Moments of Despair Signal A Need for Change
By Larry Fondation, Executive Director of United Parents & Students
Over the past couple of months, I have been walking under a looming cloud of despair. In this nation, the land of the free, we have fought for so much together: Universal freedom of expression, equal access to opportunity and education, and sweeping anti-discrimination laws. Yet, I find myself shaken to the core by the Movement rising in response to ongoing police violence and systemic racism.
My television, social media feeds, and day-to-day conversations are riddled with shots fired. Shots fired by law enforcement during the unjust murders of Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others. Shots fired by people like Amy Cooper, whose actions are often the catalyst to innocent Black and brown lives being taken from us. Shots fired from others who reject “Black Lives Matter” in favor of the absurd and reactionary “All Lives” or “Blue Lives” types. For injustice to run rampant like this, in a country that promises me so much more, makes me ashamed. Our nation, the one we’ve built together, deserves better than this.
Black and brown people have endured debilitating violence both inside and outside our communities. This violence has come in many forms: poverty, homelessness, ICE raids and deportations, food deserts, deplorable wages and wage theft, voter suppression, lack of access to quality education. In just one example, in order to keep pace with its 1968 purchasing power, today’s minimum wage would need to be $24 an hour.
I know this feeling of disappointment is not in vain — some people say in every complaint is a latent vision. For me, the vision for this country just means things need to change. We are living history right now, and it is imperative as organizers, leaders, and neighbors that we make our voices heard. Complacency should not be an option.
Though we must act now, we neither need to move rashly nor underestimate the virtues of persistence and sustainability. Proper movements take time and planning. While we correctly glamorize the Civil Rights Movement, it was a series of both boldly conceived and well-orchestrated events. After Rosa Parks — who was strategically picked for her role — refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery Bus in 1955, it took 381 days of persistent boycotting before the city desegregated its bus line. There were many people who wanted to quit. Imagine, walking miles back and forth each day to a minimum wage job, month after month, with no end in sight. Imagine the energy and careful planning it took for movement workers to substitute busses for boycotters. What really antagonized the status quo was when Civil Rights leaders organized voter registration throughout southern communities. The formation of the Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a crucial turning point.
The growing protests against police brutality have begun to dissipate my looming cloud of disappointments. We’re working together again, mobilizing toward justice. Cities across the nation, including Los Angeles, are rethinking how law enforcement is funded and how police respond to calls. School districts are reimagining campuses with less police presence. Just last week, the Los Angeles School Board voted to cut school police by $25 million (fact check) and repurpose the monies towards counselors and peacekeepers. And many diverse movements, including Black Lives Matter and LGBT+ groups, have found solidarity through working in concert.
Together, with an undying commitment to a more just and humane nation, we can tackle the issues that plague our communities over time. Change takes time, planning, strategy, intention, and commitment. Groups like United Parents and Students adopt a deliberate community organizing approach to build deep and lasting relationships among families to mobilize for change. As Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation pioneered, the most vital step in organizing is listening to one another. This movement is prompting another crucial stage in our national reckoning with racialized discrimination and persecution: truly seeing and hearing the agony of our brothers and sisters across lines of race, class, and faith.
While defunding the police and reforming the schools are important measures to help confront the fundamental inequities in our social institutions, they are clearly far more nuanced than simple slogans. They require broader and deeper social and political engagement than ever before. For real change to come, our collective mission must galvanize activists, families, students, clergy, community groups, businesses and others to build the fabric of a new future in everyday relationships and actions.
We must, together, ensure safety on our streets and keep them clean — holding our government and elected officials accountable. We must, together, seek justice in courtrooms and boardrooms — raising our voices to speak truth to power. We must, together, fight for equal services and equal respect — using our votes and our energy to drive change to improve the lives of all Angelenos, indeed all Americans and all human persons, regardless of zip code or background. We must work to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights truly human and universal. Perhaps both oddly and ironically, this dark moment in our history actually gives us a chance. Let’s take it.
