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As described in our previous post The Role of Policy in SURJ’s Racial Justice Work, the Policy Working Group of the SURJ Bay Area chapter is working in service to, and in collaboration with our POC-led partner organizations that work on legislative advocacy: Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) / All of Us or None(AOUON), Essie Justice Group, and Initiate Justice. As we enter the 2nd quarter of the 2019 California legislative cycle, we’d like to share the bills, propositions, and campaigns that are our focus for 2019. While we expect a few more additions, this list will give you a good idea of what we’ll be supporting (and opposing) as this year progresses.
 Migrant women, children, and men standing in a line; in the foreground, a woman is holding a baby close to her, and to her right, a man holds another baby in one arm while resting his hand on another child standing in front of him. By Lynn Levey
Children separated from their parents, families traveling on foot for months to get to the U.S. border, people fleeing rape, gang violence, government brutality, torture, and murder - we were horrified by the stories we had been hearing about the situation at the southern border. So earlier this month, my daughter and I traveled to Tijuana, to volunteer and support asylum-seekers there. We knew thousands of migrants had arrived in Tijuana without resources, facing a standoff at the border where, in violation of U.S. and international law, they are not being allowed to cross into our country to seek asylum. By Micki Luckey White women protesting bussing I admit I was distressed reading Mothers of Mass Resistance, the new book by Elizabeth Gillepsie McRae that documents how women upheld white supremacy in the US from 1920 to 1970. Not that any part of this meticulously detailed history was false. After reading and writing about the struggles for civil rights and integration, I simply did not want to recognize the power white women have wielded in opposing desegregation and civil rights. But McRae contends that the roles women played to support segregation of the races, while generally kept out of the limelight, were nonetheless effective. She states, “…when we focus too much on national legislative victories over legal segregation, we miss the endurance of white supremacist politics and practices in local institutions, in local communities.” (McRae, p.10)
As we continue the struggle to challenge and topple the prison industrial complex, it is important we take pause to celebrate our successes and learn from our losses. In many ways, 2018 marked a year in which legislation undoing the dark legacies of mass incarceration gained momentum. Led by the inspiring work of our POC-led partners, last year grassroots movements generated enough pressure to pass five vital pieces of criminal justice reform. Together, our actions were part of a targeted and coordinated legislative strategy that elevated the voices of the most impacted, amplified the power of our organizing, and led to some significant legislative victories in California.
 #12DaysToShowUp, Donate this December to SURJ's 12 Days to Show Up campaign. Queer + Trans* Black Lives Matter This year, as part of our commitment to confronting white supremacy’s role in creating violence against trans women of color, SURJ Bay Area has continued partnering with the Transgender, Gender-Variant, and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP). SURJ supports TGIJP in its mission to support transgender, gender variant and intersex people inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers. TGIJP is a Black trans woman led organization fighting for self determination, freedom of expression, and gender justice.
#12DaysToShowUp Day 11: Invest in Communities and Policy Change to Address Mass Incarceration12/30/2018
 We have become all too familiar with hearing the reports of police brutality against people of color, the statistics of prisons disproportionately crowded with Black and Brown individuals, and the stories of families torn apart by extreme sentencing policies. Our nation’s history of racism is inextricably linked to our prison system and it is critical that we take real steps nowto dismantle this system and reallocate resources to our communities.
 Stripping communities of their voting rights is a centuries-long tool used to silence and disenfranchise people of color — and it must stop now.
The passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was a major victory of the civil rights era. But in the decades since, attacks on voting rights have been relentless. In California, 162,000 citizens — mostly people of color — can’t vote today, simply because they are in state prison or on parole.  Essie Justice Group is an organization led by and for cisgender women, trans women, and gender non-conforming folks with incarcerated loved ones, working to transform the criminal justice system and combat mass incarceration. They bring together their members, including Black and Latinx women, formerly and currently incarcerated women, trans women and gender non-conforming folks, to heal, build power, and create structural change rooted in race and gender justice.
Essie Justice Group’s Healing to Advocacy Program unites women with incarcerated loved ones to do this work together. Each cohort is led by previous program graduates, and cohort members are nominated by their own incarcerated loved ones, one another, or themselves. This past fall they graduated their 17th cohort. Essie members facilitated cohorts in Inglewood, Los Angeles, Vacaville, San Francisco, San Jose, West Oakland, and Fruitvale.  “It is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.” — Michelle Alexander, lawyer, writer, civil rights advocate, professor
According to the Sentencing Project’s special report to the United Nations, our criminal justice system is in fact, two systems — one benefiting wealthy white folks, and one deeply disadvantaging black, brown, and poor folks. People of color are disproportionately arrested, tried, and sentenced. This results in the loss of the ability to vote, secure housing, and find a job, among other human and civil rights.  What’s one of the most effective ways to dismantle white supremacy?
Our SURJ Bay Area Youth and Families (Y&F) Committee starts at the roots by educating and mobilizing youth, parents, youth workers and educators, as well as partnering with local organizations with a child- and family-centered lens toward racial justice. One of our major partners is Abundant Beginnings, a local community-based organization founded and run by Black queer freedom fighters. Abundant Beginnings uses a kid-friendly vocabulary — defining solidarity, for instance, as “the act of supporting other people (especially those who are not being treated fairly).” We are proud to stand in solidarity with Abundant Beginnings as we work toward a world in which children can grow up free from the injustices of white supremacy. |
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