APRI Board of Director Statements

The country is in the grips of chaos as we struggle to deal with the heath of the country, as evidenced by COVID-19 pandemic: and, exacerbated social ills, as evidenced by the murder of George Floyd. It is likely that within the next twelve months, we will develop effective treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19. The same optimism does not exist for climinating the country's social ills, which have been allowed to fester since the enslavement of Africans in America.

This present time of national upheaval, offers another opportunity to acknowledge the underiving cause of many of America's social ills - slavery. Africans in America were enslaved (1619 - 1865) longer than they have been 'free' (1865 -2020). Slavery and its current manifestations will continue to be a scourge on the American history, and unless purposely addressed will stain its future.

We can mitigate the deadly and debilitating effects of the American system of slavery and its idcological basis of white national chauvinism and racism. This is a 400 ycar old virus which continues to plague the United States of America with a plethora of horrific social and economic consequences.

Such an effort must begin with the acknowledgement that: THE ENSLAVEMENT OF AFRICANS IN AMERICA WAS WRONG!!!

Our nations institutions including: national, state and local governments, religious organizations, business organizations, institutions of higher learning. labor and social organizations must undertake the issuance of an unequivocal statement that: THE ENSLAVEMENT OF AFRICANS IN AMERICA WAS WRONG!!I (see sample statement at end

A necessary follow up to the acknowledgement will be ensuring that the curricula requirements of our educational systems from K - 12 thru Bachelors, include:

• At least two semesters of study on the history of African (Black) people with an end focus on the history of Africans in America.
• At least two semesters of study on the history of European people with an end focus on the history of European (White) people

        in the United States of America.

Such a program of systematic purpose driven education will not eliminate the virus; but will help to halt its spread.

In this time of chaos and opportunity, we are becoming more astute at identifying viruses. Our history is full of occasions of identifying and overcoming many deadly viruses. Today we search for treatments, antidotes and vaccines for the recently discovered, harmful and deadly, COVID-19. We are not alarmed that the time from identification to trentment and vaccine may take 18 to 24 months. Such should be the same approach to treatment and vaccination against the virus of white national chauvinism and racism.

The virus of white national chauvinism and racism is not an orphan disease, nor is it idiopathic. Viruses are organisms that in order to replicate themselves; they need a host to live, thrive and survive. No one is born with the virus of white national chauvinism and racism. Education and privilesed practices have created among large numbers of our population suitable host for the perpetuation and expansion of the virus.

Education and positive practices will help, in the short run, to mitigate and contain the virus while we work toward vaccines to eradicate it.

The symptoms of the virus manifest themselves in a myriad of ways, from active hatred and discrimination to silence and sedentary behavior in the presence of the virus's deadly spread.

Diligent education will help us to quickly recognize its symptoms and make the necessary transactional social adjustments. These may take the form of changes in legal policies, criminal justice reform and sustainable economic equality initiatives. The continuing transformational effort will be education, education and more discase avoidance efforts.

Victory over the virus of white national chauvinism and racism is possible. Victory, however, requires us to employ the same dedication, diligence and resources that were marshalled in finding solutions to old diseases such as; typhoid fever, smallpox, tuberculosis and polio; while making significant and measurable inroads in treatment and solutions to recently identified deadly' discases such as: hepatitis, aids, and e-coli; and the array of recent epidemics and pandemics that result in suffering, misery and death in our country.

Purpose driven education will involve a process of unlearning: relearning: and leaming.

A commitment must be made to develop a new generation, that after being exposed to a new curricula, will be less' infected by the virus while working to develop a vaccine for the next generation.

There are two asks that you personally and organizationally can undertake:

1. Use your personal standing to initiate discussions within and secure from your organization, a statement that: The Enslavement of Africans in America Was Wrong.
2. Use your organizational resources to secure from your state and local cducational departments, the inclusion in the curricula of elementary, middle, high school and first year college of:

• At least two semesters of study on the history of African (Black) people with an end focus on the history of Africans in America.
• At least two semesters of study on the history of European pople with an end focus on the history of European (White) people in United States of America.

Success in these endeavors will serve to strengthen you and your organizations resolve to address the root cause of strife and turmoil in our country. Our purpose driven education will lead to a brighter future for our children and our children's children and the United States of America that we seck.

THE ENSLAVEMENT OF AFRICANS IN THE UNITEO STATES WAS WRONG!

(sample)

Whereas, between 1619 and 1565, millions of Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the 13 colonies and the United States: and

Whereas, this system of slavery is recognized as being the most brutal, dehumanizing and humiliating known to history, os people were sold at auction as chattel, killed at will and families torn apart; and

Whereas, after 246 years of legally sanction slavery and the end of the City War and the passage of the 13" Amendment, prohibiting slavery except os punishment for a crime; and ofter emancipation, African Americans sow the hope and promises of freedom diminished by "Jim Crow and o system of block codes that established o horrific system of race separation and segregation in all areas of American life; and

Whereas, African Americans stir suffer from the evils of slavery and Am Crow, as evidenced negatively in social and economic indicators, resulting in the loss of income, quality of Age and dignity; and,

Whereas, the realities of slavery and Jim Crow and their lingering practices and effects must not be purged or left out of the telling of our American story, or the progress of its peoples and

Whereas, enslavement of African Americans slavery was one of the greatest crimes of history and many of the problems that plague and trouble America have their roots in that bitter experience and its aftermath

Whereas, same progress has been mode me stit hove a lung lang way to go to achieve full equally, our destiny is set and we will achieve liberty and justice for all and,

Whereas, (your organization) recognizes char k a time to how frank and thoughtful discussions about slavery and racism

Therefore de is Resaved, ¿nor (your organization) commits to the inheritance of this discussion and mil scei to enhance shot discussion, and strengthen the unity among peoples, by acknowledging and stating unequivocally but that the Enslavement of Africans in the United States of America Was Wrong! And.

Therefore &e is Finally Restated, that we will popularize this acknowledgement at all levels of our organizations networks and in our communities, sing this acknowledgement to sea guide as in our contiscing discussions and the search for equitable solutions to our country's ongoing racial challenges.

1 woke up this morning with so much crust in my eyes from

crying myself to sleep

I woke up this morning with my arms tired from cradling my 8-year-old son in my arms all night praying that the world would see him for the gift from God that he is and not as a threat

I woke up with my fingertips tired from writing responses to self-absorbed people who find ways to justify a man being murdered on primetime tv

1 woke up this morning with my back hurting from carrying all the burdens of just being the color of my skin

I woke up this morning with knots in my stomach from the expired food they continue to sale in my neighborhood

I woke up this morning coughing not knowing if I caught the RONA from a job that they now deem as essential, but still refuse to pay me a living wage.

I woke up this morning sick and tired, and not the tired you get when you went to sleep late the night before but the kind of tired that is rooted so deep in your bones that you cant tell if its Uncle Author or your body responding to the limited access you had to clean drinking water, or the lack of health insurance/ healthcare, or leave from work to even go to the doctor, or maybe its trying to figure out if should spend my last $5 on medicine or food.

I woke up this morning fearful to turn on my tv or look at my phone only to see more violence and so called black people lovers focusing their attention on looters and criminals instead of the system that created this problem in the first place, but maybe its because they love black culture but not black people.

I woke up this morning wanting to run and not looking back but I'm sure Karen would call the cops on me figuring I was leaving a scene of a crime and not trying to clear my mind. Guess I'm not entitled to find nonviolent outlets to express my rage.

I woke up this morning with my brain hurting throbbing as it tries to process and make sense of all the generational PSTD that it has experienced with not enough mental health programs to even begin to address

I woke up this morning thinking of a system that we live in that spends more money on building private prisons and filling it with black and brown bodies instead of building schools and investing in afterschool programs to help change the narrative and outcome of these same black and brown people if they were just given a fair shot

1 woke up this morning with a racist president who is so boldly declaring war on my community that he had peaceful people pepper sprayed and hit with rubber bullets in order for him to walk across the street and hold up a bible that one wasn't his but clearly he doesn't live by. Maybe one of his people should have told him that the book he is holding up promotes love not hate, it teaches us how to treat one another, it shows us that God will leave his flock of 99 just to save the one that got away.

I woke up this morning with elected officials that refuse to use their position of power to fix and heal our nation to stand up for the best interest of the people.

But 1 guess when the people don't vote and wont hold them accountable for their actions they become complacent. For a people who weren't even allowed to legally vote until the 60's its crazy to me that they still think that their vote doesn't matter



I woke up this morning when so many did not. So even though there is so much stacked against me I will continue to fight until my last breath I owe it to my ancestors I owe it to my children I owe it to the countless black and brown bodies that were executed in our nation and I owe it to myself. I will not be silent and I will not sit by while I was blessed with another day that I woke up to waste it

Her name was Broonna Taylor: She was shot while sleeping at least eight times by police who were serving a warrant at the wrong house. We can only hope she was dreaming of a better life, a more just America.

Her name was Sandra Bland: She died in police custody three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Her name was Aiyanna Stanley-Jones: She was only 7 years old when she was accidentally shot in the head - killed by the police during a raid. Her name was Tanisha Anderson. Her name was Atatiana Jefferson. Her name was Charleena Lyles. Her name was Alberta Spruill. Her name was Eleanor Bumpurs.

All of these Black women and this young Black girl were either killed by police or died during encounters with law enforcement; yet, we rarely hear their names and stories in conversations about police violence.

The death rate as a result of police brutality is lower for Black women than for Black men, but the killing of Breonna Taylor is a fresh reminder that Black women and girls also are victims of state violence. We may not have witnessed their deaths on video, but we cannot make Black women and girls an afterthought.

Several years ago, in the wake of the violent deaths of a number of unarmed Black men and boys - Trayvon Martin, Michal Brown, Eric Gamer, Tamir Rice and others - the AFT created a Racial Equity Task Force to address the crisis of anti-Blackness, and especially how it impacts Black males. As the mother of three sons, I felt strongly that our union should take on the inequitics - in education, economics and the criminal justice system - that make everyday life dangerous for Black men and boys, I also heard from a number of members around the country who insisted that Black women and girls be included in the conversation about racial justice.

We know that in our public schools, Black children - boys and girls - are suspended and expelled at far higher rates than their White classmates. Black students are three times more likely to be suspended and expelled than White students, and those disparities in discipline practices begin as early as preschool. Just last fall, I was horrified to hear about two Black first-sraders - one was a 6-year-old girl - who were arrested and handcuffed by a school resource officer in Orlando, Florida. A 2014 study by the US. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights found that, nationally, Black girls are suspended at much higher rates than girls of any other race and at rates higher than most boys. The significance of these glaring disparities in the administration of discipline

politics as that students - a disproportionate namer of whom are black - yes caught up in a vicious cycle where the tall and stay behind at worse, where they end up in the school-to-prison pipeline

As a Black woman. am intimately acquainted with the twin evils of racism and sexism. All too often there is silence around the intersection of race and sex.

I am the grandmother of four Black women and the great-grandmother of tour black girls. It is heartbreaking to have to question if their lives will ever truly matter and be valued in America. As civil rights activist Angela Davis said, "I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept my lites work to changing things I cannot access

one of us should ever accept silence and indifference when it comes to the lives of Black women and girls.

Let us join together and say their names

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