Marin City forum on racial justice touches on voting, policing, income and Trump

February 28, 2016

Again and again, community activists, public officials and advocates hammered home the point at a Marin City forum on racial justice Sunday: “Vote!”

The Community Forum on Racial Justice, hosted by Rep. Jared Huffman with guest speaker Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland and a panel of local leaders, gave the community a chance to talk to the representatives about how to better promote racial equity in the North Bay and beyond.

“We have to restore the power of the Voting Rights Act. We must do the hard work of restoring trust between citizens and law enforcement. And we must make sure that never again will we see a racial demagogue like Donald Trump,” Huffman told the audience of about 300 that packed the Cornerstone Community Church.

Huffman’s speech got a big hand, and tumultuous applause greeted Lee when she took the podium, but the real stars of the show were a group of students from the Hannah CDF Freedom School. The Hannah Project is a summer literacy program for children that also awards college scholarships.

In addition to studying reading, the children engage in social programs, and in 2015 the students wrote a resolution on childhood poverty that Huffman arranged to be put in the Congressional Record.

The young authors took their place in front of the crowd to a standing ovation and took turns reading their resolution, then accepted a plaque from Huffman.

The resolution asserted that almost 2,000 children in Marin live in poverty and often start school unprepared. “There are 21,000 poor families in Marin who live on less than $24,000 a year while most families in our county earn more than $80,000 per year,” the resolution read, calling for the abolishment of childhood poverty by 2030.

“We boast of our progressive politics in Marin, but inequity and racism exist here,” said moderator Dana King, a former KPIX reporter who lived in Marin for 15 years before moving to Oakland.

She told the group that 35 percent of Marin’s 4-year-olds did not go to preschool in 2012, and “kids who don’t go to preschool are disadvantaged all the way through.”

Programs like the Hannah Project aim to address this and other disparities, but trying to do so one child at a time “is like trying to use a toothpick to bring down a glacier,” said panelist Bettie Hodges, who heads up the project.

Hence, “policymakers must work on education in a community context,” Hodges said.

Tom Wilson, another panelist, put it more bluntly. “We are the capital of nonequity in Marin,” said Wilson, who is executive director of Canal Alliance. The Canal neighborhood is home to a large immigrant population.

While 81 percent of Ross residents have a college degree, only 50 percent of Canal residents have a high school diploma, Wilson said.

“There are only 250,000 people in Marin. With the wealth we have, I think we can fix that and we must fix that,” Wilson said.

“We will have equity when Marin City is no longer a food desert, when MLK Academy students get the tools needed to read at grade level,” said panelist Nancy Johnson, president of the Marin City Community Services District.

After the presentations, panelists took questions from the audience.

“What can community artists do to support the work of activists?” asked Oshalla Diana Marcus of Marin City.

“Education and the arts provide a pathway to equity,” Lee said. “It’s important for dancers, artists and others to use their creativity to spread the word about ending poverty. Translate that into action — voting and lifting up the people who should be elected.”

Panelist Ta’Naejah Reed of Marin City responded to a question about what change would best assist today’s youth. Reed, who will enter Tamalpais Union High School District in the fall, said, experience is “the biggest thing — you can put it on your college applications or job applications.”

In response to a question about policing in Marin City, Johnson said, “It starts with respect. Marin City is unincorporated, so the sheriff’s office serves us. The sheriff’s department has to have respect for Marin City residents, and Marin City residents have to give respect.”

Johnson added, “The Marin County sheriff is elected. Register and vote.”

As the meeting drew to a close, King told the audience, “Ask your neighbors, ‘Have you voted? Are you registered to vote?’ Don’t let what you think is going to happen, happen.”


Source: by Janis Mara