Friend,

Today is Juneteenth. It commemorates the official end of slavery in the U.S.

Black communities have celebrated this holiday for 155 years, marking the day in 1865—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation—when 250,000 enslaved Black people in Texas learned that they were free.

Today is a reminder of civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer’s words: “Nobody's free until everybody's free.” It reminds us that the fight for freedom continues. Today we honor Black freedom and Black resistance, and center Black people’s unique contribution to the struggle for justice in the U.S. Today and this weekend, the Movement For Black Lives is spearheading nationwide mobilizations demanding that we defund the police and invest in Black communities.

Sign the petition now to demand divestment from police and investment in Black communities.

A few weeks ago, we launched this petition uplifting the Movement For Black Lives’ demands, which has raised nearly $30,000 for four important Black-led groups: the Movement For Black Lives, BYP100 Detroit Community Mutual Aid Fund, Detroit Justice Center, and The Bail Project - Detroit.

Black communities, especially Black trans women and femmes, are dealing with many generations of trauma, including racist terrorization and criminalization by police—simply for existing. Police are ripping apart families with impunity, despite decades of commissions, investigations, and policy reforms.

That’s why Black movement leaders are demanding that we divest from excessive, brutal, criminalization, and discriminatory policing, which does not actually keep us safe. The United States spends more on policing than it ever has before, but we aren’t any safer. Instead, we need to shift resources to community safety that actually works for everyone, not just an elite few. Ending police violence won’t happen overnight: It will require a participatory and thoughtful process that has already begun.

We know the safest communities in America are places that don’t center the police. What we’re looking for already exists, and we already know it works. We see it in neighborhoods where the well-off live, or anywhere there is easy access to living wages, quality public education, healthcare, housing, and freedom from police terror.

We must reverse centuries of disinvestment in Black communities to invest in a future where we can all be represented and free. Investing directly in Black communities means well-funded schools, good living-wage jobs, affordable housing, and health and human resources. These support services actually prevent and address the root causes of crime.

Now, after years of state-sanctioned anti-Black violence and animosity for Black life, millions have taken to the streets to protest, including protesting the recent police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And in the midst of these protests, more vigilantes and law enforcement have killed Black people, including Tony McDade, Rayshard Brooks, Oluatoyin “Toyin” Salau, Riah Milton, and Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells.

Here in Michigan’s 13th district and across the country, we march in their memories. We say their names.

And we’re still losing thousands of Black people to COVID-19, which has ravaged Black communities far worse than other communities—clearly demonstrating what happens when the government underfunds public health while overfunding police and military budgets.

Sign the petition now to demand divestment from police and investment in Black communities.

Thanks to the leadership of Black visionaries and organizers who brought us to this moment, uprisings are continuing in all 50 states, with massive public support. And last weekend, over 40,000 people in Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago showed up in solidarity with Black trans people.

But police continue to escalate violence with more militarized weapons and protective gear than our health professionals have. They’ve arrested over 10,000 protesters, many held in unsafe conditions that increase the risk of getting COVID-19.

Seeing this contrast, millions more Americans are realizing what Black communities have already known: Over-policing, militarized police departments, and mass incarceration are not what is needed to keep our communities safe. The very people who most need safety often feel that they cannot call the police because they know this would only make the situation worse, or threaten their lives. Instead, Black communities have engaged in mutual aid to protect each other in the face of neglect and violence—efforts that have expanded since the pandemic due to the government’s failure to protect Black people.

This mutual aid is necessary because for much of U.S. history, law enforcement meant implementing laws that were explicitly designed to subjugate Black people and enforce white supremacy.

Piecemeal police reform efforts have proven ineffective and insufficient. It’s not just about a few “bad apples.” The entire policing system, including the immense power of police unions, is set up to shield abusive police officers from ever facing accountability. When our policing and prison system itself is born out of white supremacy, narrow reforms don’t actually address the problems at the core of this broken system. In fact, many reforms just mean giving more money to police forces.

Over time, police budgets have grown as local towns and cities experience budgetary shortfalls for important resources like public education, houselessness, and mental health. Outsized budgets set up police to fill gaps left by a lack of other services. This also brings police, who have a history of using deadly force against Black people, in closer proximity to our children, neighbors, and communities.

People are dying and we need to invest in people's livelihoods instead. Nationally, we spend a hundred billion dollars toward militarizing our police instead of investing in communities. Just last year, Detroit spent $294 million on police, and only $9 million on health (see the chart below). This is systemic oppression in numbers:

Sign the petition now to demand divestment from police and investment in Black communities.

Now that we’re in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with many cities reevaluating their budgets, it’s the perfect time to rethink the role of police.

Thanks to this Black-led movement, cities across the country have begun evaluating whether the police are doing jobs that could be done better and more safely by other people, and moving millions from their police departments to reinvest in Black communities.

This is a great sign about the transformative power of movements. Change doesn’t start from the Oval Office or the halls of Congress, but always on the streets when we demand it. As an elected official, I’m listening to the hurt on the ground, and plan to keep translating that into legislation that gets at the core issue of structural racism.

I want to lift up and send gratitude to the incredible Black activists who’ve gotten us to this moment and keep pushing us to do better. We’re building on years of work from Black women, femmes, and gender non-conforming folks, to imagine and build new systems for community safety, dignity, and liberation.

And networks of Black-led groups mobilized to make this moment a catalyst for dramatic and real change in public opinion, our culture, and our policies.

Confederate flags and statues are coming down everywhere. Workplaces are beginning to examine deep-rooted anti-Black racism. Here in Michigan’s 13th district, our neighbors have come together to reimagine what it would feel like to be safe in our country, and to say no more racist systems and policies.

This is our time to confront the deepest systemic wounds of our country. As the Movement For Black Lives says, “We’re not interested in nibbling around the edges or accepting symbolic concessions. Black people have struggled for centuries for true freedom—our time is now.”

Yes! Juneteenth also reminds us about the liberation we’re fighting for. It’s a day to celebrate Black joy, often with parades, concerts, and barbeques. We have a lot to celebrate this Juneteenth. But we know that the fight is just getting started.

Sign the petition now to demand divestment from police and investment in Black communities.

In solidarity,

Rashida