I am a father watching my son suffer from biased decisions ordered by the Family Court System.

I am an African-American Democratic local elected official for the Town of Leesburg, VA and I have challenged the Loudoun County Democratic committee on their requirement for a signed loyalty statement contained in their membership application. My efforts to have a conversation to address this problem have been dismissed and I, as an elected Democratic leader, have been subjected to public retaliation by the local party leaders. Democrats know that the right to vote for all Americans was hard fought and is sacred and fundamental to the principles of the party. The Democratic Party was founded on the promise of an expanded democracy and that the inclusion of many different voices makes our democracy work better. The right to vote is a key principle of the Democratic Party and a core goal is to maximize voter participation and not to control how you vote. As a democratic value, we must all support efforts to defeat ill-motivated voter suppression tactics and to preserve the fundamental right to vote. Loudoun County Democratic Committee of VA has violated this core value and is subverting the fundamental right to vote by engaging in these efforts by promoting ill-motivated voter suppression tactics to unduly influence the outcome of local elections. The Loudoun County Democratic Committee in their January 2018 membership notification letter stated: “…at its core, LCDC membership means that you will support our nominees and endorsees…This means more than not supporting Republicans, it also means not supporting Independents in races.” This statement alone is an affront to every person who bled, fought and died for the rights of all citizens to freely vote. I could have chosen to simply not renew my membership and walked away as many others have, but this is a fundamental wrong that must be corrected. The LCDC leadership must repeal this loyalty pledge and restore the democratic values and principles of “…preserving the fundamental right to vote." I urge you to join my efforts and sign this petition. The freedom to vote as your values dictate must be a protected right and not the right of any party to control your voting choice. I believe in people over politics and now it’s time for the people to speak.

For years, Facebook has allowed the use of its platform to promote bigotry and potentially violate civil rights, allowing operatives to promote misleading propaganda and hate groups to organize and promote rallies on their platform. They’ve even gone as far as selling ads that could violate the Fair Housing Act and offered their expertise and assistance in spreading anti-Muslim videos. While recent leaks and news reports have revealed some of the problem, Facebook has evaded requests for full transparency and disclosure from groups like Muslim Advocates and our partners at Color of Change. Facebook claims to be dedicated to giving people “the power to build community and bring the world closer together”, yet they have refused to adequately address their repeated breaches of the public trust. They have shown they cannot be trusted to be fully transparent on their own and must immediately allow an audit of their policies and platforms by an independent third-party.

Injustice and racism have been an ongoing struggle in our nation-wide educational system and continues to traumatize and exclude traditionally marginalized groups. At South Burlington High School we need greater action toward justice. As a community, we must do better in dismantling the racism and white supremacy that is embedded in our culture. This proposal is inspired by actions taken by the Social Justice Union of Burlington High School and the Racial Justice Alliance at Montpelier High School, both of which have been successful in petitioning their school boards to raise the Black Lives Matter flag. The Black Lives Matter movement is an affirmation of the value of black lives in response to the racism that infiltrates every institution of the United States. We recognize that all South Burlington students enrich our community. In raising the flag we do not attempt to undermine the value of each and every student, but we do act to affirm the value of South Burlington’s black students.

Injustice and racism have been an ongoing struggle in our nation-wide educational system and continues to traumatize and exclude traditionally marginalized groups. At South Burlington High School we need greater action toward justice. As a community, we must do better in dismantling the racism and white supremacy that is embedded in our culture. This proposal is inspired by actions taken by the Social Justice Union of Burlington High School and the Racial Justice Alliance at Montpelier High School, both of which have been successful in petitioning their school boards to raise the Black Lives Matter flag. The Black Lives Matter movement is an affirmation of the value of black lives in response to the racism that infiltrates every institution of the United States. We recognize that all South Burlington students enrich our community. In raising the flag we do not attempt to undermine the value of each and every student, but we do act to affirm the value of South Burlington’s black students.

18 years ago I gave my daughter up for adoption. Previously, I had talked the entire time with the adopting family. I actually knew the wife and her mother and father previously as a child in their church. Within a year-and-a-half of the adoption, all the promises made were taken away. I wasn't sent pictures, I wasn't called, I didn't get updates, I didn't get videos, I got treated like I did something wrong and was cut out. I want to start this petition so that no other person has to go through what I did. Adoption is a beautiful thing. What's not beautiful is telling lies to a birth mother and then reneging on everything because, as the attorney informed me laughing, there's no such thing and any papers aren't legally binding! Don't feel sorry and take the cheaper route for the adoptive parents. You protect yourself, birth mothers and fathers. Protect yourself because the law does not

The People's New Black Panther Party are tired of the abuse to our brothers and sisters by the hands of the government, police officers, and white America. We have been systematically held down for years, robbed, beaten, and murdered. Our ancestors suffrered horrendous acts by the hands of America and still have not received what is due to them. Blacks can never advance because America's foot is on our necks. We are seeking reparations for ourselves and on behalf of our ancestors.

As a blood relative of the great Native American woman Matoaka aka Pocahontas I’m disgusted and offended by President Trump’s continued denigration of her name as a political insult. I believe most people with native blood feel the same. President Trump stop the childish insults of a native woman who had more integrity in her short life than you will ever have.

It’s official! The U.S. Supreme Court and the federal district court in Pennsylvania have both declined requests from Republican leaders to block the new congressional district map from going into effect for the May 15 primary. These decisions essentially put an end to our state’s gerrymandered congressional district lines and are a huge victory for Pennsylvania voters. But a group of lawmakers are retaliating by trying to impeach four of the Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of the new map. Unbelievable. The state Supreme Court justices did their job: they found the congressional district maps to be unconstitutional. The case for impeachment has little grounding, but we need to make sure this effort doesn’t gain steam in the legislature. Tell your state lawmakers to vote AGAINST any effort to impeach Supreme Court justices who ruled to override the gerrymandered district map.

The 2020 Census is offering Black and White respondents the opportunity to answer the question, "Where are you from?", giving a country of origin. This option is confusing to and exclusive of African Americans who are the Descendants of Chattel Slavery (DoCS). We are born and bred American originals, a unique ethnic identity of people who descend from the unique American institution of chattel slavery. African American DoCS need to be especially included in the 2020 U.S. Census to aid in the just distribution of resources to a group of people still suffering the affects of being property for centuries and excluded from wealth generation after enslavement. This category will give clarity to millions, including the the following respondents in this NPR interview regarding the 2020 Census: "Where are you from from?" Still, Greer says she's planning to write down "Black American" for her origins. "I consider myself a 'J.B.,' which is 'just black,' " she says. "When people ask you where you're from, and I say, 'Oh, you know, New York, Philly, Chicago, Baltimore,' it's like, 'No, but where are you from from?' " Many African-Americans who have roots in the U.S. going back centuries to ancestors forced upon these shores as enslaved people cannot answer that question. "If we're really honest with what hundreds of years of U.S. chattel slavery really meant," Greer says, "many people had to walk miles and across countries before they were shipped off." The enslavement of hundreds of thousands of African people in the U.S. cut ties to home countries for their descendants, including Chris Owens, a project engineer for an energy consulting firm based in New York City. Raised in St. Louis, Owens says for most of his life, questions about his race were straightforward. "Either you're black or you're white, at least where I'm from," he says. But after moving to Boston and later New York, he says he has been asked whether he is of Haitian or Jamaican descent. "That's even caused me to try to figure out which island I was from," Owens says. He has just over two years to keep digging into family history for an answer before the 2020 census forms come out. For now, though, if you ask him about his origins, he says he's sticking with "American." https://www.npr.org/2018/03/13/593272215/for-the-first-time-2020-census-will-ask-black-americans-about-their-exact-origin

It is time to asses why these killings are happening, for what reason, and find new measures for diffusing these situations. Performing Psychiatric evaluations will be a good start as we will be able to find the root cause of these unlawful and unjustified killings.

Making Virginia a better place to live for everyone.