This week the city is buzzing - the Knicks victory, LGBTQ Pride Month, the Puerto Rican Day parade, and World Cup fever. You can feel it. Meanwhile, Trump in DC is also doing wild things every day, but we are winning. With the country’s 250th anniversary approaching, this is a good moment to reflect and act.
Voting is happening (Early voting began this week)! Congress, State Assembly, State Senate, Comptroller and committee district leaders who decide judges.
This Friday is Juneteenth, and there’s much to celebrate. It also raises an important question for white and European-descended folks: Is attending celebrations appropriate? How do we work towards collective repair and show up in solidarity with Black communities not just on Juneteenth, but every day?
One answer: support reparations! A movement for reparations is really happening. Learn the latest, explore how to connect, and practice talking with others about what reparations actually means. Join us this Juneteenth at 12:00 PM to discuss all of this with Reparationists from the Fund for Reparations Now!
New York City has a Commission on Racial Equity (CORE) and a reparations process is beginning! Also, New York State is inviting public participation through hearings, community events, and written or recorded testimony. You can share input directly! Or call or email your support and comments to 518-473-3997 or ReparationsCommission@reparations.ny.gov.
Meanwhile, nationally, HR 40/S 40 is being pushed along with a comprehensive reparations package. Ayanna Presley and the Congressional Black Caucus spoke about it last week:
Also, internationally unified reparations work is happening too! This March, the UN declared that the trafficking of Africans and chattel enslavement is the gravest crime against humanity, and the next step is a gathering in Ghana this week.
America’s 250th anniversary should be a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come and commit to finishing the work of making freedom and equality real for all. Instead, a white supremacist faction is steering us backwards. The MAGA regime is in the midst of trying to whitewash our past so they can whitewash our future: erasing the history of enslavement and genocide and rolling back hard-won civil rights victories. We refuse. While they plan a sanitized celebration of the 250th, we are gathering to repair our full history rather than erase it. Celebrate the progress we have made through struggle and commit to the work to ensure liberty and equality for All of U.S. There are actions in NYC and DC on June 27th.
At chapter this month we covered attacks on the Voting Rights Act. One lesson is that NY was one of the first states needing oversight, not just the South. Tomorrow, come hear from Beth Howard of Appalachia on how we can all fight together.
There's no shortage of what's coming: critical Supreme Court rulings on trans rights and birthright citizenship, ongoing wars and genocide, new trillionaires, ICE, and a NYC budget that will test if Mamdani can keep his promises. We can’t afford to be passive and fragmented. We don't have to agree on everything, because we agree on more than we don't.
Onward,
SURJ NYC