This summer, the Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Network presented three anti-racism workshops funded by the IDHS Healing Illinois. These workshops taught participants how to recognize the manifestations of racism and white supremacy in their work and in organizations, along with ways to mitigate harm and deliberately provide equitable services.
My training partner, Dr. Kelly Hurst, a SIU School of
Medicine equity strategist, and I began the final July session by addressing
the elephant in the room: the police killing of Sonya Massey.
Understanding the world through an anti-racism lens requires
us to learn, unlearn and organize to build power at the margins. We recognize
that structures, policies and hierarchies in institutions hoard power and
concentrate wealth. They create and maintain income inequality, segregation and
lack of access to education, food, health care and housing. Systemic injustice,
bias and racism encourage bigotry and victim blaming. They also allow for the
dehumanization of entire communities and foment violence.
History undeniably shows us that the killing of our sister
Sonya Massey is one of the countless instances of violence that Black
communities have experienced for centuries. It is a systemic problem that gets
falsely framed as the “one bad apple” scenario in order to insulate unjust
systems from efforts to bring about structural change. This denies and thus
upholds and protects the racism that is embedded in the policy and practice of
institutions.
In a speech to students about police misconduct, anti-racism
author and educator Tim Wise stated that if we “don't understand the history of
law enforcement misconduct in Black space and in Black communities, Black Lives
Matter won't make any sense to you.” Wise explained that he wasn’t talking
about “good cops and bad cops, or good people and bad people.” He was talking
about “a history and a culture of law enforcement that has simply not treated
Black and Brown peoples the same as white folks.”
Wise added: “Because the history of policing traces directly
back to slave patrols – that was the first iteration of law enforcement on this
land in any real formal sense; it was police after all who enforced the slave
codes; it was police who enforced segregation after slavery was ended; it was
police who conspired to engage in lynchings of thousands of black bodies;
police releasing suspected criminals or people who weren't even suspected of a
crime into the hands of the mob; it was police that pulled protesters off of
sit-ins in schools in the 1960s; it was police that turned water cannons and
dogs on children in the streets of Birmingham; it was police that did the same
and beat protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.” (San Jose City
College, 4/20/2017. “History of Police Misconduct and Black Lives Matter.”)
The murder of Sonya Massey pulls back the tenuous veil that
has obscured historically troubled relations between city and county law
enforcement and Black communities. This also includes abuses toward brown
communities, impoverished people, people of color, people experiencing mental
health crises, indigenous peoples and those who live unhoused or are otherwise
vulnerable and powerless.
When the police, paramedics or others who are supposed to
help us in times of crisis kill community members in their homes, the
consequences are not just devastating for their families and loved ones. Such
abuse of power deeply affects everyone else who has experienced a crisis or
lived at the margins – they must continue to live in fear, isolation and
prolonged stress. All of us are left with a sense of alienation and distrust.
Building just relations with the community is not just law
enforcement’s duty, it is essential best practice. When excessive force
incidents and police killings occur, communities of color will avoid calling
the police, even in situations of domestic violence, trafficking, harassment or
physical and sexual assault. Further, police won’t readily find witnesses and
others willing to cooperate with investigations if communities feel they must
stay in the shadows because they can’t trust police methods or treatment of
them.
Our advocacy work must include anti-racism training,
trauma-informed practices, reduction of harm strategies, trust-building and
creation of critical mass. This is intersectional and inclusive work by design –
we must understand that communities and peoples have much different lived
experiences and identities. We need to also make sure that the people most
affected are most prominently at the table. This also includes immigrants,
Muslims, Latinos and our Native American neighbors.
We call on all local law enforcement and policymakers to
work together with the affected communities toward truly transformative
solutions. Those solutions must be systemic, center justice and build inclusive
communities if they are to free us from the fear that those who are here to
protect us will harm us instead.
Let us all say her name once again. Sonya Massey, you should
be here.
Verónica Espina is founder, co-chair and board president of the Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Network.
