Campus News Fall 2020 Issue 9

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LACCD breaks with Sheriffs Department BY JEREMY ARIAS Staff Writer

Volume 78, Issue 9 | www.elaccampusnews.com | Wednesday, November 18, 2020 | Single copy free - addi-

Police reform focuses on injustice BY MELVIN BUI Staff Writer The Los Angeles Community College District fostered a space for an honest discussion on racial equity and power during “Pursuing Racial Equity in Police Reform” on Nov. 12. It focused on the systematic oppression and unjust policing toward African Americans. “The LACCD is dedicated to equity justice and must lead by example with structural and permanent change,” LACCD Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez said. The voices of students are vital and always welcomed, he said. The discussion was facilitated by Los Angeles Pierce College Sociology Professor A. James Mckeever. Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at the University of Maryland, Rawshawn Ray was the keynote speaker. Ray was appointed a Rubenstein Fellow, a prestigious early to mid-career award that is given every two years to scholars and policy experts with an array of expertise at the Brookings Institution. His studies focused on the unhealthy trend of police policies and interactions. More of Ray’s studies can be viewed on his website: https://www.rashawnray. com

“Put on your seatbelts, we’re going to go through a lot of information in a short amount of time,” Ray said. He said the stigma toward “blackness” was perpetuated by stereotypes and that African Americans are overly criminizaled in white spaces. He said people with dark skinned are approached with a flight mentality and presumed to be criminals. “Men's mental health is more likely to suffer in neighborhoods where police frisk and use force more often, womens health is more likely to suffer in neighborhoods where police kill more often. Women living in neighborhoods with more police killings report more diabetes, blood pressure and obesity than men,” said a study from the Brooking Institution, The Collateral Consequences of State-sanctioned Police Violence for Women. Police chiefs in large cities are required to have a Masters degree or Bachelor's degree. However, almost anybody can graduate fresh out of high school, sign up for the police force and get a gun. A study from the Brookings Institution has shown police officers that are more educated are prone to make less mistakes. Ray said there should be more requirements set in-place in order for people to become police officers, like an associates degree

News Briefs

or required mental health courses. Ray said social media platforms like Twitter have been a flux for social movements like Black Lives Matter. BLM was started by Three African American women: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi after the death of Trayvon Martin in 2013. The BLM movement had gained more than 30 million tweets in 10 days, said a study from the Brookings Institution. “There has been no other social movement like this since the ending of slavery, in only eight years the movement has gained an immense amount of support,” Ray said. Defunding the Police is not about cutting police funding, but reallocating already existing funds and using it for mental health and social services. “We need to create a program that will protect police officers when they come forward about injustice within the department, so they won't be bullied by other officers,” Ray said. Police officers usually

live somewhere else from the communities they serve, which creates a disconnection between officers and the people, he said. “They’re just here to annex physical force because of a phone call,” Ray said. Police civilian pay-outs for misconduct helps to disregard “justifiable homicides” and only adds to police notoriety. The recent death of Breonna Taylor was deemed a justifiable homicide, while the George Floyd death was considered a non-justifiable homicide. None of the officers were charged for her death, only one officer got charged and it was for shooting the wall and endangering the neighbor. Ray said that the drywall of her apartment received more justice than her actual death. The $12 million that was used for Taylor’s pay-out did not come from the Louisville Metro Police Department's budget and came from tax payers money. “Breonna Taylors own money was used to pay for her death,” Ray said. Police killings are only the tip of the iceberg, he said.

The Los Angeles Community College District has terminated its contract with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department after 19 years following the COVID-19 closures. The cancellation of the contract comes after East Los Angeles College Academic S e n a t e P r e s i d e n t J e ff r e y Hernandez proposed a 10 percent reduction in the contract with LASD. Because of the impact LACCD suffered from COVID19, which includes a decrease in enrollment, school budget and all nine campus closures, the District Budget Committee approved the cancellation of the current contract with the LASD. The contract with the department was valued at $25 million before being canceled. The contract was on the agenda of the ELAC budget committee in October. “We had asked that there be a presentation on what’s taking place with the Sheriff’s contract,” Hernandez said. “But it was just a verbal reporting out by the chancellor which made it seem that we’re renegotiating the Sheriff’s contract and we have some things that we’re going to be doing differently, but it wasn’t clear what those things were and what we’re going to be seeking.” Hernandez said that his intentions for the proposal were to be consistent with community voices demanding change to our justice system and aligns with Measure J on the Los Angeles County Ballot, which allocates funds to alternatives to incarceration. Since then, both Measure J have passed as well as the LACCD’s decision to cancel the contract with LASD.

LACCD announced in a news release on Nov. 13 that it is now seeking a new contract for campus safety on all nine of its campuses after failing to reach a new agreement with LASD. Using Hernandez’s earlier proposal as a guide, it can be predicted that LACCD will aim to reduce its expenditures on security by at least 10%, but there is uncertainty about what the replacement will look like. LACCD Chancellor Francisco C. Rodriguez said the district will engage in an assessment of campus security and use that assessment as a basis for proposing campus security. The Sheriff’s Department will continue its services on LACCD campuses until the end of its current LASD contract. The contract ends on Dec. 31. LACCD’s news release said no LACCD jobs would be affected and that the sheriffs and deputies currently serving the nine colleges will be reassigned to fill vacancies in the department. No new details regarding any type of services to be provided will be available until the LACCD Board of Trustees meets to vote on a new contract.

L.A. parades over election’s results

UC transfer workshop

UCLA’s Center for Community College Partnerships at ELAC will be hosting a zoom meeting for our students who need help with their UC applications on Nov 29 from 6 p.m. to 7:30pm. Staff and mentors will be available for any questions students may have. The zoom meeting link: bit.ly/cccp_elacF20workshops .

Last Casting Call

ELAC’s Theater department will be ending auditions for “Teatro Frida Kahlo 10-minuets play festival” Last day to to audition is TODAY. For more questions or to send your resume contact Alyssa Gabriela Morale at alyssagabrielamorales@gmail.com

Lets Yoga

ELAC Student Health Center will have a yoga session on Nov 28 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Sessions will be streaming via Zoom. To sign up visit linker.ee/elacshc.

C/N: IVAN CAZARES

CELEBRATING ANGELENOS-

Hundreds of people take to the streets of downtown Los Angeles to celebrate and protest on Nov. 6 when news outlets started projecting that former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris would win the 2020 presidential election. Some activists, while happy about the incumbent Donald Trump losing, wanted to make sure President-elect Joe Biden understood that East Side Communities still had demands including police reform. "Whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins, we'd still be here, because our communities issues aren't just resolved if Biden becomes president. Yes, we want Biden to win, but he's still a lesser evil," Lucia Torres, head of Centro CSO Youth said during a demonstration at Mariachi Plaza on Nov. 6. Centro CSO is a humans rights group based in Boyle Heights which organizes for the rights of undocumented people, and advocates for quality public education and police reform.

Town hall meeting with Angela Davis discusses racial equity, social justice BY SONNY TAPIA Staff Writer The problems and questions in America that relate to racial equity are the same as the ones from the 1970s. Angela Davis spoke in a town hall meeting held by the office of the East Los Angeles College President Alberto Roman. The meeting discussed racial equity and social justice in America today from colonization to the death of Black human beings. The Black Lives Matter movement has rallied with the statement black lives matter on signs and shirts, but has never said that only black lives matter. Davis said that the saying of black lives matter does not mean only Black lives matter, she said it is a statement to move the world toward the ultimate goal of all human lives matter.

Davis said that right now the focus needs to be on the lives of Black human beings. The presidential election was another topic talked about in the meeting. “It is about time that the Black women of the voting system are recognized for once,” Davis said. “During this election it was primarily Black women that denied the country of a fascist movement.” In the 2020 presidential election blackvoters made up 11% of the presidential electorate and nine out of 10 of them voted for Joe Biden, according to the Associated Press. The Associated Press also wrote in an article that Biden received 93% of the votes in the Philadelphia wards that are 75% Black. Change for equality is something that happens over time Davis said and she added that the school systems must be changed. President of the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District Andra Hoffman

said that the district convened a Title IX sexual assault task force. “We revised administrative regulations to conform with the title nine regulations and hired more people of color and women to our administrations than previous years,” Hoffman said. Title IX is a part of the education amendments act that prohibits a school to limit the access of a person based on sex or be excluded from participation. In the area of advocacy during the past legislative year LACCD sponsored AB 3310 that makes community colleges offer courses in ethnic studies in order to cooperate with Cal State Universities and Universities of California requirements for graduation. “We have partnered with the Los Angeles Urban League, Brotherhood Crusade and The National Council of Negro Women to make a connection with the black community and to gain more enrollments from people

of color,” Hoffman said. Hoffman said that there is much more work to do and that the board will continue to root out the racism in the community of the LACCD to give an equal opportunity to everyone. Davis was asked by ELAC history professor Barbara Dunsheath, “do you believe there needs to be an abolitionist alternative for the educational system and what is needed in the system across the United States to fully devow the feeding into the prison system.” “Thinking about how the educational system is linked to the United States prison system is crucial. It is important to discuss that many schools in black and latin communities reflect the values of imprisonment,” Davis said. “It is as if the schools are leading the students into a life doomed for the prison system. From metal detectors to armed officers on campuses, it all must be removed.”

Board of Trustees member Steve Veres said that he remembered being a student listening to Davis and how she gave inspiration to all student activists. “One really important thing to remember is that we view California as a progressive state, but there is still a lot of work to do. During my time at UCLA, I remember the time when Proposition 209 was being viewed by the people of California and confronted,” Veres said. Veres said that as a community, we have to push the boundaries of racial equity to the limit and then move it further forward. Proposition 209 was a proposition that prevented the state from making preferred actions for grants based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or origin. “Sometimes it takes a lot of time to see the fruits of your work prosper, but in the current juncture the little victories are your fruit,” Davis said.

Davis said that community is the one thing that has to stick together and she talked about her time when she was put in jail for a crime she did not commit. In 1970, Davis was arrested for supposedly being in connection with a shooting that occured in a courtroom in San Raphael, California. Davis was later sentenced to 18 months in prison and she said that it completely filled her with fear. Something that she feared most was taking the final walk to execution. “I thought about what it would be like to take that final walk into California’s gas chamber and it seized me with fear. The visualizations from my mind scared me, but when I saw the protests forming all around the world it comforted me,” Davis said. “I feared taking that walk alone. Even if I would have taken that final walk I knew I was not going to be alone because I had a community.”


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