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A subcommittee of the Providence City Council is slated to consider on September 1 the Community Safety Act – a proposed bill that would make police officers more accountable to the people they detain and reduce racial and other forms of discrimination.
Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steve Pare does not support the Community Safety Act. RI Future has asked for an interview with Mayor Jorge Elorza about it. We will be reaching out to members of the City Council as well.
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Even typically soft-spoken Senator Jack Reed is speaking out against Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump’s world view starts with Donald Trump, ends with Donald Trump and there is nothing in between,” Reed said. “He is combustible, impulsive, narcissistic and he could be a threat to our national security.”
Rhode Island’s senior senator, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, spoke during a conference call Thursday as part of the #AdmitHesUnfit campaign to convince America – and, specifically, Republicans – that Trump would be a dangerous and destructive president of the United States. The effort is being led by Third Way and the Truman National Security Project.
Specifically, Reed said Trump’s statements about abandoning NATO allies, praising Vladimir Putin and torturing terrorism suspects would seriously damage the United State’s position in global politics.
“When it comes to foreign policy he is ill-informed, inexperienced and completely unprepared in every dimension,” Reed said.
He also called Trump “unwise and dangerous” for xenophobic and misguided rhetoric of Muslim faith. If you look at his domestic policies there is serious questions about his judgment, about his priorities, You can make an equal charge about his capabilities and his ability to handle pressing domestic issues.”
Reed said, “Real leaders they bring people together, they just don’t try to divide,” Reed said. “They stand up to bigotry, they don’t fan the flames. They protect religious liberties, they don’t scapegoat religious minorities. Donald Trump is unfit to lead our nation.”
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The Providence City Hall Council Chamber was packed over capacity. The crowd was so raucous and loud it was hard to hear the speakers on their microphones.
“I Sabina Matos, would like to pass the Community Safety Act.”
“Seconded.”
Voice after voice pledged their support for the Community Safety Act.
“I, Seth Yurdin, would like to pass the Community Safety Act.”
“I, Sam Zurier, would like to pass the Community Safety Act.”
The Community Safety Act (CSA) passed unanimously. Not a single voice spoke against it. The City Council Chamber erupted in cheers and applause.
It was a brilliant moment.
But the Providence City Council never actually voted. Minutes before the City Council was to begin their meeting, their last meeting before taking a break for vacation, hundreds of protesters in support of Black Lives Matter had crossed the street from Kennedy Plaza and entered the chamber en masse. They took the seats of city councillors and acted out what passing the CSA might look like.
The CSA never passed. It has only recently been scheduled for consideration, when the City Council comes back in September.
As the crowd filed out of the chamber, Nick Katkevich of the FANG Collective asked a just arriving City Councillor Seth Yurdin if he would really support the CSA when the time came.
“I don’t support the CSA,” said Yurdin.
Neither does Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza or Public Safety Commissioner Steven Paré.
Fifteen minutes earlier crowds gathered at Kennedy Plaza, across the street from City Hall. The Movement for Black Lives had called a nationwide, July 21 Collective Action for Freedom, in response to the recent slew of high profile police killings. In Providence, the action was organized by the Step Up Coalition to Pass the Community Safety Act and the White Noise Collective RI around the idea of supporting the CSA.
The proposed Providence ordinance has 12 key points pertaining to police interactions with community members, including providing interpretation, documenting traffic stops in a standardized manner, and limiting police collaboration with other law enforcement agencies such as ICE. The CSA would also reestablish the Providence External Review Authority (PERA) with the power to recommend that Public Safety and Police Department budgets be reapportioned to youth recreation and job training programs.
“We don’t want to compromise on the safety of our community. When you have women dying in jail because they didn’t use a turn signal or youth being shot in cold blood for having toy guns in an open carry state, we can’t compromise,” said Community Safety Act Campaign Coordinator, Vanessa Flores-Maldonado. “We need police accountability now because no one feels safe in our community.”
The campaign recently scored a win when organizers secured a public hearing for the CSA at the beginning of September. The “mock hearing” was organized to put additional pressure on the City Council to pass the CSA.
At the mock hearing, Flores -Maldonado spoke directly to the city council members present, including Council President Luis Aponte, saying that the city council should listen to what the people had to say.
The protest left city hall and marched up Washington St towards the Providence Public Safety Complex, where people gave a series of speeches in support of the CSA, hiring more teachers of color, community defense, and abolishing the police. Here the speeches were in turn thoughtful and emotional. I would recommend them to those seeking a better understanding of these issues.
After leaving the public safety complex the march continued on to Cathedral Square, where there was some last words before the march disbanded.
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The chronicle of Cape Verdeans, who celebrated their Independence Day this month, in the Ocean State has proven to be one of the most impressive demographic stories, with local African American leaders like scholar Bela Teixeira, labor organizer Mike Araujo, and NAACP President Jim Vincent all tracing roots to the island nation. Now a documentary that recently was filming interviews in Rhode Island, THE HEART OF AMILCAR CABRAL, is set to narrate the story of their independence struggle and one of their founding fathers.
“It is really a complete pleasure to support your film project because it is living history really,” says Dr. Richard Lobban, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Rhode Island College, who was a reporter at the time and wrote stories from the field. From 1961 until 1974, Amilcar Cabral and his African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde/Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) engaged in an intense war against the Portuguese who had colonized Africa. Though Cabral himself was not a Communist, the conflict became one of the hot fronts of the Cold War.
“Cape Verdeans have always seen themselves, because they are an immigrant Afro-American population, as not having an attachment to the African American experience, or at least the same attachment to the African American experience,”Araujo told me several months ago. “The Cape Verdeans in Providence do one job in Providence. They were all longshoremen. The ILA [International Longshoremen’s Association] 1328 is an entirely Cape Verdean union. It was founded by Cape Verdeans. It’s officers are still Cape Verdean-majority. It’s also a very protective union. They were also able to keep the docks honest, which is the problem that they had in Boston and in New York. And they were able to keep it open to Cape Verdeans, most importantly!”
“Cape Verdeans were relatively politically sophisticated to a degree more than Azoreans. And also because of the amount of shipping that passed through there they were also more cosmopolitan,” he said. “They identify as an international people.”
This is a point that is vital to understand because the tensions on the macro level that played out in Cape Verde were staged on the micro level in Rhode Island. For example, the contradictions of race and racism impacted Cape Verdean identity in unique ways. Segregation in schools and churches would confound a population that in some senses does not regard itself as an African population as much as from an island near Africa that has its own unique traditions and culture. The expansion of Brown University and gentrification effectively dispersed a historic neighborhood by the end of the 1960’s.
These were the challenges that Cabral and his contemporaries were encountering when they began an armed insurrection against the same types of systemic racism and exploitation perpetrated by the Portuguese. And this is where the PAIGC’s links with the Communist bloc states proved to be so natural, it was because the ethos of internationalism, which defined Communist solidarity in the anti-colonial struggle, were part of Cape Verdean identity.
“Amilcar Cabral was from Angola, so there was this recognition, the same way that Che [Guevara] was from [Argentina], not Cuba, that there’s an internationalism,” said Araujo.
Guenny Pires, who is directing the documentary, says “I grew up with his story but I never really knew what happened and why. I was little when we got independence in 1975 so I could not understand a lot of stuff… I thought as a filmmaker it would be my responsibility to tell this story.”
Pires says the film was created “to honor Cabral and to keep his message alive.”
Click the Player Below to Listen to the Complete Interview!
Having been produced over the past 15 years, he is now seeking funding for the completion of the picture. And, because his production is partnered with a non-profit, all donations are tax-deductible.
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