[Summit] Reminder, East Side meeting in support of Community Safety Act, Wednesday 6:30pm

Tue Sep 27 16:31:16 UTC 2016

Dear neighbors: 

I hope all is well! I live here on the East Side (on Rochambeau Avenue) with my wife and children. Like all of you, I want to live in a community that is safe – but also one that is just and fair. I have been inspired in recent months by a growing and diverse social movement in our city – and nationally – to draw attention to inequalities in our criminal justice system, particularly in the profiling and treatment of people of color. 

Here in Providence, this has culminated in a diverse coalition working to pass the Community Safety Act , or CSA. As you may know, the City Council held a public hearing on the subject two weeks ago (go here to learn more). The hearing included powerful and emotional testimony from a variety of our neighbors, simply asking to be treated as all of us would want to be treated. 

The CSA calls for an end to racial profiling in our city, and respect for communities of color. It will put in place common sense structures that will ensure police accountability – and in doing so, ensure the legitimacy that law enforcement needs to do its important work. The CSA is not anti-police, nor does it inhibit their ability to do their jobs. Dozens of cities around the country have passed similar laws. 

If you support the CSA, I’d like to invite you to join me at an East Side neighborhood meeting on Wednesday night September 28 th , at 6:30pm, at the Quaker Meeting House on Morris Avenue, to let our elected officials know that we want the CSA to be passed. I believe this is an issue that involves each one of us, regardless of our background or circumstance. Mayor Elorza, Sam Zurier, and other elected officials will be there. We'd like to show them that people from all walks of life in our community believe that Providence can be a just place, as well as a safe one, for all of us. Let’s tell Mayor Elorza and our East Side council representatives what kind of Providence we want to live in, and to raise our children in. Our voices matter, but only if we use them. Events in Charlotte and elsewhere have made many of us feel powerless. Here is an opportunity to act, in our community. 

You can RSVP by going to our Facebook invite , or just email me to let me know if you plan to attend, and/or if you'd like to help in some way. 

Thanks, and be well. 
m 

Mark Santow 
Associate Professor and Chair, History 
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth 
Member, Providence RI School Board, 2015-. 

Blog: http://www.chantsdemocratic.blogspot.com/ 
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/alinskylives 

" Dogma is the enemy of human freedom...The human spirit glows from that small inner doubt of whether we are right, while those who believe with complete certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world with cruelty, pain, and injustice." 

Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 1971 

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