Week of Why Day 2 - Sent June 7, 2020
Dear Family and Friends,
I want to start by thanking everyone for such a great response to Day 1 of Week of Why. We now have over 80 people on this email chain and I am excited to continue sharing these resources with all of you.
As a reminder, over the course of the week I will be highlighting 7 different organizations that support black lives and communities of color and discussing important questions that I’ve been asking myself, such as “why is this happening?” “why is this important?” and “why do we need to get involved?” Despite the research I’ve put into this project, I know that I still have a lot to learn. I am in no way an expert or trying to speak on behalf of the black community, but rather am attempting to use my voice and privilege as a white person to amplify those whose voices and stories have been typically ignored and excluded from popular narratives throughout history.
For Day 2 of Week of Why, I am highlighting the Association for Black Economic Power (ABEP), with a focus on one of their programs, Village Financial Cooperative. Their vision is as follows:
“Village Financial Cooperative is a Community Development Financial Institution with a mission to pave a way towards prosperity for all people. We’re a proposed Black-led Credit Union based on the Northside of Minneapolis sparking a financial renaissance within the local Black community and beyond. Our members believe in reversing the racial disparities of our state and come from all backgrounds and walks of life including anyone who lives, works, worships or goes to school in Hennepin or Ramsey County.”
George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis; as such, the city has erupted into the center of this current wave of protests and revolution. Minneapolis has a history of racially segregated neighborhoods, resulting in lasting educational inequality, diminished access to reliable or affordable healthcare, food redlining, and lack of affordable housing. This creates a pattern in which black youth have been trapped in their communities without role models or resources to make change from within. I invite you to click on each of these inequities and read the hyperlinked articles for a deeper look.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children emphasizes how this problem has affected people beyond the communities where these disparities exist:
“The achievement gap is a problem not only for African American students and their families and communities; it affects the well-being of the entire country. Researchers have found that ‘the persistence of the educational achievement gap imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.’”
Additionally, over-policing and police brutality in black communities lead to future generations of black youth being arrested and murdered by police at disproportionate rates. When black men are wrongly removed from their communities, kids grow up without fathers, mothers lose sons, and families lose sources of income. Their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unlawfully taken away from them, keeping their communities stuck in this cycle. ABEP and Village Financial Cooperative work on all of these issues in the North Minneapolis community with the goal of ending this pattern of poverty and injustice by providing access to resources which empower and uplift black youth.
ABEP is currently partnering with a local restaurant to raise money for their Pimento Relief Fund. This fund supports the rebuilding of local black businesses without insurance after they were burned down by people unaffiliated with peaceful protests. These selfish people looted for personal gain and some intentionally destroyed black-owned businesses to push their racist agendas and undermine change. For more information on the difference between looting and protesting, please click here.
What can you do to get involved?
Donate to the Pimento Relief Fund to support the rebuilding of black-owned businesses in Minneapolis by clicking here.
Donate directly to ABEP and Village Financial Cooperative by clicking here.
If you cannot financially contribute, I strongly encourage you to click on and read at least one of the links in the paragraphs above to learn more about specific issues facing black communities.
Please remember that in just reading and sharing this email you are already taking action to support the movement. The ability to educate ourselves, especially from the comfort of our own homes, is a privilege that should not be taken for granted.
As always, if you feel like I missed something, would like to engage in further conversation, or have questions, please reply to this email (reply individually, not reply all) and I would be happy to continue the discussion or recommend further resources.
Thank you so much for taking the time to engage with this message and support the fight for racial justice.
Sincerely,
Grace Hochberg