. Our collective power can take over these streets, topple statues, and tear down racist institutions. And together we can build a world where Black people can be safe, free to breathe and learn and live free of terror.