06/13/2020
Here are our 3 demands. We will continually work with other organizations and those who have been doing this work for years to strengthen them further. We will update these demands as this progress is made.
DEMANDS FOR THE CITY OF BELLEVUE:
1) DIVEST PUBLIC FUNDING FROM BPD‼️
The city of Bellevue must re-allocate at least 25% of its funding away from the Bellevue police department and into initiatives that centralize the health and safety of Black and Brown folx. Safety begins when there is access to housing, energy, heating, food, it does not begin at policing. In a time of a pandemic, more and more funding is being wasted, when it can be directly put into safeguarding our most vulnerable communities.
2) DECOLONIZE OUR EDUCATION ‼️ (Make Black & Brown Voices Heard)
Rather than championing “equity” as a performative tactic, the city of Bellevue and the Bellevue School District must fill their empty words with meaningful action. They must worry less about what looks good in the email to parents, and genuinely commit to making sure Black students are safe and heard, both inside and outside of the classroom. Their current attempt at equity does nothing more than leverage allyship for outside perception while hate speech and actions are regularly swept under the rug, Black and Brown students are silenced, and racism is not only tolerated but fostered in the school environment. We demand that the Bellevue school district makes a commitment to hiring black educators, reforming and necessitating a more inclusive decolonized education along with trainings curated and developed by organizations like storytellers for change.
3) MEET WITH US ON JUNETEENTH‼️
We ask that Lynne Robinson, Dr. Ivan Duran, the head of BPD, and the members of the Bellevue City Council receive these demands in a meeting with community organizers, leaders, and educators, on Friday, June 19th.
