The BLM training was hosted by Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Merced and targeted towards community groups working with Merced-area youth. More than half a dozen organizations were represented at the event, which included presentations from the Bay Area’s Love Not Blood Campaign founder Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson and Fresno’s Reverend Dr. Floyd Harris of New Light for New Life Church of God.
Both men spoke on the history of the Black Lives Matter movement and gave advice on how local communities can work together to hold law enforcement accountable.
The Black Lives Matter movement is important because it is giving a voice to people who have been oppressed, marginalized, and silenced for too long. Enough is enough. It’s time for the ‘Blue Wall of Silence’ to be torn down. This wall is what enables police brutality
This is why many people know hundreds of Freddie Grays, as his family’s attorney exclaimed at the funeral. And this is why there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of Freddie Grays in America – young Black men who grew up in poverty, who attended low performing schools, who lived in contaminated communities, and who now have a hard time finding employment, have had run-ins with the criminal justice system, and are harassed by law enforcement.
Discussions of police misconduct in mainstream and social media outlets have reduced it to a black and white, and decidedly urban issue – African Americans on one side, white officers on the other. New America Media asked youth reporters in rural, and predominantly Latino, areas of California to survey people in their community about how they perceive local law enforcement.
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