an airplane, and if one wing is too heavy, the whole thing goes down” But Brown is just as critical of police, saying the 52 hours of sensitivity training that all personnel at San Francisco Police Department have to undergo isn’t enough. “If relations were good between them, we would not have numerous calls coming in from people who were profiled by police, immediately being asked if they were on parole when they were approached,” Brown said. Many San Franciscans are sensitive to the racial profiling issue. Last year, when Mayor Ed Lee proposed a stop-and-frisk policy to combat the proliferation of guns — despite studies showing a similar policy in New York City disproportionately targets African Americans — the community rose up and forced Lee to abandon the idea. “Being a person of color who has been racially profiled, I couldn’t stand back and let this happen,” says Theo Ellington, president of Black Young Democrats of San Francisco, which organized people against the idea. But activists say it’s not enough to play good defense. Fifty years after the strong show of support for racial justice, there is still much progress to be made. “We need to keep pushing forward,” Townsend said. “Success is not measured by what you have done, it’s measured by what you’re going to do next.” On Aug. 24, the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP plans to head over to Mosswood Park in Oakland for a rally commemorating the march put on by the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. The University of San Francisco will also be hosting an event on Aug. 20 to discuss the progress and setbacks in the march toward racial equality since the 1960s. Speakers at the event will include Clarence B. Jones, Martin Luther King Jr.’s former lawyer and adviser, and Mayor Ed Lee. “It’s important to pause and see what’s happened in the past 50 years. It is the 50th anniversary of the dream and it is important to recognize that there’s been some unraveling of the dream,” USF Vice Provost Mary Wardell-Ghiraduzzi said. Ellington said he’s still waiting for his own generation’s Great March on Washington. “The death of Trayvon Martin was a wakeup call. It proved that my life, as a person of color, is not as valuable as my counterparts,” Ellington said. “We have to be the ones to turn the tide. There’s still a lot more work to do to fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. We are still fighting the same social ills we faced 50 years ago.” 2 opinion
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