Bay Area

The Brotherhood of Elders Network

Our organizations denounce violence against members of Asian American communities in San Francisco, Oakland and the greater Bay Area. We stand in solidarity with victims, survivors and families who have suffered loss and pain.

Published

5 years ago

March 5, 2021

Kiki

Brotherhood of Elders Network and the African American Latino Action Alliance

The Brotherhood of Elders Network and the African American Latino Action Alliance join forces to demand action against violence.

These violent assaults have made the especially difficult circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic even more painful. The African American, as well as Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese, elders and youth, are traumatized, afraid and outraged during a time when we are also experiencing disproportionate impacts of the pandemic. These include mass unemployment, safety risks to frontline works, insecure housing and the shuttering of our local small businesses. We understand there is also a surge in anti-Asian racism.

There has been an escalation of violence and other incidents against Asian American communities. The Stop AAPI Hate reporting center documented 2,808 hate incidents in 2020, with over 700 occurring in the Bay Area.

Violence affects all of us in all our communities. We must invest in long-term community-centered solutions that create opportunities for cross-racial healing that address underlying causes and create ways for all to thrive. Our strength is in unity, not division, and our histories and our futures are intertwined. This is why we are committed to working with Asian, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, Latinx and African American communities for long-termed shared vision and solutions to stop the violence in all of our communities.

It is up to us to keep our communities accountable and to holistically respond to generational trauma and violence. It is up to us to imagine what real safety could look like for our people and to build the future we want to see – one that is grounded in accountability, justice and care for each other.

We ask the leadership of the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and the others in the greater Bay Area, to immediately increase culturally-relevant and trauma-informed investments that:

● Ensure victims and survivors of all backgrounds and language abilities receive full supportive services so they can recover and heal

● Expand intervention- and prevention-based programs and invest in basic needs and community-based infrastructure that we know will end the cycle of violence and keep all of us safer

● Resources be allocated for cross-community education and healing in Asian American and Black communities that humanizes all of us rather than demonizes or scapegoats any community of color

Over-reliance on law enforcement approaches has been largely ineffective and has been disproportionately harmful to Black and Latinx and other communities of color.

We believe the solution to violence is to empower our communities with resources, support and education – this is how we make all our communities safe.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Martin Luther King, Jr.