[ [link removed] ]Ayanna Pressley for Congress

Content warning: This email discusses police brutality.



Four years ago today, George Floyd’s murder, captured on camera and
broadcast around the world, sparked a movement for Black lives and racial
justice. He wasn't a martyr and his life wasn't meant to be a sacrifice —
he was a man with a family. He deserved to grow old.

That summer, we organized and mobilized, turning our pain into calls for
systemic change: for an end to police brutality, racial profiling, and
years of injustice that have claimed Black and Brown lives for far too
long. Community activists have been sounding the alarm about police
violence for decades, but this moment ignited moral outrage for millions.

In the richest country in the history of the world, survival should be the
floor, not the ceiling. But our communities are consistently required to
organize and mobilize to demand the most basic of freedoms. Health care.
Housing. Education. Food. Clean water. Clean air. Bodily autonomy. The
right to live to see another day.

James Baldwin reminds us that not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced. What matters most to me is
meaningful policy change and budget change. It’s time to put our money
where our mouth is and invest in resources that provide the restorative,
trauma-informed, community-based solutions people are demanding.

Since George Floyd’s death, I’ve reintroduced the Ending Qualified
Immunity Act to eliminate the unjust and court-invented doctrine that
allows law enforcement to brutalize and murder Black folks like George
Floyd with impunity. I have supported the People's Response Act which
takes an inclusive, holistic, and public health approach to public safety.
And my resolution, the People’s Justice Guarantee, lays out a bold, new
vision for justice in the American criminal legal system.

No single bill can undo centuries of injustice, but I firmly believe that
if we can legislate hurt and harm, we can and we must legislate equity,
healing and justice.

There are some who want to ban discussions on racism and rewrite history,
who turn a blind eye to police brutality, who want to defund public
programs that would end the cycle of violence in order to maintain the
unjust status quo of white supremacy. But the activists and advocates
fighting for justice won’t be silenced. They fight in honor of George
Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando
Castille, Tamir Rice, Tyre Nichols, and so many others who should be with
us today.

We must show up in solidarity when injustices take place, demanding
accountability and policy to right wrongs. But when the dust settles, the
headlines fade, and the media narrative moves on, we need to continue
doing the work day in and day out to dismantle systems of oppression. This
is a movement, not a moment, and we carry forward the struggle for our
collective liberation.

We'll never have true justice for George Floyd and his family. True
justice would be George Floyd alive today, at home with his fiancée,
children, and siblings. As we remember him today, may we also remember
that another world is possible. We can achieve it through sustainable
movement-building and transformative legislation.

Yours in service,

Ayanna




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