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Presenting the Black/Brown Unity Coalition
By Baldemar Velasquez
Throughout the history of
America black and brown people have struggled to achieve the
full rights guaranteed by the Constitution of our Nation.
In the struggles to overcome the historic institutions of
oppression, heroic figures have creatively organized,
resisted and stood against, many times at the of expense of
their lands, property, livelihoods and even their lives.
The ravages of slavery, tenant farming, sharecropping that
kept many Black peoples on the margins of life set in motion
a trajectory wrought with unequal standing and
opportunity. The theft of the Western US from Mexico and
Indigenous communities through doctrines of “Manifest
Destiny” and other euphemisms for predatory imperialism
dispossessed millions of Brown inhabitants that to this day
live with cautious sensibilities.
The human rights movements through civil rights, labor and
community organizing have done much to ameliorate historic
inequities but much has remained undone as we see past
progress being reversed and dis-mantled. From civic
participation, voting rights to economic polarization we see
the ramifications in our neglected neighborhoods in the
urban areas and rural people frozen in time of the latter
part of the last millennium.
Though Black and Brown communities have valiantly struggled
against abuses and inequality many times we watched each
other’s struggles with sympathy and not seen the opportunity
to bridge our own cultures to identify our common
obstacles. We the undersigned membership organizations
declare that we will no longer carry on separately but work,
identify and strategize together in identifying common
issues and collaborative solutions.
MISSION
The mission of the Black/Brown Unity Coalition will be to
empower our communities with self-determination through
community organizing, education, community services,
analysis and advocacy.
PURPOSE
To build a cohesive network of engaged residents to gain the
agency and institutional credibility needed to successfully
address barriers to social mobility. We will seek to
acquire economic and social benefits with higher levels of
employment, increased job training, improved wages, greater
economic stability and a shared community vision.
PROGRAM
There will be identified social issues that have impeded
access to jobs and education, initiate efforts that will
contribute to economic, community integration and domestic
tranquility. The coalition will organize and propose
solutions that strike at the heart of obstacles and create
participatory processes and programs. We will engage
government, social agencies, labor, public and private
institutions in fulfilling mandates of good government,
community policing, full employment and peaceful
neighborhoods. Efforts by dynamic leaders in the Black and
Latino communities have already come together in informal
dialogue and merged common concerns with initiatives.
The following will be the first such projects currently
identified;
Create and implement a Code of Conduct with TPD and Lucas
County Sheriff’s Department. Police and community relations
have been a problem identified throughout low-income
neighborhoods. Over 200 house meetings have been conducted
in the Latino neighborhoods and problems with local law
enforcement and immigration ICE/Border Patrol has been a
discussion topic in just about every meeting with the adults
and youth. The negative image must be changed in order to
realize real community policing. This means a creative
program must be developed that will engaged community and
police to win each other over. The community must see
police as their protectors too and not assumed to be
automatic suspects that give rise to profiling and through
implicit bias. The police must see the community as allies
and in crime solving. Creative forums for mediation of
incidents that would cause the community to dis-trust police
must be established to begin changing perceptions of police
and community behavior towards one another. Internal
affairs complaints do not work for community as they are not
transparent, intimidating and discourages residents from
complaining.
The other start-up initiative is lighting up the darken
neighborhoods. Evidence of neglected neighborhoods shows in
the street lights that remain broken, un-serviced has led to
many inconveniences to residents. Youth complain that
darkened streets, especially in the winter months, many are
walking home from school in the dark with difficulties in
navigating broken sidewalks and possible assaults. Lighting
up the streets would help deter burglaries, home break-ins
and other petty crimes.
The third challenge will be to develop a formal leadership
structure based on membership participation to assure
legitimate collective authority and a willingness to take
responsibility for financial autonomy and sustainability.
June 24, 2017-Baldemar Velasquez
Ed. Note: On Tuesday,
August 14, at a meeting of the Toledo Chapter NAACP,
Baldemar Velasquez, founder and president of the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee (FLOC), presented the above preamble to
the by-laws of the Black/Brown Unity Coalition, of which
both FLOC and the NAACP are coalition members. The other
groups in the coalition are Latinos United, Laborers Local
500, L.O.B.O.S. and the Toledo Community Coalition. |
