Our request to the City: As citizens of West Linn, we believe that our City should be a place where all people feel welcome to live, work, and visit. Michael Fesser and his community in North and Northeast Portland have expressed a genuine desire to have an open and honest dialogue with West Linn to build trust and relationships. The present circumstances provide a leadership opportunity to advance this goal, but the window of opportunity is closing. We believe it is important that this dialogue is spearheaded by the City leadership. Demonstrating a willingness to engage in conversation is the starting point for meaningful understanding and change. We strongly support engagement with Michael Fesser and his community, and we urge the City to take the following actions: 1) Invite Michael and community members to engage in an ongoing dialogue, with the first meeting by or before July 20th 2) Commit to active listening in order to build trust and understand the goals, aspirations, and barriers that impede connections between our communities. 3) Take the initiative in coordinating and hosting the conversations. We look forward to the City acting quickly on this opportunity to build bridges between our communities for a more inclusive and equitable future. We understand that there are other issues on the City leadership’s agenda, but we feel this dialogue should have a top priority on your list. The conversations we are advocating for are not dependent on the outcome of any ongoing investigations, the current City equity audit, the task force for proposing a police oversight body, or any other initiatives by the city. Rather, we have an opportunity to gain an understanding that will inform us and help with ongoing decision making. We invite you to join us in this effort to create an open and welcoming place for all to live, work, play, and engage with businesses.

Those of us with privilege must use our platforms to speak up and stand up for our black and brown siblings whose livelihoods are threatened by violent racism. This conversation desperately needs to happen everywhere -- including and especially in quiet, wealthy, predominantly white communities like Jamestown. We are fortunate to live in a kindhearted, close-knit island town, peaceful by design and by luck. But justice and peace depend on each other. Without true justice, there can be no true peace. And as long as black Americans continue to be systematically robbed of both, we must heed the moral obligation to disrupt our own uneasy peace and to speak out. This will require grappling with discomfort, fear, and shame. But the end result - justice - will be more than worth it. The commitments made here are deliberately broad, intended to herald the coming change we will pursue. Accordingly, Jamestown for Justice will follow up to support the development of a specific anti-racist agenda. By signing this statement, you call for Jamestown to come together as a unified front, not only against racism itself, but actively in pursuit of anti-racism. This is only the beginning. The road before us is long, and it will be challenging to navigate. But we are stronger as a unified community, and will be able to make more significant progress than any one of us could on our own. So let us be loud and clear as we say, as proud Jamestowners: Black Lives Matter.

FCPS claims that they have laid the groundwork as a county that prides themselves on fostering a safe education for students from all walk of life. However, they fail their students and faculty by not taking reports of racial discrimination seriously!

During this time of incredible upset, the Trump Administration has decided to finalize a rule rolling back protections for Transgender and Trans* people. President Trump has taken our outcries for equality and spat on them, dragging the LGBTQ community into the series of horrific events unfolding this 2020. The night of the four year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting, a shooting in Orlando Florida that ended with hundreds of members of the queer community dead, was the night the Trump Administration chose to tell the queer community that they are not worth health care. That if a doctor or hospital refuses to treat them based on their sexual or gender identity, that the law doesn't care about them. It feels as if he does not care about the marginalized, making it very clear to America that if we saw Black Lives Matter, he will say QUEER LIVES DON'T. The Trump Administration has been working tirelessly to narrow the definition of gender in order to LEGALLY deny health care to Transgender people and eventually the entire queer community. Queer people, especially QUEER PEOPLE OF COLOR are so much less likely to seek medical care when they need it, precisely because of the ignorance and disrespect with which the health care system sees them. We are already fighting the global pandemic of Covid-19, along with the national pandemic of POLICE BRUTALITY. The Trump Administration is shoving down our throats the reality that they would rather we all just die. We must not allow this message to be heard without a FIGHT. We must STAND UP TO INJUSTICE and not allow Trump's distracting disregard for queer life to end our fury and demand for change. This is only a stepping stone towards changing the way AMERICA SEES EQUALITY. If we don't stop this law, next it will be legal to not give health care to any queer person, or to a person based on their race, or religion. If a person has no protections based on their gender identity, what is to stop hospitals from turning away cis men or women based on their preference of gender identity. This erasure of gender related protections is DANGEROUS. This has the potential to affect every single person in America, regardless of your political standpoint. ALL PEOPLE DESERVE HEALTH CARE no matter how they identify. ALL HUMANS ARE CREATED EQUAL UNDER GOD, says the constitution. It is our job to uphold this precedent.

Brigham Young was many things, but he also taught racist ideas that the Church currently disclaims. In 1852, Brigham Young said to the Utah Legislature, "In as much as we believe in the Bible ... we must believe in slavery. This colored race have been subjected to severe curses ... which they have brought upon themselves. And until the curse is removed by Him who placed it upon them, they must suffer under its consequences." Further examples of the racist ideas the Church now disclaims are included in the Church-issued essay "Race and the Priesthood" https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng. BYU continues to symbolize The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through its athletic programs and national and international relationships and academic programs. We feel that the time has come to choose a symbol that does not constantly remind Black Church members of painful parts of our history. In doing this, we are not seeking to "whitewash" Brigham Young from our history; rather, we feel that our emphasis as a church should be on unifying voices, especially those that the Church and its members have historically undervalued. We submit this petition humbly to those who have the responsibility to make such decisions, and recognize that the "voice of the people" will only be one factor in the process of considering this change. We ask all Church members and friends to consider signing this petition as a show of good faith that we are "looking to the future," a future beyond racism and discrimination and which embraces our brothers and sisters of all races throughout the world. #BlackLivesMatter #LetsTalkAboutUtah Photo by Francisco Kjolseth at the Salt Lake Tribune Thank you to Tasi Young's Special to the Tribune for the impetus to create this petition. https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/12/tasi-young-time-change/?fbclid=IwAR28xHnnFcvrBr7DzknH5gB0FkOLGvVN2Rh88AL6Gsjdt3wz8_KTMq_lMJo

The removal of the monument is a symbol that does not reflect the true history and it represents values that have no place in the community today. It sends the wrong message to visitors and residents. Our taxes are paying to protect something that racially divides our community. African Americans who were enslaved by the millions in the South and later subjected to brutal oppression under the white supremacist regime of Jim Crow. Our democracy is based on equality under the law, and public entities should not prominently display symbols that undermine that concept and alienate an entire segment of the population.

On June 3, 2020, the Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board (MNCO) was notified of a shooting that occurred within the MNPD district of and lack of cooperation’s within several of request. Under his leadership as Chief of Police we have seen senseless killing of innocent’s civilian in our great city namely - Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick and other black citizen in our community. Chief Anderson’s was responsible during his times as chief of MNPD the racial profiling of innocent citizen in Traffic stops and heavy fines by MNPD towards Black community’s in Gideon’s Army report “Driving While Black. He has allowed the MNPD use of excessive force and hindered progress in our city and his services are no longer needed. In many MOU terms written by the community Oversight chief Anderson’s deliberately slow down request from the MNCO and misinformed the committee in many of their request.  We therefore urge the public to stand in solidarity, shoulder to shoulder with our fellow African American and Black Lives Matter Nashville and other communities rallies and request the resignation of Chief Steve Anderson.  In these connections, we as communities can longer these senseless killing as norms by MNPD. We recognize that our society is at a pivotal juncture where we must step up to build a better system and Justice for black community and other minority whom have been oppressed, abused, and ignored for far too long. Enough is enough we need a bold change and that starts with the departure of Chief Steve Anderson.  Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter which is of urgency.

Stop the spread of Covid-19 Gives health professional more data to go by to make sure it's safe for children to return. Mental health of our children. Gives the schools time to prepare for smaller class sizes

He was wrongfully shot and killed by a Chester County police officer and hasn't received the justice he deserves. No arrest has been made. Please reach out to his mother and sign this petition and continue to protest and pray, thank you 💙!

The current statue is an idol of bigotry, racism, and cruelty. It is a sign that screams to people of color that our state still holds on to the ideals of the confederacy. Virginia is for lovers of all things so we should be welcoming to all races. We need peace, hope, and love to heal our city and our state. But the most important of all of these is LOVE.

Symbolic value is important. Statues represent the ethos and values of the people of California, as well as placing honor in the character, successes or challenges a figure symbolizes. It is time to replace the California statues in Washington, DC with public comment opportunity.

John Evans recently announced that police are no longer proactively doing their jobs because they don’t have “any support from the administration,” and that it’s the reason for a recent spike in shootings in Buffalo. He’s effectively trying to hold the city hostage. It’s outrageous, and it’s a classic tactic of out-of-control police unions, reminiscent of organized crime: stop holding us accountable, or we might not protect you. This is just the latest from John Evans — he and his supporters in the police department are already under major scrutiny. Many of us have seen the video from June of riot police in Buffalo pushing down a 75-year-old man and leaving him bleeding on the ground. The police department’s initial statement — before the video surfaced — said he “was injured when he tripped & fell.” After the video came to light and the officers who pushed him were suspended, 57 officers from the same riot response team resigned from that unit — not to protest the violence, but to actually SUPPORT the officers who committed it, and to protest their suspension. It turns out they weren’t acting on their own — it was John Evans who pressured them all to resign, and he threatened to stop supporting them if they refused. Just a few weeks later, Evans is now coming to the defense of Lieutenant Mike DeLong, a Buffalo officer who was just suspended for harassing a woman on camera, calling her a “little f***ing c***,” and threatening to come to her workplace. After the incident, officers followed the woman and pulled her car over — a clear intimidation tactic. Evans says DeLong was “caught in a weak moment,” that he knows DeLong well, and “I don’t think you’ll see Lieutenant DeLong involved in anything like that again.” But in reality DeLong has a long history of misconduct, including 36 complaints made against him (with 13 related to use of force), he’s been suspended four times (including in 2018 for an “off-duty domestic” incident), and likely avoided discipline on many other occasions with the help of the police union John Evans leads. Defending police misconduct is nothing new for Evans. In 2016, he wrote a blog post blaming the victims of police brutality: “Comply with our orders and you won't get yourself killed. Enough!!!” The post went on to excuse several high profile police killings of Black men: “The Alton Sterling incident was a necessary, justified, use of force. That and the Michael Brown and Eric Garner incidents were clearly avoidable, had they complied with the Police Officers.” Black Lives Matter protesters confronted Evans and demanded that he take the post down; he refused. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said “The Buffalo police union is on the wrong side of history … They have been a barrier to further police reform in the city of Buffalo, and that barrier that the police union presents needs to be addressed.” He’s right — if we want to transform policing, it’s time to confront police unions everywhere. Join us in demanding that Buffalo’s political leaders, police leadership, and rank and file police officers denounce Buffalo Police Benevolent Association president John Evans and publicly call for his removal as president of the Buffalo PBA.