FIA News Archive
Standing on the (In)Side of Love with Immigrants
“Standing on the Side of Love” is printed on each Valentine card that was written Sunday, February 14, to over 50 men and women in Orange County detention facilities. Children wrote some of the messages, and others wrote more than one. We needed to set up a separate table to accommodate all those who responded to our call to reach out to our imprisoned brothers and sisters confined in barracks by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)!
The obstacles facing those trying to obtain bond, seeking asylum, and dealing with isolation from their families are great. Writing to people in detention is one way to ease the feelings of isolation. Members and visitors in our congregation have joined the Friends of Orange County Detainees to correspond and visit with people detained at Santa Ana Jail, Theo Lacy Facility, and James Musick Facility. Over the course of its four-year existence, FOCD has increased the number of its visits to 1200 in 2015. Thank you to all of you who wrote Valentine cards.
We know from speaking to those we visit that the cards are welcomed with excitement.
— Peggy Rhoads and Cathie Gentile
Anti-KKK protestors need our help!
Hugo Contreras, member of UUSM, and Mark Liddell (included in photo below), of First UU of Los Angeles, and Nikki Schop, an LAUSD high school teacher and friend of both, were arrested in Anaheim on February 27 while preventing a Klu Klux Klan member from leaving Pearson Park, after Klan members had stabbed three other protestors. To help with their bail and legal fees, please make checks payable to UUCCSM and put FIA-Legal in the memo line. For more info, contact Rick Rhoads, fia@ uusm.org . Thank you.
— Rick Rhoads
NEW!! Green Living Practice Groups
Let’s engage with Unitarian Universalists around the world in renewing our commitment to Faith in Action during Climate Justice Month from World Water Day, March 22, until Earth Day, April 22.
We will join in a spiritual practice of learning and sharing our ways to align our daily life more closely with the needs of Mother Earth and all living things … including our future generations. Focus to include Water, Energy, Air, and Resources.
Wednesdays (series of four), 8:30 – 9:15 am March 23 and 30, April 6 and 13, 2016.
For more information or to RSVP, contact green@uusm.org or Beth Brownlie.
DA Lacey: Indict Clifford Proctor, the LAPD officer who killed Brendon Glenn
Five UU Santa Monica congregants, including Rev. Rebecca, joined by one congregant from First Church, presented our petition to District Attorney Jackie Lacey Feb. 17 demanding that she indict Clifford Proctor.
Proctor is the LAPD officer who killed Brendon Glenn May 5, 2015, in Venice. As reported in our February issue, LAPD Chief Beck has called for Proctor to be indicted, based on evidence that includes a video of Glenn, an unarmed Black man, being shot twice in the back by Proctor while lying prone on the sidewalk. DA Lacey has said that she is still conducting an investigation.
We started out at the LA County DA’s office in the LA Mart, 1933 S. Broadway. Carpooling from the church, four of us arrived a half hour before the 12 noon announced time, so we decided to collect more signatures (we already had 100 from Forbes Hall and change.org) in front of the building. Thirty-five more people signed. Building security told us we had to leave because we were on “private property.” We replied that as there was a DA’s office and courthouse in the building, we felt we had the right to petition there, and we continued to collect signatures. The police arrived at about 12:05 and supported the position that we had to move out to the relatively sparsely populated sidewalk on Broadway.
By that time, the other two members of our delegation had arrived and we said, OK, we’re going to go to the seventh floor to present our petitions. We then discovered that although the DA’s website lists three office locations—LA Mart, near LAX, and Inglewood—the DA’s office is actually in the Criminal Court at 210 W. Temple. We drove up there, elevated to the 17th floor, and gave our petitions to a clerk who said she’d deliver them to DA Lacey. To be continued.
You can still sign the petition. Go to change.org and search for “Indict Clifford Proctor, Who Killed Brendon Glenn.” To get involved in this and other anti-racist campaigns, sign up for the Peace & Social Justice Committee email list at the Faith in Action table in Forbes Hall.
— Rick Rhoads
Justice for Brendon Glenn: A Step Closer?
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck recommended January 11 that criminal charges be filed against Clifford Proctor, the cop who killed Brendon Glenn in Venice last May. During the summer, UU Santa Monica’s Peace & Social Justice Committee took the lead in organizing three marches on Venice’s Ocean Front Walk. One of our demands was that Proctor be indicted for shooting Glenn, an un-housed Black man who was unarmed. We also raised that demand November 29 at a march in Koreatown with anti-racists from First UU Church of L.A., who had marched with us in Venice.
Only the DA or a grand jury can carry out Beck’s recommendation. As of January 15, Beck had not done what is within his power: initiate disciplinary proceedings against Proctor, who has been on paid leave since he killed Glenn.
Beck said that a video from a store security camera shows that Glenn was shot in the back while prone on the ground. Another demand of our marches — and of hundreds of angry Venice residents at a town hall meeting two days after the May 5 shooting — was that the video be released to the public. According to their attorney, Glenn’s family will demand release of the video.
UU Santa Monica’s theme for January was “The Quest for Truth.” When black people were shot by police in Ferguson, Staten Island, Chicago, Cleveland, and elsewhere, the media described the killers as white police officers, facts which support the narrative that the problem is individual racist cops. But when the shooter is Latino or Black, like Proctor or the cop who shot “Africa” on LA’s Skid Row, the media tend to identify the shooter only as “a police officer.”
According to the Los Angeles Times on January 12, “Los Angeles County prosecutors have not charged a law enforcement officer in an on-duty shooting in 15 years.” Even if Proctor is charged, history has shown that cops tend to be acquitted or, less often, found guilty of relatively low-level crimes with light sentences. One of the chants of our marches was, “No justice, no peace…no racist police!” We still have a long struggle ahead of us to achieve justice. We continue to work with the Committee for Racial Justice (a co-sponsor of the Venice marches) against racist profiling and brutality by the Santa Monica PD, and with a new countywide UU social justice coalition. Please sign up for the Peace & Social Justice email list at the Faith in Action table in Forbes Hall to be notified of events in this ongoing struggle.
— Peggy Rhoads
Greater Los Angeles UU Justice Group
The Reverend Rick Hoyt-McDaniels, minister, First Unitarian Church Los Angeles, welcomed participants to the first Greater LA UU Justice Group meeting held at Neighborhood UU Church in Pasadena on Saturday, December 12. Members from nine L.A. county churches (including UU Santa Monica) attended to hear about regional issues being addressed at each church. These issues were near and dear to those of us on the Faith In Action Commission. Church congregational membership ranged from 44 members at Sepulveda UU Society to 710 at Neighborhood. UU Santa Monica is the second largest congregation in L.A. county.
Guest speaker Evan Junker, Executive Director, UU Justice Ministry of California, outlined the priority issues for the upcoming year: economics, racial equity, immigration and detention, and the environment. The UUJM-CA has many resources for congregations in these areas. Information can be found at their website: uujmca.org.
Jerron Jordan, community organizer, LA Voice, a part of the PICO National Network, spoke about this interfaith federation’s work in “Race, Faith and Power.” After hearing all the social justice work being done at UU churches, Mr. Jordan said he felt as if he was “home.”
Members of this Justice Group plan to share our resources in order to work on common issues of homelessness and hunger, anti-racism awareness, immigration legislation, worker rights, and environmental justice, to name a few. The group will meet again in February at Neighborhood UU Church. If you are interested in finding out more information or to join the UU Justice Group, please contact FIA members Cathie Gentile, James Witker, Rick Rhoads, or Roberta Frye.
— Cathie Gentile, co-chair Peace & Social Justice
Second Sunday Cinema
Whatever the outcome of the UN climate change conference in Paris — and it doesn’t appear that the agreement will be close to sufficient to limit the rise of temperature to 1.5-2.0 degrees Celsius — people around the world will still have to mobilize in great numbers to put pressure on their governments to drastically limit the amount of carbon released into the air.
In the film “This Changes Everything” (2015, directed by Avi Lewis) based on Naomi Klein’s bestselling book of the same title, Klein presents portraits of seven communities on five continents struggling with the consequences of climate change. She connects the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there and concludes that we can seize the crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better.
On January 10 the Peace and Social Justice Committee will screen the film in the Sanctuary at 7:30 after Second Sunday Supper. The film is 90 minutes long and we will have a discussion afterward. We hope you will join us!
UU Santa Monica Marches with First Church Against Police Killings
Members of our Peace & Social Justice Committee (PSJ) went to First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles Sunday afternoon, November 29, to join their congregants in a march through the streets and a rally in MacArthur Park. It was a few days after the one-year anniversary of the non-indictment of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, MO police officer who killed Michael Brown. As the group of 25 wound its way through Koreatown, one of their call-and-response chants was, “Mike Brown means…Fight back! Omar Abrego means…Fight back! Kyam Livinston means… Fight back! Ezell Ford means…Fight back!” and so on through an unfortunately long list of men and women, mostly African Americans, killed by police officers, stretching geographically from Staten Island, NY (Eric Garner), to Venice, CA (Brendon Glenn, Jason Davis, and Jascent-Jamal Lee Warren). Another chant also echoed through the neighborhood: “No justice, no peace, no racist police.”
The First Church congregants were organized by a new committee there, People’s Liberation Unitarian Universalist Group. PLUUG, which participated in the three marches on Venice Beach that UU Santa Monica’s PSJ spearheaded, invited UU Santa Monica to join them in their mainly Korean and Latino neighborhood. After the rally and march we all dug into a potluck dinner at First Church; dinner conversation included discussion about how to build the movement against racist actions by the police.
First Church minister Rev. Rick Hoyt-McDaniels announced that there would be a meeting December 12 at Neighborhood UU Church in Pasadena to create a social justice group open to representatives from all 12 UU congregations in L.A. county. (See adjoining article, “Greater Los Angeles UU Justice Group.) The collaboration of PLUUG and PSJ that started in September was one impetus toward creating the countywide group.
— Rick Rhoads
Faith in Action Protest March
Rick Rhoads had been letting me know about the recent protest marches and I was finally able to make the one in October, along with around 20 others. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and was a bit nervous. Signs had already been made, and we each took one. I carried one that said “No Justice No Peace No Racist Police.”
The protest was to remind the beach community that there had been two fatal L.A.P.D. shootings and one fatal incident involving a security guard and a homeless person in Venice. Our route took us to the areas where the deaths occurred. At each site, a short speech was made by one of the protesters, explaining what had happened there, and how justice had yet to happen.
As I walked and held my sign, and repeated the protest sayings, I felt quite inadequate. I hadn’t followed the stories of these men who were killed. I had heard their names, but I didn’t know their stories.
Brendon Glenn was an unarmed homeless man. His friends said he was kind and loved his dog, a black Lab mix. He was a passionate environmentalist who visited recycling plants on the east coast, loved organic farming, and was an active member of Rainbow Family groups. He was also the father of a baby boy, whom he often bragged about adoringly on social media. Brendon was 29 years old.
Jason Davis was 41. I couldn’t find out anything personal about him; just that he had a knife and was shot and killed by L.A.P.D. He was believed to be homeless.
Jascent-Jamal Lee Warren had a way with words and his nickname was Shakespeare. A friend recalled how he was the first person to offer her help when she arrived at Venice Beach in May, newly homeless from Tennessee. He had shown her how to navigate the often intimidating community, helping her find bus tokens, clothes, and other aid. “He was uplifting,” the friend said. “He was dedicated to peace and offering spiritual support to anyone he met.” Shakespeare was 26.
Brendon and Jason were homeless. Shakespeare was killed while going to the aid of homeless people. Two of the men were black and one was white. How many of you knew their stories? Did the people I was passing on the boardwalk know their stories? Did they understand why we were marching? Or were we just another form of Venice street theatre?
Many people we passed raised their fists in the air or gave a thumbs up. Some added their voices with ours as they walked by. Some of the transient sidewalk merchants yelled at us. I’m not sure what they were upset about, and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Could they understand what I was saying?
In the end, I wondered if this was the best way to raise awareness — marching on the Venice boardwalk on a Sunday afternoon. Yet, if “we, the people” do nothing, then that is what will happen. Apathy does not bring about awareness, much less change or justice. It’s so easy to turn away and get busy with something else. Brendon Glenn, Jason Davis, and Jascent-Jamal Lee Warren (Shakespeare) can’t champion themselves. Who will speak for them? If I believe that we are all connected, which I do, then their deaths need to matter to me. If any sort of change is to happen, their deaths need to matter to me. I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. I will be at the next march.
What would it take for you to join in next time there’s a protest?
— Rhonda Peacock
FIA leads second rally and march against L.A.P.D. killings of un-housed people
Un-housed workers and their friends are the target of harassment and killing in Venice. UU Santa Monica’s Faith in Action Commission and Peace and Social Justice Committee led a coalition of community groups August 8 and September 26 to protest this brutal treatment by the L.A.P.D. and a security guard.
Brendon Glenn, Jason Davis, and “Shakespeare” (Jascent-Jamal Lee Warren) have been killed and hundreds of un-housed people have been targeted by L.A. Sanitation Dept. sweeps of their belongings. Brendon and Jason were killed by the L.A.P.D. and Shakespeare was killed by a security guard working for the owner of the Cadillac Hotel. Weekly sweeps of the beach selectively harass un-housed people and trash their possessions. Volunteers have been monitoring these sweeps in an effort to end the harassment.
Joining us at these protests were the Committee for Racial Justice, Occupy Venice, L.A. Community Action Network (L.A. CAN), Venice Justice Committee, People Organized for Westside Renewal, People’s Liberation Unitarian Universalist Group, Anti-Racist Action-LA, Love Is the Answer, Occupy Venice, Stop Mass Incarceration Network, Idle No More Venice, and Veterans for Peace LA. On September 26, the 50 protestors (17 from UU Santa Monica) marched from the Windward traffic circle to the Townhouse Bar on Windward, where Brendon was killed, up the boardwalk to the Cadillac Hotel, then back to the L.A.P.D. substation on the beach. Residents and tourists alike responded enthusiastically to our signs and chants of Stop Racist Police Terror; Sweep up Debris, not People!; Black, Latin, Asian, White, to Smash Racism We Must Unite.
As Venice is gentrified by incoming wealthy technology professionals, working class families, especially African American and Latino, are being pushed out of the neighborhood and the number of un-housed residents is growing. The city of L.A. is doing its part to enforce anti-homeless laws without using a pledged $100 million to find or build living spaces for the 44,000 un-housed people in the city.
The Faith in Action Commission calls on the UU Santa Monica community to join us for a monthly march and rally. Our first UU principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, demands that we take action.
Our December newsletter article will cover the Sunday, October 25, event.
— Peggy Rhoads, Co-Chair, Peace and Social Justice Committee
Santa Monica Minimum Wage Campaign Advances
The Santa Monica City Council is preparing to vote on a comprehensive minimum wage law at its December meeting. Please print out the endorsement card below and show your support for workers. The cards can be submitted to the Faith in Action table to be forwarded to the Clergy and Laity for Economic Justice (CLUE) office, or you can email or “snail mail” them to the address listed on the card.
Dear Santa Monica Community Leaders,
The City of Santa Monica is leading the Los Angeles County cities by creating a single ordinance that will cover many key issues around the minimum wage. This is significant because all critical issues are being considered, and this will create a strong policy. On September 29, City Council instructed staff to write a comprehensive minimum wage ordinance that includes:
• Increasing the minimum wage to $15
• Paid sick leave
• Union supersession
• A hotel minimum wage overlay
• Wage enforcement
This is a really exciting moment to be a part of the Santa Monica community. We would like to compile a list of endorsements to show Council that the community supports their decision to enact a comprehensive minimum wage.
Please fill this out and send it back to us at your earliest convenience. You can mail the endorsement to 464 S. Lucas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90017, or send it back via email to Gabriella Rosco at grosco@cluela.org.
Name:_________________________________
Organization:___________________________
Title:__________________________________
— Cathie Gentile
CLUE/UNITE HERE LaunchMinimum Wage Campaign for Santa Monica
Forbes Hall was the scene of an historic meeting on Wednesday, September 9, as activists from CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice) and UNITE HERE (Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Union) met to launch the 2015 Minimum Wage Campaign for Santa Monica.
Vivian Rothstein, who was a leader in the living wage campaign in Santa Monica in 2002, reminded us of the close vote on Proposition JJ, which was defeated when hotels and corporations in Santa Monica sent fraudulent material to voters claiming that Democrats, teachers, and others were opposed to the measure. Like other attendees at the meeting, she is ready to restart the battle for a living wage.
The current campaign has some notable supporters. Mayor Kevin McKeown, speaking at the September 9 meeting, noted that the city of Los Angeles has set a standard of $15 per hour by 2020 (starting this year at $9 per hour). But McKeown says Santa Monica can set the standard for tipped wages. “Some restaurants tack a ‘mandatory service charge’ onto bills for large tables of diners, private parties, or catered events. Under federal and California law, this isn’t considered a tip. Many employers give at least part of these service charges to employees, but that’s the employer’s choice. Employees have no legal right to that money” (nolo.com).
The living wage has advocates on the Santa Monica City Council and, of course, among the hotel workers and community members at the UU Santa Monica meeting. UNITE/HERE members spoke to those gathered about their need for a living wage ordinance comparable to that passed by the city of Los Angeles. There is a difference in the current wage laws of L.A. and Santa Monica. Santa Monica has no minimum wage provision that covers all workers and has no provision for protection from wage theft.
The audience at the UU Santa Monica meeting reiterated their dedication to fighting for the living wage. As Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Shalom said, “Justice is essential to CLUE’s standards — there is no justice without a living wage.”
— Peggy Rhoads
Visitation Program Makes Goals for 2016
Seventy members and friends of CIVIC, a national group committed to helping immigrants in detention, met in early September to plan for a new year of action to end the incarceration of 34,000 immigrants detained in U.S. jails and prisons. Three members and friends of UU Santa Monica joined the group for three days of study and action. We were joined by several men and women who had been released after as much as eight years in detention, who now are devoting their time to the goal of ending incarceration as the primary response to immigration.
We dedicated ourselves to a year of action, with the goals of increasing visitation programs, advocating for immigration reform, publishing stories and poetry by those in detention, establishing systems for post release safety, and expanding our contacts with international immigrant rights organizations such as AVID, in the United Kingdom. Considering the continuing crisis in receiving refugees from Syria, we understand our movement as a global one.
Members of UU Santa Monica who are also members of Friends of Orange County Detainees are planning an orientation for new visitors. Announcements will be made in the near future. We encourage youth to join us!
— Peggy Rhoads
Textbook Fund Update
As of mid-September, the Textbook Fund has received $2,212.50. The Faith in Action Commission would like to thank all who contributed so generously to make this campaign a success!
— Nora Hamilton
March to Stop Police Killings September 26
Seventy people, including 14 members and friends of UU Santa Monica, marched in Venice August 8 to demand justice for Brandon Glenn and Jason Davis, who were (separately) shot to death by L.A.P.D. officers. Our Peace & Social Justice Committee, which initiated the demonstration, is working to bring 30 of our congregants to a follow-up rally and march September 26, at 1:30 pm. If you can be one of them, that’s 3.3% of our goal; if you bring someone with you, 6.6%. We are urging the nine co-sponsors of the first march to also bring more people, so that we can make an even more powerful statement against these local killings and the national pattern they are a part of.
The September 26 march, like the first one, will start with a rally at 1:30 pm in Venice, at the intersection of Main Street and Windward Avenue (on the sidewalk on the southwest side of the traffic circle). Parking there is difficult and/or expensive, but several bus lines terminate at the traffic circle, including Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus #1.
Following the rally, at about 2:15 pm, we’ll march on Windward Avenue to Ocean Front Walk (OFW), pausing briefly at the spot where Brendon Glenn, an unarmed, un-housed black man, was killed May 5. Then we’ll march up OFW to approximately Rose Avenue, then back down to Windward, where we will have a concluding rally in front of the Venice Beach L.A.P.D. substation. The reaction of the crowds to our signs and chants when we took this route August 8 was overwhelmingly positive. Chants included “No justice, no peace, no racist police,” “Justice for Brendon Glenn; Justice for Jason Davis,” and “Black, Latin, Asian, White, to smash racism we must unite!”
The shooting of Brendon Glenn was recorded by a security video camera outside the bar. After reviewing the video, L.A.P.D. Chief Charlie Beck said, “Any time an unarmed person is shot by a Los Angeles police officer, it takes extraordinary circumstances to justify that. I have not seen those extraordinary circumstances” (LA Times, May 6, 2015). One of the demands of the march is that the police release the video, which they have refused to do.
Jason Davis, a white un-housed man, was killed July 13 near Rose Avenue and 6th Street. The police claimed Jason, who appeared to be mentally ill, had a knife. What’s visible in a video made by a bystander is a box cutter on the sidewalk about 10 feet from Jason’s body.
An Action of Immediate Witness passed at the UUA General Assembly in June, entitled “Support the Black Lives Matter Movement,” calls on UU congregations to act to demand that these killings stop.
Please plan to join us Saturday, September 26. For more information, contact me at fia@uusm.org or (310) 625- 4033.
— Rick Rhoads
Update on Textbook Fund Campaign
Update on Textbook Fund Campaign As of mid-August, contributions to the textbook fund for books for student inmates in the California Prison System have reached our initial goal $1,500! John Sussman is adding $500, bringing our total to $2,000! Many thanks to those who have contributed, helping us to reach our goal in such a short time. As you know, funds for textbooks have an important role in enabling incarcerated students to continue their education, an important factor in improving their prospects for the future.
For those who would still like to contribute, the campaign will continue over the next several weeks. Checks should be made out to UUCCSM, with FIA — Textbook Fund in the memo line. Those wishing to donate may send checks directly to the church; checks and cash will also continue to be collected at the FIA table in Forbes Hall after the Sunday service.
— Nora Hamilton
Update on our Textbook Campaign
In the first two weeks of the campaign, members and friends of UU Santa Monica have contributed over $740 to the textbook fund for books for student inmates in the California Prison System. We’re nearly halfway to our initial goal of $1,500! The courses, which are offered by a community college, are free, but students must pay for textbooks, which many cannot afford. Letters from inmates who have received these funds affirm how important they are for their education and their future.
The campaign will continue over the next several weeks. Checks should be made out to “UUCCSM,” with “FIA — Textbook Fund” in the memo line. The checks will be deposited, and UU Santa Monica will send a check for the total to the community college foundation, which in turn distributes the fund in the form of scholarships, to be used for buying books needed for specific courses. Those wishing to donate may send checks directly to the church; checks and cash are also being collected at the FIA table in Forbes Hall after the Sunday services.
— Nora Hamilton
Rally August 9 to Demand Justice for Brandon Glenn
Brandon Glenn, an unarmed homeless Black man, was shot twice in the chest and killed by an LAPD officer (also Black) May 5 in front of a bar at 52 Windward Avenue, Venice. The shooting was recorded by a security video camera outside the bar. After reviewing the video, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said, “Any time an unarmed person is shot by a Los Angeles police officer, it takes extraordinary circumstances to justify that. I have not seen those extraordinary circumstances.” (LA Times, May 6, 2015)
Angered by the killing, about 800 people attended a Town Hall meeting called by the LAPD in a Venice elementary school auditorium May 8, including several from UU Santa Monica. Following that meeting, there has been little activity or media attention to the killing. Members of our Peace & Social Justice Committee who attended the UUA General Assembly in late June were motivated to step up our actions against racism. We had an emergency meeting July 5, at which we decided we must do something in response to a killing by the police so close to home.
We decided to have a rally at the scene of the shooting, followed by a march to the LAPD Pacific Division. The rally was originally scheduled for August 2, but another organization that wants to participate had scheduled an out-of-town event that day, so we have moved it to August 9 at 1:30 p.m. That start time is so that congregants from First UU Church, whose Sunday service ends at 12 p.m., can join us. Our Faith in Action Commission, which is sponsoring the rally and march, is talking with other organizations about participating.
Meanwhile, a white homeless, mentally ill man, Jason Davis, was shot to death by an LAPD officer July 13 on the 600 block of Rose Avenue, Venice. Davis was said to have a knife, which from a bystander’s video appears to be a box cutter.
The rally will demand that these killings stop, that the police officers be indicted, and that the security video of the shooting of Brandon Glenn be released.
For more information, please contact me at fia@ uusm.org.
— Rick Rhoads
Textbooks for Incarcerated Students 2015- 2016
During 2013-2014, UU Santa Monica participated with other California UUs in a campaign to raise funds for textbooks to enable inmates in the California prison system to take college courses. These courses, offered by a community college, can lead to an AA degree and prepare students to go on to a four-year college. While courses are free, students must pay for textbooks, which many inmates cannot afford. To administer the textbook program, the college set up a foundation. Students apply to the foundation for “Unitarian Universalist Church Textbook Scholarships.” We set an initial goal of $750, but congregation contributions in 2013-3014 totaled over $2,000.
We have received over a dozen letters from student recipients expressing their deep appreciation for the books and for the opportunity to pursue their education while in prison. Many discussed continuing their education once they are released, or how it will help them in the future. A young man who is expecting to be paroled in a few months plans to pursue an engineering degree at Pasadena Community College. A woman who was arrested in 2008 and anticipates being paroled next year says that the degree will help her to support herself and her family and to serve the community. She is currently tutoring other students in mathematics. Another person wrote the following letter: “This letter is to thank you for the wonderful gift you have given me. This scholarship is more than a free book; it is a confidence booster I need to help me reach my personal and educational goals. With your gift I can now finish my last semester without worrying how I am going to pay for it.”
Many expressed a desire to use their college credentials to help others. Even those who face long prison terms hope to assist other inmates. One man, who suffered from “severe child abuse by my alcoholic parents” and is now almost 49, has served 33 years, with 11 more before he will be eligible for release. He is working toward a degree in Behavioral and Social Science, “not only to better understand the sociological issues that have impacted my own life, but also to apply that knowledge to help other inmates in here understand these same issues. Once I complete my degree, I plan on using that knowledge to help create and advocate for rehabilitative programs ... so that when [inmates] are released from prison, they will have a better chance to become productive members of society.”
Yet another man, now 28, received a life sentence as an accomplice to murder at age 19. An acquaintance in the back seat of a car he was driving shot and killed someone on the street. “As much as I don’t believe I deserve a life sentence, I do understand that ultimately it was my choices that got me into this mess, and moving forward it will be my choices which get me out. ...While my situation might seem hopeless, I believe that through my own education I can also educate the system that it is wrong to throw away a young person’s life believing they are incapable of change. ... This gift gives me hope that at least a small amount of people believe what I already know, that people can change for the better.” He hopes to eventually get his Ph.D. and “to get out of prison to become a youth offender psychologist where I can connect with troubled youth, show them someone cares about them, and guide them out of their destructive life style.” He ends with a quote from Nelson Mandela: “‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.’ So this letter is expressing my true appreciation for you helping me achieve the impossible.”
Textbooks are still needed, so the Peace and Social Justice Committee is renewing the campaign. Checks can be made out to UU Santa Monica, with “Scholarship Fund” in the memo line, and sent to the church. Cash and checks will also be collected at the FIA table in Forbes Hall. The enthusiastic responses of the recipients of the textbook funds indicate the importance of these funds for their education and their hopes and plans for the future. By donating, you can make a difference in the lives of inmates in the California prison system.
— Nora Hamilton
Petitions against racial profiling by SMPD submitted to City Council
Sunday, May 10, over 106 UU Santa Monica members and friends signed petitions to the Santa Monica City Council to institute a procedure for people to file reports about racial profiling and harassment by the Santa Monica Police Department. With these signatures and the many more collected by the UU Santa Monica Peace and Social Justice Committee and the Committee for Racial Justice, we join together to continue our work in fighting racism in the city and the surrounding communities. The recent unnecessary arrest of African-American Justin Palmer in Virginia Park for charging his Prius in a public park at night, and the killing of Brendon Glenn in Venice, have made it clear that racism is not dead and must be defeated.
The petitions were submitted on May 21 to the City Manager and the Police Chief in preliminary discussions before a meeting of the Santa Monica City Council May 28, at which the Police Department presented its budget proposal for the coming year. Community members attended that meeting to express our concerns about growing police intimidation and use of force. The Peace and Social Justice Committee thanks Rev. Nica for announcing the petition at both services May 10, the 11 people who circulated the petitions, and the congregation and friends for their involvement in this important work.
— Peggy Rhoads