Centering Racial Equity in Our Work
Community Access stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. We strongly support all those taking their voices to the streets and to their elected officials to end racial injustice and state sanctioned violence against people of color.
We know that George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbury, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and Rayshard Brooks are just five in a long line of humans who were killed because of their blackness in a society where white supremacy is the norm. The United States must move away from the over 400 years of anti-Black practices, policies, and institutions that have contributed to the wholesale racial inequity of our society. Our work today and in the future must create intentionally anti-racist practices, policies, and institutions. In the non-profit community we have a lot of work to do.
Community Access has always stood for human rights: the rights of people living with mental health concerns to be free from stigma and discrimination and to lead lives of their own choosing in the community; the right of each inhabitant of our city to decent, affordable housing; the right of people living with mental health concerns to be free from forced treatment and free from experiencing repeated trauma and abuse at the hands of the mental health system. Our advocacy work, dedicated to upholding the rights and capacities of people living with mental health concerns, has been part of the fabric of who we are since our inception. Over time, our human rights focus has expanded to include people who use drugs, those who have been incarcerated, and other marginalized groups, as we saw how growing numbers of people were being excluded from traditional service systems, while the judicial and carceral systems moved steadily forward in ways that furthered oppression and societal exclusion.
What we have not stood for loudly enough before now is centering racial equity in our work, although the work we do both in housing and mental health is largely necessary because of the effects of structural racism in our society.
Racism, entwined with the day-to-day oppression and exclusion of people living with mental health concerns, contributes to the use of deadly force against Black and Brown people. Individuals living with mental health concerns are tragically at increased risk of exposure to police interventions when experiencing mental health crises. In the last five years in New York City, Deborah Danner and Saheed Vassell are just two of the 16 people experiencing mental health crises who were killed by the NYPD, 15 of whom were Black or people of color. This too must end.
Racism and transphobia also intersect in deadly ways. Last week, two more trans Black women were murdered — Dominique "Rem’mie" Fells in Philadelphia and Riah Milton in Liberty Township, Ohio. These two deaths are believed to be at least the 14th and 15th violent deaths of a transgender or non-binary people this year in the U.S. The killing of Black trans and non-binary people must be exposed and interrupted.
In New York City and New York State, in this moment, there are urgent conversations happening about budgets and resource allocation due to COVID-19. Budget decisions must be driven by values — including racial equity and the imperative to support communities most severely impacted by COVID-19. What this means for Community Access is doubling down on our advocacy efforts about budget justice, the need to increase investment in safety net services — supportive and affordable housing, mental health, healthcare and other services that build communities and contribute to public safety. And, we must expose the injustice and danger of over-investing in law enforcement at the expense of these services.
At Community Access we are committed to doing the work to move a racial equity agenda forward and become an organization where anti-racism is a core value, one that is operationalized in policies and practices throughout the organization. This commitment includes the allocation of organizational resources to this work and a commitment to transparency as we move forward.
Our racial equity work needs to be internal and external and we are committed to both. We have work to do to increase inclusion, belonging and equity so that we can be a part of a world where anti-racist activities are the norm, both within our organization and in our advocacy in the wider community. White people and particularly white leaders, such as myself, have much to learn and much to do, to be effective racial justice allies and actors.
With love and commitment to equity and racial justice,
Cal Hedigan
Tuesday, 23 June 2020