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Im writing this because I feel like I have to. I think this needs to be heard. I think more people need to hear others personal stories. Constantly feeling misunderstood, misrepresented, unappreciated, and having to explain myself and why I fight for social justice is something I am tired of doing.

I am a person of color (POC). I always have been and will be. Being a POC has been an identity that I have struggled with my whole life. I grew up with a white family, always pretending that I could be a white person. I didnt know it, but I was ashamed of who I was, where I was from, and the color of my skin.

I thought that being seen as white was better than embracing who I was. Its not that I was explicitly told that white was better, but what I later found out is that society was and is already set up to embrace the white agenda. What I mean by this is that the system, yes the system think as broadly as you can about the society and the government and set social rules that exist was created to benefit people with white skin or present as white.

Im not saying its the present-day white peoples fault, but it is white peoples responsibility to be aware of this. I mean really aware of this. It has only been more recently since I was able to identify the concept of systemic oppression. Id heard of privilege and white privilege and knew what oppression was, but I was never aware or taught how ingrained the oppression is in our formal and informal society.

A formal example being that the death penalty was created by the government as a legal way to murder African Americans. Once lynching became more looked down upon, the government came up with a way (a system) to push certain people in the direction of the death penalty which truly was made to be the legal excuse for executing African Americans. We can also look at the statistics. Lets talk about the demographics of prisons. Lets compare sentences for crimes of POC vs. white presenting folx for committing the same crime.

What about less formal examples of systemic oppression? I think of things like pipeline schools, colorism, and racial profiling. I recently had a friend of mine, who is and identifies as white, tell me that they speed going home from college all the time. Once they passed a cop and were lucky enough to not get caught. It immediately reminded me of other stories Id heard from other college students who identified as black males.

They shared multiple experiences of themselves and friends being pulled over and even taken into a station for the same or similar small crimes. You may think; well, they were breaking the law, but so was my white friend. But my white friend doesnt have to worry about getting not just caught, but PICKED because of the color of their skin. Its not just a problem that its happening; the bigger problem is that people arent even aware that this is some peoples everyday lives. Can you imagine living in fear every day because of the color of your skin?

Another thing I like to mention when I try to express the importance of social justice is the topic of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Blue Lives Matter. The biggest thing I want to be taken away is that being a cop and putting on that uniform is a choice. Being a POC is not a choice. Not only is the uniform a choice, but the uniform can also be taken off. Your skin color cannot be taken off. You dont get to choose when youll be judged by what is presented on the outside. It is an identity that follows you every second of your life.

In my opinion, the problem is two things. Most importantly, the police force was built off of an oppressive system. Period. That cant be changed, the past cant be changed, but it can be acknowledged. People arent inherently bad, I dont believe, but we were all born into a human societal system built to support some and hold back others. Going off that point that people arent inherently bad, I do not and believe, and I think other folx would back me up on this, that all cops are bad, and that is not the message that is trying to be portrayed when people feel upset about BLM being confronted with Blue Lives Matter.

I think the last message I want to address is one of the biggest reasons Im writing this. It ties into a lot of what I have already said. But listen here I think most people would agree with me that most people believe we should live in an equitable world or at least, thats what people will say they believe in. I commend the folx who have these conversations. It is super important.

But, it is also important to know that after recognition, talking about social justice is just the beginning. Simply put, there is a difference between not being racist/oppressive and being anti-racist/anti-oppressive. Just because you have the conversation from time to time, doesnt mean youre helping solve the issues, especially if these conversations only exist in spaces created specifically for social justice conversations.

The frustrating part for myself and from what Ive heard from other people that identify as POC is that while this conversation exists in a designated space, once the conversation is over, white folx can go back to their normal lives that are inherently built and systemically supported for white presenting folx.

POC have to take that conversation out of the room with them and live it 24/7. POC dont get to choose when these conversations happen and when they are important because one, its important all the time, and two, it affects them all the time. This is my biggest critique to folx who think they are doing good Social Justice work. Its not that its not good, its just not enough.

I also want to note that there are a lot of minority and/or marginalized identities that I did not include in my thoughts here. As far as the multiple marginalized identities that I, myself, hold, I believe that this message applies to those identities as well. I hope this helps anyone to better understand why I think social justice is such an important topic to think about.

There is one last thing I want to address. Ive spent a lot of my life thinking about how I can help others before I realized that being an educator is about supporting students to be able to help themselves. I think helping is great, but the questions are what causes are you helping and are you really helping. If you truly believe in change, then we need to attack systemic oppression.

I see the steps as recognizing systemic oppression, vocalizing, not perpetuating it, and fighting it at its root. My go-to example of this is some cities solutions to homelessness. There has been something created that is recognized as anti-homelessness architecture. What this really means is creating spaces where homeless people cannot stay, like spikes under sheltered areas and benches with divides or other manners of preventing sleeping on them.

The problem with this is that it may prevent homeless people from staying in that location, but it drives homeless people elsewhere and more importantly, doesnt help to eradicate the problem of homelessness. So to connect these ideas, one can donate clothes/items to the less fortunate or participate in volunteer activities, but if youre not helping to break and change the system, youre only helping to deal with the consequences of systemic oppression, not the root of these problems. This means that systemic oppression will persist and continue on. So I leave you with a few quotes that resonate deeply with me.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -MLK

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and no nothing. -Albert Einstein

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. Benjamin Franklin

Last and certainly not least, thank you to everyone in my life that has helped me to be able to understand myself more, dive into the work, and supported me through my lifelong journey.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Letters to the Editor do not reflect the beliefs or values of The Racquet Press. The author of this letter chose to remain anonymous.

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Letter to the Editor: Why social justice is important to me - The Racquet

Kim Foxxs office has reduced incarceration rates by nearly 20% and taken major steps toward reform. Now, shes under attack.

To criminal justice advocates, the Smollett controversy has been an overblown distraction.

CHICAGOWith the Illinois primary set for Tuesday, one of the most heated races of the cycle is for Cook County states attorney. Progressive prosecutor Kim Foxx sits in a vulnerable position as the incumbent, as she faces a challenge from Bill Conwaya billionaire-backed candidateas well as continuing blowback from her handling of the controversial Jussie Smollett case.

The Cook County states attorneys office is the second-largest of its kind in the United States, employing more than 800 prosecutors who handle upwards of 30,000 felony cases and several times more misdemeanor cases per year. Meanwhile, Chicagowhich makes up much of Cook Countyhas the unsavory reputation of being the false confession capital. Between 1972 and 1991, police commander Jon Burge tortured more than 100 people, mostly African American, into giving false confessions, and it was only in 2011 that Burge was finally sentenced to prison. Chicago is also where African-American teenager Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by white police officer Jason Van Dyke, who was convicted of murder in 2018 in a rare win for criminal justice advocates.

It was this same case that, in large part, led to the ousting of former states attorney Anita Alvarez, who had waited 13 months to prosecute Van Dyke. Hastened by the activist-organized campaign called #ByeAnita, Alvarez lost the 2016 election to Foxx, a former assistant states attorney who became the first Black woman to hold the office. Since then, Foxxs office has reduced Cook County incarceration rates by 19%, released over six years of felony criminal case data on the Cook County Open Data Portal, and has started expunging the records of the tens of thousands of people with low-level cannabis charges.

You cannot overstate the impact of reducing frivolous prosecutions, says Jobi Cates, founder of Restore Justice Illinois, citing minor nonviolent crimes like shoplifting. When you're looking at a system that's so overwhelmed it can barely function on a good day to provide fair hearings for people, [then] removing that pressure on the system is going to allow every case to get more attention.

Foxx is not without criticism. Most of the five organizers interviewed for this piece were largely supportive of Foxx, but dont think shes gone as far as she could to protect Black and poor Chicagoans, citing her slow movement on some issues such as over-prosecuting some gun possession cases, not practicing restorative justice enough over punitive measures, and further criminalizing survivors of domestic violence who are up for clemency.

As a prison abolitionist, Westside Justice Center organizer Monica Cosby believes that the power of a progressive prosecutor is inherently limited. I don't believe that the criminal justice system can be reformed at all. . The most that [they] can do is harm reduction and stop sending as many people to jail, but as long as that mechanism exists to incarcerate people that is what's going to happen.

Theres also the issue of Jussie Smollett. In February 2019, the Empire actor was accused of staging a racist and homophobic hate crime against himself, and weeks later, Foxxs office dropped the 16 counts of disorderly conduct against him. Then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the case a whitewash of justice, while Foxx maintains that it's part of her greater strategy of decarceration. Having this type of diversion is something we offer to people who do not have his money or his fame, she told the Chicago Tribune.

To criminal justice advocates, the Smollett controversy has been an overblown distraction. Emmanuel Andre, executive director of Northside Transformative Law Center, says, Even if Kim Foxx had gone through the whole process of putting Jussie Smollett on trial, then we have to ask, what is it that we as a society want to achieve?

Nonetheless, the case has become a rallying cry foropposition from Foxxs challengers: Bill Conway, former assistant states attorney; Donna More, a 2016 candidate for states attorney who now represents casinos in private practice; and Bob Fioretti, former alderman and perennial candidate. Conway, considered the frontrunner among the challengers, says the case exemplifies the States Attorney [showing] that the politically connected get better deals than other people, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

However, even as these organizers have some misgivings about Foxx, none are ready to abandon her. Cates thinks that the other candidates see this race as an opportunity to appease law-and-order Democrats [and] the Fraternal Order of Police community, Cates says. They walk the line of sounding progressive while maintaining the status quo.

Writer and organizer Kelly Hayes offered the same assessment of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which helped cover up Burges reign of terror. The police saw the removal of Foxx's predecessor as a condemnation of the department, which it was, Hayes says. [They now] have less control over people's fates, and that's what they want back. The local FOP has endorsed Fioretti in the race.

Though Conway has come out in support of reducing prosecutions of low-level crimes, community organizer Tanya Watkins is not convinced of his progressive bonafides. I'm honestly offended by some of the things that he says. He has co-opted the message of organizers and activists who he has had no relationship with, Watkins says. He's basically saying that he is going to do all the things that Kim Foxx is already doing.

As a result of this sentiment, local racial justice organizers have mounted a #CancelConway campaign, cut from the same cloth as #ByeAnita. Backed by a progressive electoral group called Vote Liberation, the campaign is highlighting Conways campaign ties to figures such as Anita Alvarez, as well as the FOP. One digital ad on the groups website accuses the Carlyle Groupthe private-equity firm run by Conways billionaire father, and his main campaign contributorof war profiteering and owning part of the company that manufactured the tear gas used by police against Black Lives Matter protestors in Ferguson, Missouri.

Mark Clements, a Burge torture survivor whose conviction was overturned after he spent 28 years in prison and who now works at the Chicago Torture Justice Center says that while he doesnt believe the criminal justice system has significantly improved under Foxxs tenure, she still deserves a second opportunity. Clements says, I'm thankful for her being transparent in her handling of police torture cases, because most Cook County state's attorneys will not open the door to individuals that were once locked up inside of prisons.

This has been the most expensive race for Cook County states attorney to date. The four candidates have raised nearly $16.3 million in the race, according to data from the Illinois State Board of Elections. Conways campaign war chest exceeds $11.4 million, nearly all of it from his father.

The infusion of big money into the racea 180% increase from the 2016 electionhas upended the playing field for Foxx, who has relied on donations from labor unions and special-interest groups. But organizers who back the incumbent are undeterred by this flood of cash into the race.

As Watkins says, They are buying our criminal justice system, and its not for sale.

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In Chicago, a Billionaire-Backed Candidate and Police Are Trying To Oust a Progressive Prosecutor - In These Times

Pessimism runs deep in the Jewish psyche, with, tragically, good cause. Anti-Semitism goes back to the very beginnings of Jews as a people. Since biblical days, Jews have been seen as the other, outsiders, victims of conspiracy theories and myths that have no rational source. The pages of Jewish history are bloodstained from countless persecutions and pogroms. Jews have been accused of being too wealthy and too poor, too powerful and too weak, communists and financiers.

Anti-Semitism drove Jews to the New World, and it followed them there. In 1654, Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of the colony of New Amsterdam, sought to expel Jews as deceitful, very repugnant, and hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ. The Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna points out that Stuyvesant also railed against the Lutherans and the papists, noting that in America, the fate of Jews and the fate of other persecuted minority groups were, from the very beginning, entwined.

Even as Jews gained greater acceptance in American society, anti-Semitism persisted. During the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant moved to expel Jews, as a class, from the war zone he commanded. Leo Frank, an innocent man, was accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta in 1913. Two years later, when his death sentence was commuted, he was taken from jail by an angry mob and lynched.

In the 1920s, Henry Ford wrote a series of articles in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, accusing Jews of being part of a worldwide conspiracy based on an anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In the 1930s, Father Charles Edward Coughlin, a Detroit-based precursor to todays talk-radio shock jocks, drew up to 30 million listeners to his weekly program, on which he spewed pro-Hitler and anti-Semitic vitriol, until the show was canceled in 1939.

During World War II, an estimated half million American Jews served in the armed forces, and many encountered anti-Semitic verbal attacks from fellow soldiers questioning their loyalty to the U.S. After the war, anti-Semitism was often more subtle but still present, with quotas on Jews in universities still in practice, and Jews restricted from many neighborhoods and professions.

In recent years, as overt anti-Semitism has declined, criticism of Israels policies from the left has often morphed from anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism from the right has been more direct, and violent; both of the men charged with the fatal synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway claimed that Jews are a threat to the white race.

Jews are contending with a growing effort on university campuses to demonize Israel as a racist, illegitimate state, and thus define Jewish students who support Israel as untouchable. As a result, such students are frequently excluded from liberal groups that support causes such as Black Lives Matter, gay rights, and combatting climate change. To distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and racism, the Soviet refusenik turned Israeli politician Natan Sharansky applies the three Ds: delegitimization, demonization, and subjecting Israel to a double standard. Among many on the left, Israel, once admired for boxing far above its weight in a chaotic region, is viewed now as a pariah state.

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Is It Still Safe to Be a Jew in America? - The Atlantic

Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenWinners andlosers from the South Carolina debate Five takeaways from the Democratic debate Sanders most searched, most tweeted about candidate during Democratic debate MORE (D-Mass.) was endorsed for president by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza's Black to the Future Action Fund on Thursday.

Garza posted on Twitter that her political organization and think tank would back Warren in its first presidential endorsement.

At @BlackToTheFutu1, were all in for @ewarren, she posted, linking to an interview with Axios.

"Elizabeth has a clear, progressive plan to change the policies and practices that leave Black communities out and keep us falling behind," Garza added in a statement.

At @BlackToTheFutu1, were all in for @ewarren! https://t.co/MBP3pfP333

Warren celebrated the endorsement with a tweet, saying she was deeply grateful.

I will continue to listen and learn from you, and I ask that you continue to hold me accountable as we fight together for big, structural change, she posted.

Thank you, @AliciaGarza and @BlackToTheFutu1! Im deeply grateful for your endorsement. I will continue to listen and learn from you, and I ask that you continue to hold me accountable as we fight together for big, structural change. https://t.co/htU6aTTM3t

Warren added in a statement that she was "deeply humbled" and ready "to build a country and government that works for Blackfamilies and communities across the country."

Blacktothe Future Action Fund released a six-part black agenda for 2020 candidates to follow, including the most commonly mentioned issues from 30,000 black Americans around the countryafter the group conducted a2018 listening tour.

Warren also earned the endorsement of Black Womxn For, a group of more than 100 black female activists.

The Massachusetts senator has struggled recently in the Democratic presidential primary afterpoor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, but she had a great fundraising nightWednesday following a Las Vegas primary debate in which she repeatedly slammed former New York City Mayor Michael BloombergMichael Rubens BloombergWinners andlosers from the South Carolina debate Sanders most searched, most tweeted about candidate during Democratic debate Democrats duke it out in most negative debate so far MORE.

Although this is its first presidential endorsement, Black to the Future Action Fund has endorsed candidates lower on the ballot including Democrat Stacey Abrams, who ran for Georgia governor, and Rep. Lucy McBathLucia (Lucy) Kay McBathWarren endorsed by Black Lives Matter co-founder's Black to the Future Action Fund Democratic rivals sharpen attacks as Bloomberg rises The Hill's Campaign Report: Rising Klobuchar, Buttigieg face test in diverse states MORE (D-Ga.).

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Warren endorsed by Black Lives Matter co-founder's Black to the Future Action Fund | TheHill - The Hill

by: Hector Ramirez II, Brian Spyros, Sabina Kuriakose

WEST HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) The group Black Lives Matter organized a march Friday to remember Mubarak Soulemane, the 19-year-old man who was shot and killed by a state trooper in West Haven.

The march started near the Interstate 95 off-ramp in West Haven where the shooting happened.

The group walked behind a banner that read, Justice for Murbarak Soulemane.

Among those marching in the front where Soulemanes mother, other family members, friends and Eric Garners mother. Garner died at the hands of an officer in New York in 2014. He was the victim of a chokehold death.

The group chanted, No justice, no peace. No racist police, as they walked to the West Haven Police Department. They also shouted, What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! As well as, Justice for Mubarak and Lock him up referring to State Trooper Brian North.

Family said theyre thankful to have the support of the community.

I found the community very supportive, said Soulemans mother, Omo Klusum Mohammed. Theyve been with me, they march with me, theyve been with me since the day of the tragedy. I thank the community. They are very, very supportive.

She said she hopes justice will be served and that the investigation into her sons death will be impartial.

The march came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by the mans family. Soulemane is accused of carjacking a person at knifepoint in Norwalk and then leading state police on a chase into West Haven.

Thats when North fired his gun, killing Soulemane. All of it captured on body camera footage. The shooting remains under investigation as to whether the actions of the trooper were justified.

A legal expert News 8 spoke with says the case is not without its challenges:

You look at the fact that this man is 19-years-old, hes got a life expectancy of about 60 or 70 years, and you look at what his earnings potential he might be over the course of his lifetime and then typically in cases like this also because the police officers actions were intentional after the plaintiffs will ask for punitive damages.

RELATED: Black Lives Matter reps. stands with family of Soulemane as they announce filing of wrongful death lawsuit against the state and PD

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Black Lives Matter holds march for 19-year-old killed by trooper in West Haven officer-involved shooting - WTNH.com