Category Archives: Organizing for justice

Baltimore’s 2023 road to privatization and why we continue to organize and build a people’s movement for public benefit

Baltimore excelled in 2023 in its privatization/neoliberal practices of assuring elite private entities benefit disproportionately at the expense of public control and social good.

[Neoliberal- a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices, such as public:private partnerships (explicit or implicit)] Adapted from David Harvey

Let’s look at some of these privatization redevelopment practices which were camouflaged in the language of ‘benefiting the public’ in Baltimore throughout 2023.

Public:private strategies ignoring public control and social good

Most recently, the unanimous vote in the Planning Commission to allow a private developer, P. David Bramble of MCB Real Estate, LLC, to accumulate more of the Inner Harbor public waterfront space is a typical taking of public land (land owned by the city of Baltimore) for private development and profit. This will allow Bramble’s group to expand their holdings and profit while removing public access to the waterfront. In addition, there is existing legislation which requires that these lands remain accessible for the benefit of the public. Some city council members have already indicated they support amending this legislation to accommodate this privatization of public lands. This is how the state accommodates the private developer, hence neoliberal practices.

Another examples: earlier in 2023 the state of Maryland under the direction of Governor Wes Moore turned over the Orioles baseball stadium-Camden Yards- and management of the land to John Angelos, the Orioles owner. Camden Yards was previously managed by the Maryland Stadium Authority, a public entity. With the turnover to the private owner Angelos, a publicly controlled private entity is now set to work with a profit-making motive. What this means is in order to maximize profits, necessary infrastructure upkeep will need to be minimized to maximize profits. Assuring that the stadium receives the upkeep needed to maximize benefit to the public is of little value because the benefit is turned inward to the private entity and its profit-driven motive. Because of the control that sports franchises have over entertainment we can see this private entity demanding government support to maintain the stadium in the future.

Then there is the upcoming attempt to privatize our water and sewage system, again! [As a reminder, in 2018 Baltimore city voters turned out in high numbers to ban privatization of the city’s water and sewer systems.] And yet five years later in 2023, the neoliberal government (officials who have a responsibility to the public’s health but honor elite corporations) are back at it again with another attempt at privatizing a public resource. This time a Baltimore Regional Water Governance Task Force is making recommendations to allow privatization of our local water and sewage system which would potentially minimize local control of local resources while ensuring profit to private interests. With a suggested $5 – $15 million price tag for this transition, this line from the Task Force’s report leaves the public wide open to foot an indefinitely pricey bill:

Transition costs assumptions are forward-looking and actual costs will be based on resource availability for yet undetermined set of issues, by parties not yet determined that will once formed determine the extent of need for third-party support.
Baltimore Regional Water Governance Task Force

Why couldn’t this ‘undetermined’ cost be better directed to hiring and training up government staff to assure a functioning and adequately maintained water and sewer system? This would allow greater local control of this valuable resource instead of control by a private profit-driven entity: profit margin yet undetermined.

In 2023, Baltimore’s struggle with privatization did not stop with only one utility. We are experiencing the disaster of a profit-driven utility ownership with our gas and electric provider as well. Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) delivers gas and electric utilities to Baltimore city and surrounding counties and presented to the state’s Public Service Commission a rate increase over the next three years. Many residents testified as to the severe hardship this would incur for them, particularly those with lower and set incomes. Regardless of this public rally for fairness and benefit, public officials agreed to BGE’s rate hike resulting in a greater than 3% rate increase each year over the next three years. Besides continuing a reliance on gas through more infrastructure development, the company will receive almost an additional $408 million in revenue. Instead of voting against this severe hike, Maryland Public Service Commission voted to defray some of this cost from customers by using a federal tax credit and assure BGE receives its income. Again, using public funds to assure the company receives the income they want.

At the funding level of the state, Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) continues to misrepresent itself it stating it is supporting local grassroot efforts in impacted communities. Its’ supposed role of assuring equitable development that provides a social good has been slow to manifest. Instead what we see is consistent funding to the Goliaths of anchor institutions with profit-driven motives and little funding to organizations doing community-based cooperative redevelopment in historically low income and Black neighborhoods-legacied by urban renewal and redlining. Unless local community-driven organizations partner with anchor institutions known to the Department, funding is mostly denied. This reliance of the state on anchor institutions to define what equitable development looks like continues historical public:private partnerships that do not serve the public. For example, the Johns Hopkins Medical Complex and its proxy development arm East Baltimore Development Inc. receives yearly grant awards for inequitable development from Maryland’s DHCD (and city funders over the years). This occurs even while such institutions continue to engage in uneven development that disproportionately benefits the institution relative to the local Black community that it is gentrifying. One example of DHCD’s uneven grant funding can be seen in the lack of support for a local Black-led non-profit located in Old Town/Middle East, Village of Love and Resistance (VOLAR), two block from the Johns Hopkins Medical Complex. After four consecutive attempts to receive funding for its affordable cooperative housing and community hub development, it has resigned itself to stop seeking funding from the state which insists that it partner with the likes of Johns Hopkins University, who the state trusts. Meanwhile, the local community does not trust this anchor institution that has systematically exploited the people and the land of East Baltimore.

Organizing for local control and public good

With such clear corporate and elite preferential strategies advantaging private businesses over the public good and local control, organizing to reclaim benefits to local communities has been growing in 2023, extending into 2024.

While the Baltimore Planning Commission has shown their allegiance to elite ownership with little regard for community input in the planned expansion of the Inner Harbor (including increased parking, removing maximum height limits for buildings on the site), residents still have the opportunity to change this. Approval by the city council for the conditions that will allow redevelopment of the Inner Harbor by Bramble’s Team is required; this will require hearings with testimony and hopefully deep listening before a vote is made. The first public hearing will be held on February 13 at 2pm est and public testimony is invited. So 2024 will see residents and activists testifying as to the clear privatization disadvantages to the public good (less green space for public use, lost of view due to increased height of buildings and increased buildings, maintenance that is cost-cutting to assure larger profit margin, lost of flowing design from street to waterfront, city dollars supporting a private developer’s planning process, finding public funds to support a private developer’s development and profit making, lack of a transparent public process for development of this public land). Due to the existing City Charter governing the explicit use of this land for public benefit voters will decide through a ballot in November, whether to amend the City Charter. In addition, developers, activists and residents have organized themselves in the form of the Inner Harbor Coalition. This group hopes to build sufficient support to place an opposing plan on the November ballot for redevelopment of the Inner Harbor. They require 10,000 signatures to place this on the ballot.

The pushback on the attempt to privatize our water and sewage system is another of Baltimore’s growing social movement against privatization and for local control and public benefit. A coalition of organizations sent a clear letter opposing the Water Governance Task Force efforts toward privatization. On January 8^th 2024 the sixth meeting to discuss the Task Force’s report was held by Baltimore City government. The seventh and final meeting will be held on January 25^th at 6pm virtually. Notes from all six meetings can be viewed here (scroll to bottom). Please join the movement in opposing privatization of Baltimore’s water and sewage system by sending your comments (individual or organizations) to this email address: [email protected] and cc [email protected]

Another part of the movement to stop privatization has been 1199 SEIU’s organizing for fair payment by anchor institutions into the city funds, to be redistributed back to local community for investment in public health infrastructure, housing, transportation, education, recreation. This payment program is the PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) agreement that city council officials negotiate with big anchor institutions. Instead of these big institution, such as hospitals and universities, paying property tax like regular citizens or private corporations who own land and/or conduct businesses, they negotiate to pay a percentage of the taxes they would pay were they not in this category. The last PILOT negotiated in 2016-set to expire and renegotiated in 2026- literally gave these anchor institutions a way out of paying their fair share of taxes by paying only 10% of what most people pay. Yes, again Baltimore city government favored capitalist exploitation by not ensuring that big institutions pay their fair share of taxes even while the city continues to provide infrastructure and other city resources to them as it does to regular citizens. However, regular citizens do not get to ‘negotiate’ with the city, state, or federal government how much taxes they should pay. Now we have an opportunity to negotiate a more fair PILOT with these big institutions who, like the Johns Hopkins Institutions, receive grants from the city, state, and federal government (noted above). With decreased payment of taxes and continued grants from the government, these institutions do not pay their fair share into the city and state coffers to assure our city is habitable and safe. The 1199 SEIU campaign is organizing to assure this is on the ballot for voters in November 2024 and require 10,000 signatures. To support this campaign reach out to [email protected] for more information.

Placard reads: YOU’D NEVER GUESS
This forest you are walking through was once a beach. Although beaches always seem to look the same, geologists know that they are constantly changing. Three thousand years ago this was open ocean. Over time, the shoreline has moved to the west, while the cape has moved north, creating land where none existed before. If the same processes continue to operate as they have in the past, Cape Henlopen will join the inner breakwater of Lewes Harbor within the next 50 years.

Not all public officials consistently voted in favor of private wealth gain and neoliberal practices. In 2023 some government officials moved in the direction of increasing public benefit, joining our people’s movement for the social good. For example, state delegate Stephanie Smith consistently advocated for and acquired funding for organizations addressing the result of uneven development in Baltimore City. She fought for $11M in funding for community development and transit improvements across the 45th District, including funds for housing, the Pennsylvania Station redevelopment, and community retail spaces. City Council woman Odette Ramos led the fight for an Inclusionary Housing Bill, and won. The bill requires that any market-rate multi-family development building more than 20 units and receiving government subsidy must have more than 15% of their units as affordable housing (for 30 years). Read more about this legislation here. We look forward to continued public benefit from these individuals and hope that others do similar work in their capacity as public officials.

The year 2023 showed us the imbalance between private profit-driven elite institutions and public and non-profit organizations with a primary mission of assuring the social good in Baltimore and Maryland. The year 2023 also reminded us that those aware of the continued journey toward individualized wealth are rallying forward to stop these continued market-driven, winner-take-all strategies. Will 2024 move scales toward love and justice for the greater good or toward further competition, injustices, and satisfying the greed of the few? It’s up to us to decide how we will act toward justice and balance the social good and individual greed. Baltimore can continue building this people’s movement that aim to benefit the good by challenging the public officials who ignore their voters in favor of elite interests. This is an election year in the city and state and we have the opportunity to vote with our feet. Now that you see this, what is yours to do for the benefit of all?

Practicing real change for development in Baltimore’s Oldtown?

The press release below from Change4Real, the grassroots organization working on rebuilding Oldtown for the past years, suggests there might be real change in how the next big development happens in Baltimore. We remain hopeful but realize that change does not happen without pushing the powerful to share their wealth. Are we ready to have a more equitable process and outcome in Oldtown, than the public exploitation that happened in Port Covington, Harbor Point, Johns Hopkins Biotech Park?

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1432 May Court
Baltimore, MD 21231
[email protected]

Released: Friday, October 7, 2016
Contact: John Morris – (443) 838-7193

City Planning Commission Updates Oldtown Redevelopment Plan to Recognize Change4Real

On Thursday afternoon, October 6, 2016, the Baltimore City Planning Commission unanimously approved an update to the Oldtown Redevelopment Plan adopted in May 2010. The approved update addresses changes to the community proposed as part of the response by the developers engaged in negotiation with the Housing Authority of Baltimore City (“HABC”) and the Baltimore Development Corporation (“BDC”) to the Request for Proposals (“RFP”). The current RFP concerns redevelopment Oldtown Mall and Somerset Homes.

In addition, the Planning Commission reaffirmed the Human and Economic Development recommendations of the 2010 Redevelopment Plan by recognizing the emergence of Change4Real Development Corporation as a community-based organizing presence since 2010 and its commitment and specific plans to promote the development of Oldtown’s human capital.

In May 2010, the Planning Commission approved a redevelopment plan for the Oldtown community comprising an area of East Baltimore located south of Madison Street, West of Broadway, east of the Jones Falls Expressway, and north of Fayette Street. After more than 2 ½ years of working through a plan for the revitalization of a community that the plan itself acknowledged to be “still dominated by public housing,” the Planning Commission adopted a plan intended “to create a community in which the existing residents can thrive within the ‘mixed income’ environment.” Working to address the concerns and vision of local individual stakeholders, churches, and community-based institutions, like Sojourner-Douglass College, organized as the Chang4Real Coalition, the planners came to understand a critical reality for any redevelopment in Oldtown – “the development of human capital must be as much a priority as the development of vacant land.” As a result, the plan joined with the planning of new construction comprehensive recommendations for human and economic development.

Since the adoption of the 2010 Redevelopment Plan, a number of new circumstances necessitated an update of the 2010 document. The development rights for the area, places with one real estate developer ultimately lapsed before that developer could undertake any of the planned developments. To promote new development in the community, BDC and HABC combined the land each controlled respectively in the lower Oldtown Mall and the then vacant site of the former Somerset Homes, to expand opportunities for development. In April 2014, BDC and HABC issued a RFP to develop the combined site to spur revitalization of the community. The consideration of the submitted proposals resulted in exclusive negotiation with a group of developers that included the Beatty Development Group, the Henson Development Company, and Commercial Development, Inc., and Mission First Housing Development Group.

On March 30, 2016, the new developers submitted a clarification of its 2014 proposal, identifying, in general terms, proposed uses of the land not included in the 2010 Redevelopment Plan. In addition to the new construction proposed by the developers, changed circumstances since 2010 had also affected the comprehensive recommendations of the 2010 Redevelopment Plan for Human and Economic Development.

In September 2012, the local stakeholders and community-based planning group at the center of the Change4Real Coalition formally chartered the Change4Real Community Corporation as a not-for-profit membership entity under Maryland Law. Change4Real was designed to contain, organize, coordinate, and mobilize the multitude of local stakeholders so that together they can form a working partnership with any governmental, philanthropic, or corporate actor in the transformation of their own community. Since its formation, Change4Real has organized about 175 members, with plans to expand the membership significantly. Effective June 26, 2016, Change4Real secured its IRS Section 501(c) (3) status as a tax-exempt corporation.

In the summer of 2014, Change4Real refined its human and economic vision informing the 2010 Redevelopment Plan to design The Promissorium™ as a platform for optimizing and monetizing the social capital embodied by the 16,000 to potentially more than 20,000 local stakeholders associated with the Oldtown footprint variously as residents, workers, students, alumni, worshipers, and others identifying themselves with this geographic area.

Key elements of The Promissorium™ consist of
(1) Change4Real Community Corporation – organizing the people to “organize the pennies” – the small sums of money these stakeholders may control that aggregated exceed more than $141 million in annual income (2012 Dollars)
(2) WiFi connection to create a seamless communication network where communication becomes a community asset
(3) Database of local stakeholder resources, an electronic archive of needs and skills to provide the basis for an economy of human exchange to be managed for and to benefit the local stakeholders
(4) New work systems based upon an entrepreneurial framework of micro-enterprises where people can own and market their own capacity for their own benefit, at their own articulated value and
(5) A financial system customized to serve a micro-enterprise economy, to facilitate the purposeful “organizing of pennies” to finance the enterprise aspirations of the poor.

Change4Real is now part of a Human Development Team, including Ingoma Foundation and REDDOVE Partners LLC, working with the new developers since 2014 to build an infrastructure enabling local resident and existing non-resident stakeholders in the Oldtown Community to participate in the development and in the prosperity to result from the development on terms satisfying to the existing stakeholders. The Human Development Team will work to connect local residents to employment opportunities associated with the construction, provide support for the development of housing affordable to a range of existing residents so as to allow as many residents as possible to remain within the greater Oldtown footprint to add their unique value to the development, and to create a range of entrepreneurial opportunities for local residents, including a small business incubator.

Change4Real is constituted to remain in the community long-term and to assure the stability of that community as a mixed income community where all stakeholders can remain and prosper long after the construction has been completed.

On October 6, 2016, by unanimous vote, the Planning Commission adopted an update to the 2010 Redevelopment Plan that included the above additions to the earlier human and economic recommendations set forth by the Plan.

For more Information:
Check out Change4Real on Facebook

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Is DC’s development equitable and sustainable if Black lives don’t matter?

Join us as we discuss why Black lives matter in building sustainable communities in DC and beyond. Plan to spend the afternoon to tour examples of actions toward equitable development!

Equitable Development in DC

Rebuilding Baltimore: How will we acknowledge and repair our history?

Today I was part of a panel discussion on the role of reparations in rebuilding communities (Marc Steiner Show, WEAA 88.9 FM); specifically Baltimore’s historic and currently dis-invested communities of color. There was a lot of wisdom on the panel, various suggestions. We acknowledged the historic structural racism that led to building chronic disinvested communities in many parts of Baltimore today. These are communities chronically disinvested in education, workforce development, social skills, transportation, health access, housing, recreation, and other core building blocks of healthy and thriving communities. Our conversation identified common threads which were consensual and built on each other. In summary we agreed that the 700 million Governor Hogan announced for demolition of vacant houses in historically abandoned communities should be:

1. secured and committed to this effort
2. used in accordance with a plan by impacted communities
3. used to rebuild Baltimore for existing residents and not only for the 10,000 being enticed to move here
4. used to create co-operatives and entrepeneural opportunities for impacted communities
5. distributed into organizations and projects working in cooperative and solidarity economics and worker-owned, and not the same neo-liberal non-profits who fill their pockets with dollars intended for impacted communities
6. used to build infrastructure to help communities organize themselves to be decision-makers
7. used to create opportunities to address the current social and health needs of impacted communities, instead of displacing these needs into other neighborhoods
8. used to build affordable housing for existing residents and new working class and middle class residents
9. used to create jobs for impacted communities, specifically for returning citizens, hire locally
10. used to ensure the people involved in rebuilding Baltimore are coming from a place of love to build a beloved revolution in our communities that would benefit all

Nothing here is new or unique to rebuilding communities. However, as a collective, such strategies would be new to Baltimore and acknowledge and begin to repair its history of race and class-based injustices. There has been one or two of these strategies used in past rebuilding efforts. But as a whole, a rebuilding plan incorporating such strategies would be revolutionary. In Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore: Rebuilding Abandoned Communities in America, the last chapter provides a similar framework for rebuilding abandoned communities. The lessons came from the experience of a 2001 top-down, displacement-driven gentrification plan to accommodate the power of Johns Hopkins Medical complex in East Baltimore. This was a repetition of a similar plan in the 1950’s (Broadway Development Plan), the “highway to no-where” in 1970’s. There have been other urban renewal and “negro removal” strategies-serial forced displacement- since the early 1900’s in Baltimore and beyond. We know how to build inequitable communities.

Now, can we move in a direction of equitable community building? Can we get it right this time? Can we also come from a place of truth and acknowledge how white determination and superiority have dictated all aspects of community building? This truth drives and is embedded in how we have built and rebuilt communities of color, and white communities. This acknowledgement can begin the process of healing as we understand why we must take care to assure equity exists in process and outcome as we repair and rebuild impacted communities. For example, can we build on the model of the Gay Street 1 rebuilding project of the 1960’s in East Baltimore? In this majority African American and low income community, residents were surveyed for what they would like to see, housing was built to accommodate existing residents before their existing houses were demolished, residents organized and managed one of the housing developments (still standing today), residents planned for their high school. The parts missing from this community-driven plan was a robust social program and employment strategies for building employment training and opportunities. Ms. Lucille Gorham was a key community organizer and self-made planner for the community at that time. In later years she said she didn’t understand why vocational training schools was not incorporated in rebuilding communities: “not everyone wants to go to college”; and why social programs such as trash prevention and removal and housing rehabilitation and penalty to slumlords were not incorporated into these efforts. She saw these as basic rebuilding strategies for all communities. What was also missing was the competition from the powerful stakeholder of Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, encroaching on the land for gentrification. This allowed the city government to serve the needs of the public, and not the private giant. It was also a time of civil unrest after Dr. King’s assassination and the truth of racial injustice was glaring across the news and hearts of America. No doubt it affected government’s support of an African American-community-driven rebuilding plan. But what continued in community rebuilding in East Baltimore and elsewhere after the redevelopment was completed, was the same perceived superiority of white people and the inferiority of black-skinned people and the necessary segregation that this required. This truth was not acknowledged then, during the repair of the Gay Street 1 neighborhood. So the aftermath would naturally continue in line with inferior services and disinvestment in this majority African American community, with superior services provided in majority white communities.

We know what works and what doesn’t work to build equitable communities and inequitable communities. We first have to decide which we want to build. Let’s get it right this time and rebuild, repair, our Baltimore toward equity and sustainability! There are many issue-focused organizations on the ground already organizing toward equity: around community land trusts, affordable housing, living-wage, anti-grentrification, public housing, accessible health care, emotional healing/emancipation, transforming racism, transforming systemic police brutality, building worker-owned cooperatives, felony/returning citizen rights, environmental justice, mindfulness and social justice, arts and activism, and others. When we affirm the intersectionality of these issues and recognize how they all address building equitable and sustainable communities, we have the tools for transforming our communities. Can we find the space to see the interbeing nature of our struggles and connect across perceived boundaries? Acknowledging our historic struggle to address the human nature to hold one group superior to another, can begin to repair not only racial oppression. It will help us to dig out the root of the interconnection of all oppressions, our path to healing and liberating ourselves and our communities. Let’s rebuild Baltimore in a true and right way.

Two upcoming forums to continue this Beloved Revolution!

Community + Land + Trust: Tools For Development without Displacement
Thursday, January 28, 2016 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
UMD School of Social Work Auditorium
525 W Redwood St. Baltimore 21201
Questions? Contact and [email protected]

WORKER COOPERATIVE JUMPSTART
A One-Day Training to Help You & Your Community Start a Worker-Owned Cooperative Business or Convert an Existing Business into a Democratic Workplace!
Where: IMPACT HUB* 10 E. NORTH Ave
When: SATURDAY JANUARY 30 10AM — 5PM
RSVP: contact
SLIDING SCALE $1 — $25

Policing: Social, political, economic violence

Policing as a means to serve and protect the public without discrimination and guarantee “equal protection under the law” came into effect in the US when the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was enacted in 1868.1 Previous to that policing was motivated by racial superiority, white supremacy, and racism during times of enslavement, to control the enslaved.2,3 Since then policing has been promoted as the means to serve and protect the public mediated by peace officers or police officers. In the 1980’s and 1990’s crime and police misconduct and corruption increased prompting research into the reasons people will follow the law.4 Studies suggested that only when they feel police officers are acting with legitimate authority conferred in procedurally just ways will people follow law enforcement.4 Procedurally just ways are described as: treating people with dignity, giving individuals “voice” during encounters, being neutral and transparent in decision making, conveying trustworthy motives.5

Policing in the US shows none of these characteristics in regard the increased shooting and killing of black and brown people. A recent survey in 2014 reported that non-whites are less likely to feel that the police protect and serve them, not acting in line with procedurally just ways.6 These perceptions came during a period of increasing scrutiny of policing in the United States after several fatal incidents. The incidents occurred over a 9-month period, of police violence resulting in the death of black men in Ferguson Missouri, Staten Island, New York, Cleveland, Ohio, and North Charleston, South Carolina .7 Since then, Baltimore Maryland , Chicago, Illinois and others ware added to this list. This is the short list, the one we are most familiar with and does not include all the other incidents of police violence not made public. A current example of this is the police shooting of 17 year old Laquan McDonald in Chicago. The video of his killing by a white police officer shooting him 16 times was intentionally kept from the public. This type of corruption does not support “acting in line with procedurally just ways”. The personal violence is clear in this video and confirms the fear that most black and brown people in America have in interactions with police officers.

Police officers and the departments which support them can be perceived as a means of collective violence targeted against dark-skinned individuals and communities. The World Health Organization defines violence as “The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation”. The type of violence is characterized by the person or group committing the violent act and include self-directed, interpersonal (violence committed by an individual or small group of individuals) and collective violence.8,9 The act of neglect is also included as a violent act when assessed from the role of power and intention of the perpetuator.9 WHO defines violence as it relates to the health and wellbeing of individual -and subsequently communities as individuals congregate to form communities. As a part of law enforcement agencies police officers are empowered by government and political bodies to act for the safety and security of all individuals and institutions. When such collectives perpetuate violence, targeted against one group of individuals, this is categorized as social violence by WHO’s classification system (Collective violence is further categorized as social, political and economic according to the motivation behind the collectives’ intention). Collective violence, in this case the police system, can be motivated and affected by one or all three of these factors simultaneously.

Racial profiling is an example of an institutionalized mediated social agenda which when incorporated into policing results in disproportionate harassment, arrest, imprisonment and death of non-white populations.10 Current trends in police arrests and incarceration confirm the continued racial profiling and targeting embedded in policing in the US.11,12 In 2010, black and Hispanic men were six and three times as likely, respectively, as white men to be incarcerated in federal, state and local jails, a gap larger than past decades and correlating with an increased gap in median household income and wealth between blacks and whites.13 Between 1980 and 2010 black males without high school diplomas were more likely to be in jail than those with high school diplomas, both groups more likely to be institutionalized than white males, with or without a high school diploma.22 Black men were more likely to be institutionalized than employed, significantly greater between the ages of 20-29 years.14 A recent report concluded that the excess deaths in black versus white men ages 15-34 years between 1960 and 2010 due to legal intervention is both longstanding and modifiable, regardless of income.15 This data supports previous studies showing deaths by legal intervention greater in black (63%) versus white (34%) men between 1979 and 1997.16

Political violence evidenced in neoliberal strategies of policing is well documented as the “War on Drugs”, affecting urban areas locally and globally.17,18,19,20 In the US, these policies were initially enacted in the 1970s and revived in the 1980s.21 The policies to enact the War on Drugs resulted in increased funding for personnel and subsequent increased arrests for drug charges: drug arrests increased from 7.4% of all arrests in 1987 to 13% in 2007, the greatest increase seen in marijuana arrests.22 A specific policy of the War on Drugs, Zero Tolerance, aimed at protecting the public space, was introduced in US cities like New York and Baltimore that had high crime rates and drug activity. This resulted in mass incarceration of young men, primarily African American and Latino.23,24 Zero Tolerance policies allowed police to stop and arrest individuals for quality of life offenses, such as drinking alcoholic beverages in the street, urinating in public, panhandling, loud radios, graffiti and disorderly conduct.25 Zero Tolerance policies enacted in urban schools resulted in school age children being punished more harshly for disorderly behaviors with expulsion, suspension, and juvenile court referrals, behaviors previously characterized as normal teenage mischief.26,27 Some resulted in arrests, contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline and the mass incarceration of black and brown people.20 The War on Drugs has singularly resulted in mass incarceration and depletion of young men from their communities, increasing community fragmentation, and decreasing this population’s opportunity to develop and determine politically and economically healthy and sustainable communities. 28

Economic violence includes attacks or perpetuation of violence by large groups for economic gain, i.e.. purpose of disrupting economic activity, denying access to essential services, or creating economic division and fragmentation.17 Incarceration of young men and women in urban communities lead to arrest records which initiate a cycle of potential chronic displacement and temporary housing, unemployment and underemployment, disconnect from services and family networks. Housing management offices can now legally discriminate against them for a record of incarceration under “one-strike you’re out” policies, another War on Drugs policy. Their communities lose the benefit of a generation of young men, unable to qualify for employment, housing, public assistance, educational assistance, and family reunification, continuing the cycle of economic violence and neighborhood and individual poverty. This cycle of community destruction through further fragmentation and uprootedness of young men via mass incarceration — facilitated by the school-to-prison pipeline — increases the likelihood of crime and alternative means of income and other behaviors results in unstable, fragmented, and unhealthy communities.29,30,31,32,33,34 For some this alternative economy provides for the basic essentials of food, shelter, clothing, and health care, even while it increases crime and risk of police violence and incarceration.35

Many of these urban communities targeted by the “war on drugs” and increased policing are communities which have been historically disinvested and abandoned since the early 1900s-violated socially, politically, and economically. Such communities were the targets of segregated real estate housing covenants and redlining tactics by the Federal Housing Administration who steered investment in housing and community development into white communities.36 In these disinvested communities, social fragmentation continued in the 1950s with urban renewal. Urban renewal resulted in mass displacement of many of these existing poor and of-color neighborhoods to make way for moderate and market rate development. Planned shrinkage continued with serial forced displacement of these communities followed by gentrification and mass incarceration. The psychological, social and economic effects of being uprooted from one’s home multiple times contribute to community fragmentation,37,38,39 and risk for low life expectancies and high disease burden.40,41,42,43,44,45

Both disinvestment and displacement undermine access to resources needed for health and wellness, including: functional schools, health and social services, parks and recreational opportunities, employment and workforce training opportunities, stable and sanitary housing, housing code enforcement, access to healthy foods, and infrastructure for mobility and physical activity. The resultant places of high unemployment, decreased educational achievement, low-income and high income inequality, predispose the people to generational poverty, high crime, high drug activity, and inequitable health outcomes.45,46,47 Corrupt policing and law enforcement systems continue this trend of social, political and economic violence currently experienced by hyper-segregated cities like Baltimore.48

The path forward toward equity and non-violence must address all ways policing and law enforcement agencies perpetuate these forms of violence.Training officers and all members of these agencies in transforming racism and oppression begins the personal transformation. But the institution and its policies must also be changed. Policies which block accountability and transparency and protect and propagate the violence perpetuated by these unfair systems must be challenged and changed. The larger systems of government and their private partners which rebuild communities and continue hyper-segregation must change. Government must be willing to transfer the wealth accumulated unfairly from the exploitation of black and brown people over the years. Such wealth can begin to change community and economic development in line with equity and sustainability-justice. Government must serve the people, not the rich. Training all public servants in the history of unfair wealth accumulation and the etiology of current wealth and health gaps must occur. Intentional structural, institutional, and individual transformation will begin to dig up the roots of violence-in policing and in all structures of the US.

Notes
gomez.policing.notes

Listening, so we can know what Baltimore is for!

As a long-time activist of Baltimore, I am tired of the same ole, same ole. I keep asking myself, “What keeps me here?” Will the racist and classist ways we rebuild our cities continue with a public transcript of “gentrification benefits everyone” even while rents continue to increase, pushing black people out Baltimore but the “creative class” is welcomed in with bike paths and a free circulator bus? Last night I heard a speech that inspired me.

Baltimore’s Black Mental Health Alliance (BMHA) convened its year-long series “Baltimore Rising: Summoning the Village” with keynote speaker Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, renowned social psychiatrist and author who has studied epidemics in poor communities for 30 years. She noted the many ways that racism and segregation are undermining our cities and our health. She told us about urbanists who have been tackling these problems in other American cities and who demonstrated “elements of urban restoration.”

Based on this vast body of research and analysis, her call to action to us in Baltimore was clear. We must: 1. keep the whole city in mind in our planning; 2. identify what we are for; 3: make our mark. These are the first three steps in bringing together a clear and participatory vision by those who plan to stay, one that includes all voices to assure we move away from the historic sorting and segregation that has built Baltimore-and this country.

While grateful for this current and urgent call to action, I started to ask myself questions, “How will we do this? Who should be at the table? Where will the money come from? Can we all put our egos aside long enough to move with humility and grace through this process?”

Dr. Fullilove said, “Start with three tasks. Walk the city, tell stories, and find the remarkable places.”

This made sense to me. We can begin this process by listening to everyone throughout the city: the folks on the corners, in the houses, offices, laundromats, clinics, courtrooms, prisons, jails, cafes, boardrooms, classrooms, playgrounds, exercise paths, car garages, parking lots, and bus stops; the grocery stores, under the bridges, the recreation centers, in the synagogues and the churches, the senior homes, the day cares, the recycling trucks, the taxis, the train stations, and the airports, behind the camera and in front of the camera and microphone, in the kiosks, in the long lines at the city departments, in the yoga and mediation studios. This citywide listening will help us “keep the whole city in mind.”

We will also be able to identify what connects us all, across all neighborhoods, understanding what matters to us. We will find out what we are FOR. Then we will be able to “make a mark,” and we will move with intention and skill toward rebuilding a Baltimore of inclusion not expulsion, of economic redistribution not hyper-profitability. Baltimore is resilient and Black Baltimore is strong. Thank you, BMHA and Dr. Fullilove, for calling us to task, and reminding us that it takes a village to rise up, with understanding and dignity.

Let’s do it!

Submitted July 24 2015 to the Baltimore Sun’s Letter to Editor/Op ED.

Re-Building communities: separation or sustainability

Community rebuilding as a means to separation

Urban rebuilding can be a dualistic/separatist undertaking, benefitting the rich only or one which incorporates the community and benefits all-sustainability. A recent article out of Hagerstown Maryland offers Baltimore city and its cadre of urban rebuilders some great advice: include the community in planning for our community rebuilding or continue rebuilding that leads to divergent paths: those with and those without. In regard the lack of social services for the existing community in current rebuilding plans those working at Hagerstown area nonprofit agencies said: “…they were disappointed that a Philadelphia firm that helped the city come up with a downtown revitalization plan did not address the issues with which that the local organizations deal. Ostoich said Urban Partners, which recommended an eight-part revitalization plan for Hagerstown, has certainly observed situations in other cities that are similar to Hagerstown’s challenges…Ostoich said she would like to see a partnership formed between the nonprofit organizations, the City of Hagerstown and the city’s office of economic development to address issues like homelessness and substance abuse.” link1 Each non-profit providing services for homelessness, housing access and affordability, recovery, mental health and substance abuse treatment, post-incarceration issues, employment reported an increase in their clients and the need for revitalization plans to address these needs.

This is the same pattern of urban rebuilding occurring in Baltimore and beyond: revitalization projects which turn a blind eye to the existing social conditions, many of which are brought about by unemployment and under-employment. Plans do not address the need for recovery programs, or re-entry programs, or mental health programs, or job training, or interview skills, or stress reduction. These conditions are present in Baltimore and other cities which have seen the massive loss of jobs since the 1970’s industrial revolution (substituting machine for human power) and the downturn in the economy since neoliberalism-government joining with private investors to grow their wealth using public subsidies. The outcome of such policies and practices has been the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and the inevitable way vulnerable communities become ill when facing increased stress and little resources to address it. The story in Hagerstown offers a glimpse of what Baltimore has been experiencing for decades: an increase in homelessness, drug use and recovery, mental illness and recovery, unaffordable housing, crime and incarceration. Ostoich speaks about a dual path that revitalization is bringing to the city, one which includes the well-off and those not so well-off. Here in Baltimore we continue to experience the same. Door-knocking and listening in the periphery of the 88-acre Johns Hopkins/EBDI/Casey Foundation/Forest City Bioscience and gentrification project confirms the dual pathway of revitalization. Long time residents share about a fear of not being part of the development as housing prices increase and new neighbors move in. They fear being priced out with property tax increases and rental hikes. New residents are happy with the prices of housing compared to NY or DC and like being in an area marketed for “change” for them. Those with skills and education that allow them to work in corporations and jobs which subsidize housing cost (Live near your work, etc) are mostly happy in their new homes as they wait for more change to manifest around them (one question to ask is how is government subsidizing the employer to offer such housing assistance). Families of generational East Baltimore residents talk about returning from areas north and east but lament the high cost of housing “can’t pay that much but would be nice to come back now that it’s finally changing”. Perceptions of why some locals are home during the day, why some are hanging out on the corner at nights, and the safety of the area persist for the new residents: “I wouldn’t let my mom walk in Patterson Park at night”; while the majority of long time residents don’t mention issues of safety as a concern. Both long time and new residents alike talk about the lack of a place to grocery shop: the type of store will be another tale to tell whether it is affordable for low income residents or not. The new Early Learning Center at the Henderson-Hopkins school is also an issue on people’s mind, especially for those long time residents told they have to be on a waiting list because their income is too high to qualify for admission: “all those Hopkins people have high income and they’re there”. For new residents who are fighting the city about paving an alleyway, they don’t understand why this has to be a struggle: “this is infrastructure of the city, why wouldn’t they pay?” Indeed, why wouldn’t they pay for this while updating the infrastructure for big development projects in the amount of millions of dollars in tax subsidies is normal, with no effective claw-backs or evaluation as to how the public benefits- Johns Hopkins Medical Institution/EBDI/Casey Foundation/Forest City Developers 78 million, Harbor Point 100 million, Poppleton/La Cite 58 million.

But the marks of a dual path in the rebuilding of Baltimore city goes beyond East Baltimore and West Baltimore. The increased cost of parking across the city is another piece of this dualism as well as the extended times meters are in effect and having to pay to drive the Express Lanes on I-95 (in the White Marsh and 695 region). The Express lanes are accessible with payment only, and in the form of EZ Pass only. These are examples of the separation of those who can afford to participate in what the city has to offer, and those who cannot. If you don’t want to be late you can pay to get on the Express lanes and avoid the merging traffic but when a monthly income is stretched very thin, that extra $3.50 (round trip) can be a significant challenge: in paying your bills and in getting to work on time. This dualistic path of community rebuilding tells the same tale in DC’s 20001 zip code where one shopowner of 40 years posted a sign: “Due to ‘gentrification’ and mixed emotions Jak and Company Hairdressers will be closing”: the landlord would not renew the lease.Link2 Here the white population has grown from 6% in 2000 to 33% currently and the new residents require a different set of amenities. We see the same happening in Harbor East where new development continues while the owners of a local fried chicken and pizza take-out-Kennedy- was told their lease would not be renewed. Just across from the Perkins Homes on Eden and Bank and serving this community for over 15 years his product is not what the new race and class of people being enticed to this area are seeking to buy.

Changing the game for sustainability: community ownership and social movements

This “mixing” of the old and new is a challenge that will not go away today but can begin to be addressed if existing community is at the community rebuilding table. The needs of existing residents and businesses can be addressed in the planning, as well as the needs of the new residents usually represented by the developers whose aim is to attract a class of people able to afford moderate and market rate housing and amenities. Such separation of the old and the new is an age-old challenge of rebuilding and continues today because we continue to ignore the outcomes of previous unhealthy and unequal community building strategies and practices. This chronic disinvestment in low-income and African American and of-color communities has resulted in communities unable to compete in the current market-place for decent employment, over-burdened households with little access to resources, and health burdens that limit access to competitive opportunities. Community rebuilding involving the people as well as the place is crucial. This means assuring equity in not only housing but in employment and resources that will remediate and ready existing communities to benefit from new opportunities. It is not enough for developers like East Baltimore Development Inc. and Forest City to say we cannot hire locally because the people do not qualify (due to incarceration records, drug use, or lack of skill sets). This type of minimalist and separatist community rebuilding is unsustainable and what we have been doing for decades. Like Ostoich said, everyone must be at the table so that the needs of the existing community are incorporated into the plan and not displaced away from sight and sound of the new people. This is why the false type of advertising perpetuated by developers about their rebuilding being “game changers” is misleading and simply provides a narrative for the part of Baltimore with access to resources. In East Baltimore, developers should be ashamed about their contribution to this same ole game of segregation in line with Jim Crow and the removal of Native Americans to reservations. Our policies created our current social challenges and therefore current policies must remediate them. Now that would be a real game changer!

Of course, waiting for government to change, while important is not our only option for change. Organizing and building small and large social movements that challenge the current way we address our most vulnerable is important. Local organizing is key. Many new and old residents alike are unaware of their neighborhood organizations in East Baltimore which is a significant risk factor for not having strong neighborhood cohesion. It is this neighborhood cohesion that offers strength and power to resist government’s plans to rebuild communities without local input. Community fragmentation is an outcome of past and current segregation tactics of community rebuilding. However, it is also a cause of continued segregation and a big obstacle to community power. For example, when a 20-block area has neighborhood associations that don’t communicate with each other or when foundations such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation publicly announces it will only fund one of them (the one with whom it has close relations) collective community power is difficult. Difficult but not impossible. In fact, these same conditions existed in East Baltimore in 2001 and allowed Hopkins/EBDI/Casey/Forest City to come into East Baltimore and expect easy exploitation of land and people. Their expectations were not realized only when the number of people organized exceeded the handful which claimed representation -gate-keepers- of the entire community. The gate-keepers who were willing to stand aside and allow mass exploitation of people and place in the form of unhealthy demolition practices, minimal relocation benefit, minimal payment for existing property were simply outnumbered. The creation of a new organization-Save Middle East Action Committee- then allowed a new vision and practice of community leadership, sisterhood and brotherhood, and mutual respect. Strategies and practices for the people by the people resulted in a powerful force which presented the desires of the impacted people, not a handful with close relations to those with power. We are at a critical impass again almost 15 years later, in East Baltimore, greater Baltimore and beyond.

Water bills are increasing across the city with little accounting as to why by the city government while private corporations are dictating to government what efficiency looks like, here and across the world. Link3 Private and non-profits are increasingly poised to take over the role of government programs in public education as the new head of Baltimore’s education is leading the way with the promotion of charter schools and privatization. Link4 Using public funds in charter schools skims the little resources away from public schools while private funders manage and dictate educational reform according to their political view. Social service programs are increasingly operated by private and non-profits companies even while race and class-based equity is lacking and little accountability and transparency exists due to their status. This re-distribution of the public wealth into private and the non-profit industrial complexes’ pockets should bare close scrutiny and transparency. We require social movements from below to balance the growing social movements from above and from those with unchallenged power: we need to change the game, truthfully and not leave it to being co-opted by non-profits and private corporations competing for public subsidies. The upcoming social movements gathering/ forum in May in Detroit is one to check into as it will bring together different movements addressing housing access/affordability and water privatization and water as a human right in the US. Link5 Equitable and sustainable community rebuilding requires everyone at the table: to bring about balance and accountability in planning, processes, and implementation, to redistribute power long favored by the few, to move us toward a peaceful co-existence that will heal our segregated communities, and to end old strategies and practices that lead to greater separation and dualism of those with and those without.

Role of public health institutions in public health justice

PDF of slides from talk at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
SPH2015march.2
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…In these times of historical and current accounting of the effect of anchor institutions in community, at home and abroad, how do we speak truth to power and forge new alliances toward justice? As the field of public health grapples with the social, political, and economic determinants of health, how has a powerful institution like JHU been influential in determining neighborhood health in East Baltimore? Has the development of the institution (and others like it) contributed to the growing wealth and health gap in East Baltimore (and elsewhere)?

Come join us for a discussion with Dr. Marisela Gomez this Wednesday, April 1st at 12pm in Room E6159 for a challenging discussion critical to the past, present, and future of health equity in Baltimore and beyond.

The history of prestigious institutions and their power to exploit those most vulnerable to grow power is vast. To be truthful participants in changing this history we must account for this history and repair it. Transparency begins to hold accountable the past transgressions and find solutions beyond what our fragile human nature has succumbed to thus far. Inequitable health outcomes, arrest rates, educational achievement, income and housing value are symptoms of inequitable communities, of power and privilege. Bridging within and across all our systems-community and economic development, education, criminal, housing, recreation- of society is a large task. How do we forge a path towards equity, while assuring everyone is at the table, and contributing?

Establishing values of inclusivity, accountability, transparency,and reflection/reflexivity in all processes is important. These values must infuse and be embedded in the tools of planning/policy development, practice/praxis, evaluation, public relations/media. And most, most importantly, WE THE PEOPLE, must be involved in all steps of the process toward justice…

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If interested in any slides of presentation, send a contact.

Contemplating peaceful and skillful means to justice,
Marisela

Connecting our struggles across identity politics: a powerful force for justice

Broad-based political organizing

While only 3 months into the Western year of 2015, we have experienced more discussion of the reality of anti-blackness in America than the entire year of 2014. For that matter, 2013 as well. The new media engagement and willingness to report on racism suggests a couple of things: they finally “get it” or there are enough folks standing up and testifying to racism openly. It is unlikely, though wishful, that the media has experienced an abrupt period of enlightenment. We are hearing more about anti-blackness because of the heightened attention of the epidemic of police brutality after the Trayvon Martin case and more recently Michael Brown and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.(1) The movement immediately offered a broad platform which galvanized support from different segregated identity politics: police brutality, criminalization and discrimination of women and children, poverty, community dis-investment, lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/transgendered rights, immigrant rights. The recent outcry from several colleges on black student isolation/segregation is the most recent witnessing of the individual and institutional anti-blackness legacy in the US. But the attention to a culture of anti-blackness is broader and deeper than we may realize: the conservative bastion of medicine in America, the New England Journal of Medicine, published a commentary on “Black lives matter”; faculty members at academic institutions are speaking out about their institutional evidence of anti-blackness; pro-black equity speakers are highlighting at various universities across the US; health departments are documenting the effects of racism and poverty as factors detrimental to health equities. This broad net of protest against the dehumanizing ways society has treated black people and other marginalized communities witnesses-state sanctioned violence, the chronic dis-investment and segregation, the anti-blackness of America. Through policy and practice anti-blackness has enforced segregation and inequity which continues today. The #BlackLivesMatter campaign, formed by three women, invite a coalition of historically oppressed populations to uplift the struggle of each other to build a stronger network of support for each struggle.

Another broad-based social movement has been growing in North Carolina since 2006, increasing public protests after the Republican take-over of the legislature in 2013: Forward Together Movement/Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HToJ). (2) Their platform includes: high-quality public education, living wages, healthcare for all, racial justice, voting rights, affordable higher education, fairness for state contracting, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, environmental justice, collective bargaining and worker safety, immigrants’ rights, a new civil rights act, and bringing the troops home. Their focus has been to challenge and change the state legislative and executive body and political machinery which recently passed legislation inhibiting voter rights and slashing of public funding for social, educational, and health programs. Their movement has spread to Georgia, South Carolina. Tennessee, and Missouri and has impacted the legislation and voting turnout. Consisting of more than 150 coalition partners they continue to stage protests called Moral Mondays at the state assembly in North Carolina.

Identity politics, their connections, and why

These broad-based coalitions emphasize the interconnectedness of identity politics: injustice and oppression mediated through those with power against those without. Communities are segregated by race, income, education, housing, employability and access to recreational and transportation resources. The chicken and the egg argument can be used to describe the segregation of communities of color and its resultant economic segregation. Cities continue to gentrify and segregate by housing cost and education. (3) Here in Baltimore we rank 13th out of 50 large cities in gentrification and the resultant segregation between those with low and higher incomes; Washington, DC took a stunning 3rd place. Even though we see the direct negative outcome on funding for public education from recent public subsidies to wealthy developers who invite more racial and economic segregation, our local and state governments continue to directly and indirectly discriminate against the marginalized. These neoliberal practices of community development: policies and practices which grow the gap between the rich and the poor, drive development in the US and beyond leading to greater segregation. As reported by The Atlantic’s CityLab recently “It is not just that the economic divide in America has grown wider; it’s that the rich and poor effectively occupy different worlds, even when they live in the same cities and metros…Race is a significant factor. Economic segregation is positively associated with the share of population that is black, Latino, or Asian, and negatively associated with the shares of white residents.” (4,5)

The growth in income inequality and the resultant segregation over the last 10 years has raised awareness for some, but most are still asleep to the causes and effects. Scientific American recently commented on the reason for this “dream-like” state that Americans are in: “At the core of the American Dream is the belief that anyone who works hard can move up economically regardless of his or her social circumstances…Sure enough, people think that moving up is significantly more likely than it is in reality…..By overemphasizing individual mobility, we ignore important social determinants of success like family inheritance, social connections, and structural discrimination…We may not want to believe it, but the United States is now the most unequal of all Western nations. To make matters worse, America has considerably less social mobility than Canada and Europe.” (6)

In the 21st century, we continue to live the myth of meritocracy, that we are equally rewarded for our hard work, there is a level playing field that values each person and community similarly. One glaring example of this is the difference in housing value in black and white neighborhoods. The Brookings Institute published a comparison of wealth in white and black neighborhoods showing “wealthy minority neighborhoods had less home value per dollar of income than wealthy white neighborhoods”…“poor white neighborhoods had more home value per income than poor minority neighborhoods.” Of the 100 metropolitan areas studied, even when homeowners had similar incomes, black-owned homes were valued at 18% less than white-owned homes. In effect, the higher the percentage of blacks in a neighborhood, the less a home is worth. This correlation begins when there is greater than 10% of black residents in a neighborhood. (7) Another example of race-based development and housing value is evident by public and private investments targeted to communities which are not majority black (less than 40%) as documented in a recent study by Harvard researchers. (8) This study confirms previous studies on race-based discriminatory community development practices. Development of areas with majority residents of color do occur. However, the displacement of the existing residents and racial gentrification usually result in the neighborhood achieving a majority white status. These practices are well documented through urban renewal in the 1950’s and subsequent government housing programs like HOPE VI and Promise Zones. The 1950‘s and current Johns Hopkins Medical Campus expansion in Baltimore into almost 150 acres are examples of mass removal of more than 1500 black families using eminent domain and tax subsidies as public support. The re-population with a different race and class was the intention of both projects, further displacing low income and black residents for majority middle and market rate residents.

Power of collective resistance

Indeed the marginalization of various political identity communities do not occur in a vacuum, separate from each other. The #BlackLivesMatter and Forward Together movements remind us that the legacy of state-sanctioned violence in all its forms continue to segregate and penalize the less powerful residents of our society. A higher percentage of black-descendant people are poor and live in communities disinvested of healthy foods, competent schools and health facilities with salaries to attract competent staff, healthy environments, safe and sanitary homes, and recreational centers. Low income people of all races/ethnicities are living in similarly disinvested communities. Low income people are employed in high-turnover jobs with little job security, career opportunity, living wages and paid sick leave or time off. The criminalization of people living in low income communities far surpass those living in moderate and higher income communities. The oppression of women, those with disabilities, and sexual minorities occur across all social and economic systems. The power of coalitions to connect across the commonality of discrimination and oppression is great. When each struggle is aware and directly and indirectly support the struggle of another, there is a stronger force moving forward against all oppressive norms and practices. From state-sanctioned segregated and disinvested communities, to disinvested schools, recreation centers, public and social services, health services, to mass incarceration, the thread is a systematic violence against people deemed inferior, of diminished worth. Broad-based movements can offer a platform for various local and national issue-specific or identity political movements to connect and coalesce. Then each small act of daily individual resistance becomes the foundation for building resistance and organizational power across multiple issues; individual organizations/movements collect together to build larger networks of resistance connecting all vulnerable and historically and currently oppressed groups. This type of network of resistance reinforces resilience – I am my sister’s keeper and she is mine. This network of resistance is necessary to resist and change the network of violence currently enforced against all our marginalized communities.

1. #BlackLivesMatter

2. Forward Together Movement, North Carolina

3. Governing. Gentrification

4. The Atlantic.City Lab. Economic segregation

5. New York Times. Income inequality is bad for your health

6. Brookings Institute. Segregation and housing value

7. Scientific American. The myth of the American Dream

8. Jackelyn Hwanga and Robert J. Sampsona. Divergent Pathways of Gentrification: Racial
Inequality and the Social Order of Renewal in Chicago Neighborhoods. American Sociological Review 2014, 79(4) 726–751