Reflecting on CHOP, one Seattleite says we should sift our memories and “speak of it in terms of a sacrament and not a eulogy.”
by Matthew Bennett
At the beginning, you could walk right up to the intersection at 11th Avenue & Pine Street.
I had to check again, but it was early June when the police stopped a march for George Floyd and others at that intersection by the East Precinct. The protest occupying part of Capitol Hill swelled and shrank with the setting of the sun and the waves of tear gas. When the police abandoned the East Precinct on June 8, organically (so they claim), the protest grew to occupy both the park and about six city blocks. The first infrastructure arrived as relief tents for food and water and medics. The first protest art came with the rattling of spray cans. After what many feared was attempted vehicular homicide (an entirely reasonable fear), the protesters dug in further and erected barriers for safety. My first recollection of the name Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone is seeing it scrawled in marker on a road barrier. Continue reading Reflecting on CHOP: Resistance Between Memory and Imagination→
On July 1, Columbia City welcomed the Seattle Nativity School to the neighborhood. Described by staff and students as a place that “feels like family,” this Jesuit-endorsed, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) middle school’s mission is to “break the cycle of poverty through an education that nourishes the souls and ignites leaders for love and service.”
(This article was originally published on The Capitol Hill Seattle Blog and has been reprinted under an agreement)
Seven of the nine Seattle City Council members say they will support the effort to reduce the Seattle Police budget by 50%, the key component of demands from activists and community groups after weeks of Black Lives Matter protests, marches, and rallies in the Pacific Northwest.
The important threshold would represent a veto-proof majority on any council action as the representatives shape major changes to the city’s budget in the face of predictions of a significant downturn in revenue due to the COVID-19 crisis — a rebalancing process planned to be finalized and voted on in the next two weeks. Continue reading Veto-Proof Majority of Seattle City Council Pledges Support for #DefundSPD Effort→
Celebrating the diversity of Black cinematic brilliance, the 17th-annual Seattle Black Film Festival (SBFF) begins Friday, July 10, and runs through Sunday, July 12. Hosted by LANGSTON, a hub for Black arts and culture in the Central District, this year’s festival will be presented online for the first time, in partnership with the independent film screening and music platform, Couch-a-thon. It comes three months after the festival was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Creatives need their works to be shown more than ever and to connect with other filmmakers telling Black stories. We feel the acute need [to show] solidarity and amplify voices,” explains SBFF Director Andrea Stuart-Lehalle. “This is really an important moment for Black creatives, so I’m really happy we found a way to keep our platform going.”
(This article was originally published on The C is for Crank and has been reprinted with permission.)
The Small Business Administration has published a list of the companies that received Paycheck Protection Act loans (PPP loans) of more than $150,000, including thousands of Seattle-based for-profit companies, nonprofits, and religious institutions. (The low-interest loans convert into grants if they are used primarily to retain staff who might otherwise be laid off). The local list, which I’ve compiled into a Google spreadsheet, includes a wide range of companies, from large law firms to newspapers to Catholic schools to nonprofits.
In the weeks since a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, millions have taken to the streets with a clear rallying cry: Stop propping up the failed systems that hurt Black and Brown communities, and start prioritizing the things that allow us all to live safely, joyously, and free.
This is not a vague demand. It is a direct call to action for lawmakers at every level of government to take a long, hard look at their budgets and to harness the power of their office to begin to make meaningful change.
When Governor Inslee’s Senior Policy Advisor reached out to me in June of this year to be a part of the Task Force for Policing Reform and Racial Justice, both the activist and the dreamer in me fought for the wheel and began driving toward visions of systemic changes to laws and policies that would keep Black people psychologically and physically safe from unjust murder. I was ecstatic to finally have a seat at the table. The brain storm I wrote over the three days following the announcement of my appointment was around 5,000 words deep.
The antiracist roots of Seattle’s Domestic Worker Ordinance, which had its first anniversary on July 1, aren’t immediately obvious nearly a century after most other workers gained basic workplace protections. But there is a deep connection between anti-Black racism, the legacy of slavery, and the long fight for domestic worker protections.
On Juneteenth Mary Williams and I organized a Blackout at the CHOP. The purpose was to refocus the spirit of the Black Lives Matter protest taking place there to not only memorialize and fight for justice for the dead but to prioritize the health and wellbeing of living Black people. Continue reading Photo Essay: The Summer of Black Healing→
Amplifying the Authentic Narratives of South Seattle
