350 Wenatchee Climate Conversations NCW

Today medial worker Breonna Taylor should have been celebrating her twenty-seventh birthday. But on March 13th, police used a battering ram to enter her apartment and murdered her in her bed, shooting her eight times.

Anyone who has read about the cold-blooded murder of Breonna Taylor or watched the footage of a white police officer murdering George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbaury being hunted by white supremacisists should understand the fury that is erupting across this country at the systemic devaluation of Black lives. But we need to do much more than simply understand it. We need to figure out what we can actually do to help dismantle white supremacy.

This starts by following the leadership of the Black community, and supporting their demands for change. That is why Stop the Money Pipeline fully supports the demands from the Movement for Black Lives and #BlackLivesMatter.

Climate justice is about far more than reducing emissions. It is about building a fairer and more just world. It’s about following the leadership of those that are most impacted by injustice. And right now, those of us in the climate movement have an opportunity to do just that by showing up in every way we can for Black Lives. That’s why we are getting fully behind the demands coming from the Movement for Black Lives.

We support the demand to defund the police. Just as we need to stop the flow of money from Wall Street to the fossil fuel industry, we need to stop the flow of money from governments to heavily militarized police forces that kill over 1,000 people a year, and are guilty of systemic racism and the terrorizing of Black communities. Please join #BlackLivesMatter in supporting the demand to defund the police by signing this petition. You can learn more about why we need to defund the police here and here and here and here.

We support investments in Black communities. Black communities have been systemically underfunded, redlined, and cut off from so many of the advantages afforded white communities. We need to support reinvestment in Black communities and in Black-led community groups. We can do that by demanding investment in Black communities, and by donating our own money to Black-led community groups and organizations:

• Make a donation to the Movement for Black Lives, a network of hundreds of Black-led organizations, here.
• Support Black Lives Matter, the organization founded in 2014 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, by making a donation here.

We support an end to the war on Black people. The Movement for Black Lives demands for an end to the mass incarceration, killing and criminalization of Black people. Young Black men are twenty-one times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts. Black people are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white people. This must end.

We support the demand for reparations. We support the demand for reparations to Black communities and we support reparations and land repatriation to Indigenous Nations. The government and corporations responsible for centuries of harm inflicted on Black communities and Native nations must seek to atone for the harm they have done. That means reparations. That means land repatriation.

We support the demand for economic justice. We must radically rework our economy, our tax system and support the right for all workers to organize. We support the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act to break-up the big banks power, and we support the development of community banks and credit unions.

We support the demand for Black community control. We support participatory budgeting at the local, state and national level. We support an end to the privatization of education, and giving political power to local communities.

We support the demand for Black political power and Black self-determination. We need to end corporate money in politics, and publicly finance elections. We must end the criminalization of Black political activity, and free all political prisoners. We need to protect and increase investments in those institutions that support Black political power and self-determination, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Black media, cultural, political and social institutions.

These are the demands that are coming from the Movement for Black Lives and from Black Lives Matter. Stop the Money Pipeline, as a coalition committed to challenging the power of the fossil fuel industry and Wall Street, fully supports these demands. Right now, we are discussing internally about how we can do more to amplify and support the leadership of Black-led organizations to turn these demands in reality. We hope that you will do all that you can in service to Black leadership too.

We also hope that you will commit to following, amplifying and supporting the Movement for Black Lives on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

And we hope that you will commit to doing all you can to follow Black leadership in your local communities, supporting their demands in ways that are welcomed, collaborative and respectful.

Stop the Money Pipeline

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