… I was surprised to learn that you didn’t invite the Dallas Law Enforcement leaders to your roundtable today. I hope you invited Sara Mokuria (SM), co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality. She would like to see Dallas investing more money into mental health programs, drug treatment and the schools rather than militarizing the police department….
The “defunding” campaign is not about abolishing police departments. It’s about building a system with a different, more compassionate mindset. At your meeting yesterday, Livingston County Sheriff, Tony Childress, was alluding to that when he talked about the need for police to be a “friend of the community.”
Can you believe that Tiananmen Square happened 31 years ago? At the time, I remember thinking, I’m not sure I would be brave enough to stand in front of a tank. I showed that famous image to my students last June & most had not seen it. My students from China were especially interested. When I asked them to what they thought the protesters might be thinking, they had a hard time answering that question….
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I also hope you will call Archbishop Wilton Gregory and apologize for using the SJP2 shrine for your publicity venue yesterday. He’s quite bothered that “any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”
… I have an idea for how you can use your talents to help us heal – heal from the ravages of our new pandemic, CV, and heal from the much older one, racism. Kareen Abdul Jabar (KAJ) wrote that racism is more deadly than CV, and like CV it’s in the air we breathe, “invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere.” …
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Dr. May writes, “George Floyd could have been any African American man, including me. Beyond the constant barrage of fear of the negative consequences of birding while black, shopping while black, cooking out while black, exercising while black — it is just exhausting.” Don’t you think it’s time to do something about this?
letterstodjt.com/2020/5/30/5302020Read more
…Ashley Parker writing in the WP today …thinks that you should be doing more to show your grief over the loss of 100,000 lives. I encourage you to give Dartmouth Religious Studies Prof. Randall Balmer a call. He has examined how presidents respond to tragedies & can help you understand why tweeting is insufficient for the Consoler in Chief…
