John,
Last night, President Biden gave his first address to Congress. And while he mentioned police brutality, he put it on Congress to act -- when he also has enormous power to act with just the stroke of a pen.
We've sent tens of thousands of letters and hundreds of tweets -- and we're going to keep pressuring Biden and his administration to remind them that we expect a response by tomorrow to our demand that he demilitarize our neighborhoods by ending the 1033 Program.
The 1033 Program has distributed $7 billion-worth of military weapons to police forces around the country -- municipalities, state police, school and campus police, and more. That’s $7 billion-worth of military equipment in our schools, in our communities, on our streets -- $7 billion-worth of military equipment used to uphold white supremacy in every corner of the United States.
When President Obama was in office, he signed an executive order banning certain military equipment from being sold to law enforcement through 1033 -- and President Biden was supposed to do the same.
Instead, he had no problem hearing out police groups when they simply told him not to do it.
Now -- President Biden
must hear us out.
Must hear
the people out.
But he's only going to hear us out if we make him, John. We've only got until tomorrow to ensure he responds to our demand: #End1033. Send a tweet to President Biden and his team -- it'll take just 1 minute >>
Demilitarizing our communities should be a no-brainer.
But instead, listening to police groups -- groups dedicated to upholding white supremacy -- was a no-brainer for President Biden.
Why? Why was it so easy to side with the folks that organize state-sanctioned violence against us every day?
Black people showed up in record numbers to put President Biden in office -- and succeeded in doing so.
So why abandon a part of his commitment to tackling systemic racism with something that could've been easily done with the stroke of a pen his first day in office?
The future of Black lives is at stake -- and it's time for President Biden to remedy his record that has been damaging to Black people, just like he said he would. Please, take a moment to tweet the president and his top officials, and tell them to #End1033 by TOMORROW >>
In love and solidarity,
Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation
