Watching the city council meetings days after the recording of unhinged racist remarks by the three Latino councilmembers and Ron Herrera from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor showed the anger and frustration of the public towards morally corrupt leaders.
It was nearly a year ago in May of 2020 when I wrote an opinion editorial on the murder of George Floyd. Here I am a year later writing about another death of an unarmed Black man killed during a traffic stop in Minnesota while in Virginia an Afro-Latino U.S. serviceman was mistreated and berated by officers for a different vehicle infraction.
I have written about and discussed the notion that it takes just one person to misuse the law for public trust to erode and just one person to stand up to unjust actions to inspire change. The shooting and killing of Dijon Kizzee, Anthony Weber, and Andres Guardado by individual officers has further raised concerns and anger over the police culture, training, and interaction with people of color. Adversely, an individual took to violence against two sheriff deputies this past weekend seriously injuring both officers.
The coronavirus has disrupted many aspects of our lives from causing a national health crisis to the havoc in our economy and the learning schedules of our children. One area that has cause for concern on many fronts is housing.
George Floyd’s death at-the-hands of a Minneapolis police officer is one of many tragic deaths suffered by communities of color across the country on a regular basis. These acts are the results of systemic racism in our society and the failure to expose it and weed it out from institutions, organizations and places where authority has power to intimidate.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has reported that over 15,000 students have not been heard from since the March 16 closure of schools due to coronavirus concerns. An estimated 40,000 additional students fail to check-in daily.
Working to re-open the St. Vincent Medical Center and provide the community immediate access to over 180 medical beds to help assess, treat and quarantine patients afflicted with the COVID-19 virus was a necessary step in providing more resources to residents. Our work resulted in the immediate funding and logistical coordination to bring St. Vincent’s back online after its closure in January within weeks.
Every year the United Nations (UN) asks world leaders to reflect on the issue of social justice and create programs that focus on eradicating poverty in their respective countries. The UN’s Annual World Social Justice Day (every February 20) is a day to remind ourselves at the local level that inequalities in poverty, exclusion, gender equality, unemployment, human rights, and social protections exist and are on the rise.
The work accomplished in the fight for civil rights justice and equality by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., lifts us all. We owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. King for his endeavors and the sacrifices he made in leading the movement that so many have benefitted from over the decades.
In the state of California approximately 56,000 youth are arrested every year, two-thirds of those arrests are for status offenses or misdemeanors such as: truancy, running away from home, curfew violation, underage drinking, and the alarmingly vague “incorrigibility”. Approximately 8 out of 10 youth arrested are referred to probation and of these youth, a quarter of them are detained, ultimately contributing to the School to Prison Pipeline.
The Millennial generation was the first to experience a mass school shooting when, in 1999, students were shot and murdered at Columbine High School. Millennials responded by disrupting the political system with debates on gun control and the Second Amendment to U.S. Constitution.
Despite the cannabis market growing in 38 states, the federal government continues to assert its right to classify cannabis as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act. This classification creates a very unique challenge for the industry to succeed and the ability to obtain banking services.