Surround our youth with love instead.
This is a photo taken last week after the historic SF protest, demanding for justice #GeorgeFloyd, #BreonnaTaylor, #SeanMonterrosa, and the many other Black, Latinx, Native, Trans, people murdered at the hands of police in our country. (Photo credit: @strikereadysf)
That same day, as I made my way to the protest with my daughter and simultaneously participated in an SFUSD Budget Committee Mtg via Zoom, I listened as 55 people called in to ask our district to cut funding and ties to SFPD. What many folks don’t know is our district only spends $45K on the SRO program (school resource officers). In contrast, our city funds most of the SRO program and spends $674 MILLION dollars on policing overall.
Seeing this photo, from the evening after the protest really broke my heart. It made it clear that when we need money for riot gear, and helicopters and police overtime (at a rate of $190 per hour in some cases), we always seem to have money. Yet, when we need resources for school nurses, or homeless caseworkers, or organizations providing community-based mentoring and violence prevention we never seem to have enough. (I see you United Playaz, (follow them on IG) us4us.sfbayarea. Thank you for all you do for our youth!✊??)
Imagine if every young person in SFUSD was surrounded with as much love, care, and resources as the person in the picture were last Wednesday night. What kind of a world would we be able to create? This is my vision. Let’s build this world together.
