Black students at PCC are tired of being photo-ops
By: Spotlight Staff
Tags: College, Activism, Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights

By Kevin Seavers

Christiane Rios/Spotlight. A collage of calls for action in response to police brutality across the country.

Addressing students and faculty on a zoom video conference in an aggressive, rhythmic manner while unconsciously clasping her right fist to an open left palm 10 days after the murder of George Floyd, former Associated Students President Dionne Shelton discussed her feelings about Black lives at Pasadena City College.

“Why is it that we have to have this conversation right now about a resolution that’s getting push back from your colleagues and peers when we just passed a resolution saying the same thing against Asian-American students,” said Shelton. “And passed a resolution in October for Latin and Latinx American students of Latin descent. And passed one for the people of the LGBTQ community. Why is this one getting push back?”

Pasadena City College prides itself on being an equity and inclusive community college. They named the football field after trailblazer Jackie Robinson. However, the students haven’t always shared those photo-opted beliefs. Dr. Gena Lopez, Director of the Pasadena City College (PCC) Ujima program hosted the zoom call so that African-American students could voice themselves to the campus. The discussion led to complaints from students about the lack of visibility, lack of empathy and the perils of being Black in America and even being Black on campus. Even with those concerns, Lopez believes that PCC is just starting to initiate and engage the discussion on Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

“I am seeing a lot of progress,” said Lopez. “I am seeing progress in the Academic Senate where they are starting to pass a lot of resolutions. The academic senate’s goals include increasing our Black student population. Also, writing an anti-racists policy. The Academic Senate passed the Resolution 20.5, which is denouncing the killing of unarmed Black people. That was amazing how emotional and how generous the faculty were and the support that was given.”

Black students have a support center on campus called the Black Student Success Center and programs such as Blackademia. The Black Student Success Center will receive a new facility in order to give Black students more visibility. Some Black students felt that the old center was hidden and surreptitious. PCC is hopeful that this will send a strong message that PCC cares about its black students.

PCC is a Hispanic serving institution with 51 percent of its students being hispanic, and many of those students support the BLM movement. Anthony Nuno is a sophomore at PCC who lives in South Los Angeles.

“A lot of people want to see justice done right,” said Nuno. “It’s pretty pivotal and important. Most of the messages that you see on social media like blackout Tuesday, that was Black Lives Matter. And I know that got misconstrued and co-opted. My point is they’ve made a lot of progress in their organization. And [helped] to get the message out about how real it is with police brutality. And not even just the brutalization of people, but just the over policing of their communities and our communities because I am part of a heavily black community living in South Central. They’ve done a good job of making the average citizen aware of how bad the issue is with police.”

“A lot of people want to see justice done right.”

So much has happened since 2013, when Alicia Garza took to Facebook to speak out after George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of Trayvon Martin. With the help of Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, these three heroines set the foundation for what would be known as the BLM. BLM’s mission is to “rebuild the black liberation movement and affirm the lives of all black people”. In recent interviews, Tometi has stated that police brutality and extrajudicial killings were only the spark points of the movement, nevertheless they are very much focused on housing, education, healthcare systems, black people having control of their communities and black people having immediate relief of their communities.

In response to the murder of George Floyd, BLM organized a protest in Minneapolis and in nearly 2,000 different locations across the United States. The protests were “overwhelmingly peaceful and highly diverse.” The four officers who were involved in Floyd’s death were arrested and charged. Subsequently, the Minneapolis City Council took it a step further after a 12–0 vote and decided to change the city charter to allow the police department to be dismantled.

The pressure from the protests sparked a wildfire of disapproval from elected officials who supported police unions. In 2021, Los Angeles will have the second-largest police budget at $2 billion dollars, only second to New York. Soon after the death of George Floyd, BLM co-founder Alicia Garza was on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and called for defunding the police. Although the phrase sounds like discarding police departments, it really means divesting in some of the police budgets and investing those funds in the community such as education, healthcare, housing and opportunity.

City officials, mayors, governors and other politicians have been placed under the microscope. Jackie Lacey, the district attorney of Los Angeles, was criticized for her record on police brutality. Even liberal Democrats like LA mayor Eric Garcetti were pressured to defund the police. Garcetti decided to redirect approximately $155 million from the LAPD to youth jobs, health initiatives and peace centers.

Los Angeles wasn’t the only police department to cut its budget. New York cut its police budget by $1 billion dollars to education, healthcare and homeless services, but critics have also cited that the original police budget for 2021 was already a whopping $6 billion dollars. Other states didn’t go as far as slashing away police budgets but rather began removing police from schools. In Minneapolis, Denver, and Portland there will no longer be a police presence in schools. Instead, they are looking to hire private security officers and utilize school counselors. The move not only answered the cries for defunding the police, but will also save the Minneapolis School District $1 million dollars.

The viral video that circulated in June showed Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The video brought attention to neglectful Americans who thought that the Black community was exaggerating the effects of police brutality. Breonna Taylor, who also died at the hands of police hadn’t received as much attention as George Floyd until the BLM protests forced Americans to look back into the past.

The 26-year-old EMT worker was fatally shot in her Louisville apartment 74 days before George Floyd was murdered. The no-knock warrant led to a barrage of gunfire and countless missteps by Louisville police. Those warrants have been a subject of debate because they offer police the element of surprise, but have often put civilians and police in fatal situations. Officer Brett Hankinson was fired in June, yet was not charged for murder. However, he is awaiting trial on three counts of wanton endangerment, which in short is a crime for his reckless behavior.

A statement on the BLM website after the Breonna Taylor decision said that they were “disgusted” and “outraged”. This was just another example of a white police officer escaping persecution after killing a Black person. And even though BLM protests didn’t persuade the Louisville residents, the momentum of the movement is still strong. Leaders like Lopez understand that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.

“I see my colleagues wanting to put the work in,” said Lopez. “And what I mean by that is, we need more Black students. We need to repair our relationship within the black community in Pasadena. Because our numbers at [PCC] don’t reflect the numbers of black people in Pasadena. Altadena itself is roughly 20% Black, but our numbers don’t reflect that. We need to repair our relationship with the Black community and I think that the opening of a new Black Student Success Center front and center is a good way to do that.”

Lopez also noted helping Black families with financial aid, having a more inclusive curriculum and hiring more Black administrators and faculty that encompasses all experiences instead of only one experience.

“As it stands, there’s only one black woman, who’s an associate vice-president named Candace Jones,” said Lopez. “That’s awesome, but Candace has only been here 2 or 3 years.”

It has yet to be seen if BLM can procure or even match the legislative accomplishments of the civil rights movement, but in less than 7 years they have attracted a mainstream global audience and shifted the public discussion on police brutality and racism in America, something the civil rights movement had never accomplished.

In 1964, a Pew Research Center poll found that 74% of Americans said mass demonstrations were more likely to harm than help the civil rights movement for racial equality, 9 months after the “I Have A Dream Speech.” Skip past the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., countless deaths of innocent black people only to arrive in the year of the Coronavirus and a “law and order” president. A June 2020 Monmouth University poll found that 76% of Americans considered racial and ethnic discrimination a big problem in the United States, weeks after the murder of George Floyd.

Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lewis and James Baldwin were once the faces of the civil rights movement. BLM has shifted the faces of the movement from the leaders to the oppressed.

The polls clearly showed a stark difference in the way that Americans felt about social movements and racial equality. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lewis and James Baldwin were once the faces of the civil rights movement. BLM has shifted the faces of the movement from the leaders to the oppressed. Those in the say his/her name campaign include Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling and many more. BLM placed the responsibility of the movement on the entire community. Another key difference is that BLM has taken advantage of social media and the proliferation of videos showing excessive force by police officers. Banke Awopetu-McCullough, author of “Always Want More” on PBS’s Need To Know, spoke on the differences between the two movements.

“You have to understand that after 200 years of the struggle, we’re not really, and when I say we, I’m just saying this generation, we’re not really trusting of traditional media outlets and taking some of that ownership back,” said Awopetu-McCullough. “You know you have Facebook live, you have Periscope, you have live streaming. Again that’s equal distribution and finding different ways to elevate your voice, so you can make sure it’s not altered.”

One of the struggles of the BLM Movement is the spread of misinformation, which is why they chose to use their own mediums. As one example, the Washington Times wrote an opinion piece that BLM is demanding guaranteed income, free healthcare, free schooling, free food, free real estate for all Black people, free gender assignments surgery and free abortions. It also calls the organization a radical organization. It is easy to see why they want to control the message.

This is the first time in American history where corporations and politicians are not only speaking about Black lives, but are also putting dollars into Black lives.

Every generation has its own civil rights movement and leaders. And even though they have important distinctions between them, it’s important to move the story forward and keep demanding that America honors its values of the constitution. This is the first time in American history where corporations and politicians are not only speaking about Black lives, but are also putting dollars into Black lives.

“I want the momentum to continue,” said Lopez. “And right now ears are open to us [black people] and hearts are open to us. I want that to continue because for so long there was a sense of divide and conquer among people of color. This window is open for us right now. I want all of us there because there’s room for all of us at the winners table. And this door may be cracked open for us, but let us kick it down for everyone to come on through. That’s how we’ve always been in terms of civil rights. We don’t leave anyone behind.”