FIRST AND FOREMOST In Honor of the late John Lewis, leader, activist, US Representative, please read the New York Times Op-Ed he wrote, published a few days before he passed.
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW
Check out our new PREC Facebook group and please request to join - we’ll share articles, events, updates and other important info. Join today!
The Policing Sub-committee met Piedmont Police Chief Jeremy Bowers to address questions. Next meeting TBD.
The Diversify the City subcommittee met Wednesday evening and had an enlightening conversation around reaching out to many arms of Piedmont life, including the arts, events, city wide signage, school diversity and culture (particularly PHS and Millennium High). Conversation will ensue at our next subcommittee meeting on Monday August 10th at 6:30PM. Please email amywgriffith@gmail.com for the Zoom link.
The Education/Schools subcommittee met Thursday and focused on short-term actions around things like increasing BIPOC representation in schools (students and staff), what more formalized teacher PD re: anti-racism could look like, how to best support student advocacy, and putting together a panel on the history of school segregation. We will be meeting again in the next two weeks or so to continue the work. If you’d like to join, please email leediana117@gmail.com for the date and the Zoom link.
The Housing/Zoning subcommittee is postponing its next meeting, originally scheduled for Wednesday, August 5, to a later date. We are waiting for the City to announce next steps on its hiring of a consultant on multi-family and affordable housing. Next meeting TBD.
At its next meeting on Monday evening, August 3, the Piedmont City Council will consider a resolution stating the City of Piedmont’s Unequivocal Rejection of Racism and directing that the Black Lives Matter Flag be Flown during the month of August 2020. This is a first step, not a last one. Please attend the meeting and during public comment, commend the City Council for its commitment to anti-racism, and encourage it to follow it up with further anti-racist policy actions--for example by redressing historical discrimination, enabling construction of affordable housing, and leading on police reform.
On Wednesday, President Trump revoked an Obama-era housing desegregation regulation and tweeted: “I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood.” This was a dog-whistle to stir up white suburbanites’ fears about affordable housing and racial integration--an echo of tactics used from the 1950s forward, and it shows again how closely exclusionary zoning policies--such as those that maintain Piedmont’s status as a city composed of 95% single family residences--are intimately connected with racial inequity in America. Piedmonters who have a different “suburban lifestyle dream”--one that envisions diverse, racially integrated, and just communities--please join the Housing/Zoning committee. Email irene.cheng@gmail.com for more info.
OTHER NEWS AND WAYS TO STAY ENGAGED
Many snaps to POPS for raising $54,969 to distribute to Black Organizing Project, Planting Justice, and the State of Black Education Oakland. We can't wait for more action from this group of our Piedmont youth.
This petition calling in the need for more diverse curriculum in Piedmont schools started by a PMS student still needs our voices. Please sign!
In his New York Times bestseller, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein argues with exacting precision and fascinating insight how segregation in America is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state and federal levels. This event has happened - get updates on the recording here.
Prop 16, the Repeal Proposition 209 Affirmative Action Amendment, is on the ballot for November 2020 in California. Attend this kick off party in support of YES on Prop 16. What voting YES would mean HERE.
LET’S KEEP LEARNING
Nikole Hannah-Jones discusses how one school became a battleground over which children benefit from a separate and unequal system in this New York Times article. More from Hanna-Jones on the resegregation of U.S. schools here on this episode of NPR podcast This American Life.
Nice White Parents is a new podcast from Serial Productions, a New York Times Company, about the 60-year relationship between white parents and the public school down the block. Beyonce just dropped her visual album “Black is King” and the reviews are in. Visually stunning and culturally ground-breaking.
Be well,
Your PREC Steering Committee