Authored by Chantal Stevens, Interim Executive Director with WNC members, Curry First and Alex Cury
Asheville City Council 通过了 a resolution acknowledging slavery, 种族歧视, and committing to invest in the community.
On July 15, 2020, the Asheville City Council 通过了 一致通过的决议, apologizing for the city’s role in slavery and 种族歧视 and committing to reparations through investments in programs geared towards supporting Black businesses, 职业生涯, 和住房.
This resolution comes on the heels of the 删除 of two Confederate monuments and weeks of ongoing protests following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police.
Asheville by no means is the model for equity; just last month the city faced national scrutiny for the 破坏 of medical supplies by police during the protests against police violence. 这个城市，其中最 中产阶级化的城市 有一个学校系统吗 最高成就差距S在这个州, and a history of racist policing exemplified by the 2017 case of police abuse of resident Johnnie 冲. At this moment, however, they are taking a step in the right direction. Asheville is doing what we should all be doing; facing our own complicity in upholding a racist system that has prevailed since the founding of this country.
During slavery, Black people were forced to labor for the enrichment of America. 在奴隶制, the emancipated suffered violent repression and exploitation under Jim Crow laws and black codes in the South and de facto segregation across the nation. The end of slavery also saw the rise of slavery by another name in the form of excessive imprisonment, which conscripted hundreds of thousands of unjustly incarcerated Black men and women to generations of unpaid labor on behalf of public and private interests. Black people today continue to be stymied by systemic 种族歧视 and white supremacy. The results of those inequities show up in unequal access to education, 医疗保健, 住房, 失业和不充分就业, and in the enforcement of the rule of law that is both racist and discriminatory. It is precisely because of these ongoing inequities that we need restorative justice.
Actions like the ones by Asheville, are not the first, and should not be the last. There needs to be a formal recognition from our state and federal government for its role in the enslavement or post-slavery apartheid of millions of Blacks. 联邦法案 H.R. 国会40人 attempt to begin the process of reparatory justice for the violence of enslavement. 另外, in the wake of prolonged protests for thousands of victims of police brutality, not coincidentally against the descendants of enslaved Americans and others in minoritized racial groups, there is now a growing recognition that policing is a fundamentally violent and racist institution that needs to be dismantled – not merely reformed. When it comes to conversations about racial justice and equity, reparations and police divestment are all part of the same conversation.
出于这些原因和许多其他原因, we have joined the calls to divest from police and for reparations.
Divesting would mean a critical downscaling of police budgets in our cities and reinvesting those funds to support people and services in marginalized communities that have been neglected for far too long. It means funds for initiatives like education, 医疗保健, and other local resources that would improve public safety and well-being. Cities like Asheville, Raleigh, and Charlotte have inflated law enforcement budgets. 和, 远远不能保证ysb体育登陆社区的安全, law enforcement perpetuates a cycle of violence and injustice – while the urgent issues of poverty, 精神疾病, 药物滥用ysb体育登陆得不到解决. By shrinking our law enforcement budget, we can help end decades of racially driven social control and oppression as well as address social problems at their root instead of investing in an institution that further oppresses and terrorizes communities.
Amid this national reckoning against racial injustice, we now have a historic opportunity to divest from a broken, biased system of policing and begin the process of making reparations by reinvesting those dollars in the Black and Brown communities that have been unjustly targeted. Whether justice prevails depends on us and our ability to heed to the leadership and the voices of Black people demanding freedom. 直到黑人的生命也重要, we acknowledge the reasons why reparations are needed and hold ourselves accountable, 不会有真正的正义.
阿什维尔不知道答案, but it’s setting an example for North Carolina on one way to get there. ysb体育登陆希望其他国家也能效仿.
