By Aaron Allen
The Seattle Medium
The King County Equity Now Coalition (KCEN), a coalition of Black-led community-based organizations, along with Decriminalize Seattle, a grassroots coalition designed to invest in pro-community initiatives and divest from policing and the criminal legal system, held a press conference last week to provide updates to their agenda following the Seattle City Council’s vote to divest $23 million from the Seattle Police Departments 2020 budget and the eminent retirement of Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best.
According to KCEN and Decriminalize Seattle, the history of Black people in Seattle shows decades of failures to support and protect Black communities. The Seattle Police Department has a long history of anti-Black racial violence, consistently brutalizing Black and Brown people while failing to generate safety for all of Seattle.
The two organizations also believe we must protest and divest from policing and re-imagine what creates true community safety. They believe a change in approach is long overdue, and the Council votes over the past few weeks are what organizers believe are necessary first steps in this process towards a solution in creating a city where all Black lives matter.
“Those closest to the problems are closest to the solution,” said LéTania Severe of Plumb Research Services and King County Equity Now. “Those who have been harmed by policing have specific wisdom, expertise, and leadership needed to explore what would create true community safety and health. As a result of this process, we will create the priorities for a safer and healthier future what we should be investing more in in order to generate true public safety and true community health.”
A number of community activists and leaders participated in the press conference and gave their accounts of what is needed to accomplish the goals set forth by various community organizations. The group said that they are unified in their efforts to bring about a more fair and equitable result through a participatory budgeting concept to address the injustices heaped upon the communities of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).
“The key to participatory budgeting is that community members get to decide where the money goes,” said KCEN Research Director and Inclusive Data Chief Consulting Officer Shaun Glaze. “This should be the new way of collaborating with the community around budgeting to avoid returning to the era of bloated police budgets.”
The activists also highlighted victories in their movement, including initial cuts to SPD’s budget, $3 million allocated to a community-led research and the participatory budget process, and $4 million to provide holistic violence intervention that supports community and public health infrastructure in areas significantly impacted by gun violence in the Black community.
Organizers believe that the communities that are most impacted by policing have the expertise and wisdom needed to remake our communities approach to public safety. Towards that goal, Decriminalize Seattle and KCEN presented a 2020 Blueprint for Police Divestment and Community Reinvestment to the City Council as a framework to leverage this expertise. The Blueprint outlines the groundwork for incorporating the brilliance of Black and Brown communities in developing solutions to true public safety. A $3 million investment in a community-led and Black-led research project this summer and fall will enable communities of BIPOC to help shape the city’s new to public safety.
According to the organizers, “We envision a world where Black and Brown people can thrive and create true community safety and health. With these investments and the ones to come in the 2021 budget, we look forward to creating this world together with people across the City of Seattle and King County.”
Organizers also believe that the city is at a crossroads and that the people of the community knows what is best to protect the Black community and its young people.
“We are the experts in what will keep us safe and make us whole,” says Glaze. “It’s not enough to invest in BIPOC communities if you are not allowing those communities most impacted by disinvestment to direct those investments.”
The group also addressed the resignation of Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best and the idea of honoring her efforts as the first women of color in this high post, while also acknowledging the need to come together as a community instead of relying on the efforts of a few individuals.
“We do not want to belittle the work of former Chief Carmen Best did,” says Rev. Martin Lawson, head of Community Passageways, King County Equity Now. “However, we know one person can help but we need to change the whole structure.”
Emijah Smith of Village of Hope agrees and says that the issues related to the police department are bigger than just one person.
“I want to say to Carmen Best: you did well in your achievement particularly for Black women,” said Smith. “I honor you. But this is not about one individual, this is about dismantling systems.”
Choose 180 Director Sean Goode says that its important that the collective voices of the group be heard in order to maintain the safety and well-being of our youth by keeping them out of the criminal justice and motivating them to reach their full potential .
“It is imperative that we honor the prophetic voices of King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle instead of villainizing them for imagining what’s possible,” said Goode. “When 90% of youth we serve don’t return to the criminal justice system after our program, it makes you wonder if criminalizing them was the problem in the first place.”
“We have to build an alternative that doesn’t include incarceration or institutionalization and helps build young people to live to their fullest potential,” concluded Goode.
