1. Diversity of thought leadership is needed for the progress of our communities. 2. Commissioner Wale has been very resourceful to the community and his contribution towards the growth in DE & beyond is needed. 3. This violates the vision and mission of DACAC and is against the culture that the African Diaspora is trying to promote in a united front. 4. Bullying tactics will not be tolerated in the State of Delaware. 5. The community was not aware and was not notified about the attempts of his removal. 6. Commissioner Wale was one of the original founders in the attempt to unite and build the people.

As a justice-impacted person, I know from personal experience — and from the stories of friends and peers — how felony convictions impact our daily lives. It is very hard to reestablish yourself financially after jail or prison and to overcome society’s resistance to returning citizens. I live in Georgia, a state that allows private employers to learn about our incarceration history yet rarely gives us a chance to talk about who we really are as disenfranchised people before rejecting our job applications. We rarely are given a second chance. Many laws prevent people with felony convictions from getting accounting, banking, nursing and real estate licenses. Even when we get a job, we have been denied advancement within the company because of stigma. We deserve second chances. Black women have a higher rate of unemployment and homelessness than any other demographic group of formerly incarcerated people. Their children also are systematically restricted and excluded like their justice-impacted parents. In addition to being denied professional licenses, we also are unable to get driver’s licenses in some localities. We also are denied the right to be a parent or to be a caretaker for disabled children and elderly parents. Last October, Atlanta's City Council took a step to ensure the most vulnerable citizens are protected under city ordinance. But Atlanta's City Council has the power to take the next step toward an equitable Atlanta by updating the city's Bill of Rights to include justice-impacted people as a protected class and ultimately improve the lives of more than 44,000 people. We've served our time. Help us give justice-impacted people a second chance in Atlanta. Sign this petition and tell Atlanta’s City Council to pave the way for our second chances without suffering the discriminatory effects of collateral consequences.

Violence can happen anywhere, anytime. We cannot wait for government or policy makers to do anything about this. We have to personally get involved in our own capacity. Peace is our human nature. Love is our nature. Only when we find peace within, can we help spread it around. We can do it together!

On 09/20/21, I looked at the Wake County Public Schools website to find information about the number of COVID Clusters in Wake County Public Schools. The site was down and read as follows: We are updating based on the State of Emergency declared by Governor Cooper. This means there is a continuous rise of cases in the state and it is showing up in the schools and hospitals. Our schools are not safe places for our children. It is a known fact, there are not enough teachers, lunchroom staff, maintenance workers, or bus drivers to keep them safe. Our front-line workers are constantly put at risk without the basic protection of unmasking in Wake County. Since this pandemic started 1 in 9 people in Wake County have been affected by COVID, we’ve had 121,290 reported cases in our community alone. We already see that sending students into schools without masks will lead to even more people getting sick. We the parents from Black and brown communities can not attend Board meetings due to the many barriers that prevent us from attending. We are showing our concern through the signing of this petition. We never want it said that we don't care about our children and all children’s safety. We must adhere to the CDC’s guidelines to socially distance and implement a mask mandate to protect everyone in Wake County. We should not be listening to the ignorance of anti-maskers who bully and threaten board members to intimidate them from supporting mask mandates. It's our right to be safe and keep our children safe without intimidation. We the members of the Wake County Community Equity Leadership Team and the community ask that the Wake County School Board consider the cost when making your decision. We must put the safety and needs of our community at the center of our decision-making when it comes to the health and our students and families. WE WANT A MASK MANDATE

Implicit, explicit, and diagnostic bias in the Military and Veterans Healthcare Systems ensures limited treatment options and compensatory benefits for Wounded/Ill/Injured Black and Brown Uniformed Service Members relative to non-White Service Members, women relative to men, and Reserve Component (Reserve/ National Guard) Members relative to Active Duty (AD) Members . MILITARY DATA REVEALS DANGEROUS REALITY FOR BLACK SERVICE MEMBERS AND VETERANS by Zachary Cohen and Janie Boschma, CNN UPDATED 11:52 AM ET, SUN JUNE 14, 2020. A CNN review of data provided by the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs reveals the stark reality that black service members are less likely to become officers and, as a result, are MORE LIKELY TO BE SERIOUSLY INJURED SERVING THEIR COUNTRY THAN THEIR WHITE COLLEAGUES. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT REVEALS MILITARY OCCUPATIONS WITH HIGHEST SUICIDE rates by Seth Robson | STARS AND STRIPES Published: April 28, 2020, The suicide rate for reservists was 22.9 deaths per 100,000 while the rate for the National Guard was 30.6 per 100,000, the report states. That compares with a suicide rates for American adults ages 17-59 of 18.2 per 100,000 in 2017, according to the report. PHYSICIAN BIAS AND RACIAL DISPARITIES IN VETERAN HEALTH: Shari Eli, Trevon Logan, Boriana Miloucheva 20 August 2019 The mortality gap between blacks and whites in the US has been well documented, but there is still considerable debate over why the gap has remained so large and why it has persisted over the last century. This column explores these questions using unique data on black and white Civil War veterans to measure one of the earliest known incidences of PHYSICIAN BIAS AGAINST AFRICAN AMERICANS. It shows that PHYSICIAN BIAS had large effects on INCOME AND LONGEVITY of blacks relative to whites and considers the ways in which doctor attitudes STILL CONTRIBUTE TO THE RACIAL MORTALITY GAP TODAY. The war in Congress over rape in the military, explained By Emily [email protected]@vox.com Jun 8, 2016, 11:10am. Sexual assault is a huge problem in the US military. And for many victims, the process of reporting their crime and seeking justice can be as traumatic as their assault. The US Senate is expected to vote this week on the Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA). Advocates, who have been pushing for the MJIA since 2013, say the reform would make the process of prosecuting sex crimes a lot easier and smoother for victims and help victims feel more empowered to come forward and report the crimes against them. On or about October 28, I spoke with yet another Black Woman Veteran that was not only the victim of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) while serving her country, but the victim of systemic retaliation after reporting her rape. She was involuntarily separated from the military and forced to repay all enlistment bonuses. Homeless female veterans: Out of sight, out of mind Angela M. Rogers, November 18, 2019 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Female veterans are the fastest growing demographic among the homeless population in the United States and face a double hurdle of distance and invisibility in getting the health services they need from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to research conducted by Penn State graduate student and U.S. Air Force veteran Elizabeth Elsea. Physician implicit, explicit, and diagnostic bias in the Military and Veterans Healthcare Systems ensures limited treatment options and compensatory benefits for Black and Brown Wounded/Ill/Injured Uniformed Service Members relative to non-White Service Members, women relative to men,; and Reserve and National Guard Members relative to Active Duty (AD) Members . Black Veterans' Lives Matter! Women Veterans' Lives Matter SUPPORT ALL of THE TROOPS!

At DoSomething.org, the largest tech nonprofit for young people and social change, 24 current staffers walked out of work on September 8, pledging not to return to work until CEO, Aria Finger, resigns. In addition to halting work, staff members shared two letters outlining the failures of Finger’s leadership. Finger returned to DoSomething, after a leave of absence, despite stories of negligence, racial abuse, and discrimination perpetuated by her and her leadership. You can read the stories of trauma that staffers have shared and more updates on the walkout on Twitter or Instagram @DoSomethingEQ Aria and the Board of Directors have not recognized this group of staffers and the walkout. The staffers participating in the walkout comprise 100% of the fundraising and marketing teams and all but 1 member of the campaigns team -- the entire external facing staff that serves DoSomething’s mission. Staffers didn’t walk out on the mission, staffers walked out for the mission. Young people deserve a DoSomething that treats its employees with the same values and beliefs that they preach.

James Edward Tucker Must Go!!! Since the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, institutions, organizations and companies are joining forces to recognize that black lives do matter. Some are coming to the forefront, admitting the lack of insight and reception to the pain and suffering of the Black community pertaining to racism. Others are taking action to combat discrimination so that equality is ensured. Known for its racist practices, actions, and attitude, Maryland School for the Deaf located in Frederick and Columbia, had a VLOG posted by its superintendent, James E. Tucker, claiming that black lives mattered. The Black Deaf and hard of hearing community, consisting of former and current students, their parents and alumni, found his words unbelievable. In addition to being the culprit of their trauma, Tucker is the reason racism was and still is heavily embedded into the school. Black and brown Deaf students were stripped of their freedom to learn and grow in an academic environment committed to safeguard the students from harm. Majority of their counterparts- the white Deaf kids- did not face hardships or dealt with unimaginable pain they did. Black and brown employees were forced to work in fear. Many racist incidents involving Black and brown Deaf students and employees have been reported and deliberately ignored by the white employees and the school’s Board of Trustees who were tasked to protect the students. This has been going on for more than twenty years, TWENTY-EIGHT to be exact. After TWENTY-EIGHT years of humiliation and pain, the Black Deaf/HoH community DEMANDS that this stops now. This must stop with accountability and acknowledgement. Tucker MUST be held accountable for his actions he REFUSES to acknowledge, and the Board CONTINUES to allow him to get away with. Recently, Tucker made a VLOG announcing his retirement, detailing what he would be doing without issuing an apology that has been owed to the community all these years. His retirement cannot happen because it will give him permission to get away with facing discipline for the pain and suffering he forced upon the Black and brown students and employees- current and former. In addition, he will leave the school comfortably with a pension, earning money for his contribution to racism. If James Edward Tucker was a black man, he would have been investigated and terminated immediately if there were MOUNTS of letters and reports against him. He had TWENTY-EIGHT years of opportunity to change. He refused, using his white privilege to terrorize the Black and brown students and employees. The academic journey of the black and brown students must be protected, as they are future leaders of change. TERMINATE HIM NOW!

The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice is a call for us to transform our personal, institutional, and global thinking. We believe that culture moves before policy. We believe that culture endures beyond politics. We wrote this Call because our work in culture and arts is inextricably linked to larger social movements for change. We invite you to adopt and adapt this Call to your specific contexts to hold leaders, policy-makers, and institutions — and ourselves — responsible, accountable, and transparent in achieving equity and justice. In these unprecedented times, as justice movements converge, many of us have asked ourselves what the stakes are for the culture we want to advance. We concluded that we needed to change the conditions under which we artists and culture bearers labor and live. The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice points us toward new understandings of how we together can build a culture that is inclusive, sustainable, and leads us toward justice and freedom for all. We urge timetables that are immediate and demonstrate change that is not aspirational, but concrete, measurable and visible within 1-3 budget cycles. We offer this Call in the spirit of advancing accountability and collective responsibility, and urge you to activate these ideas within your work and our shared future. // El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial es una convocatoria para que transformemos nuestro modo de pensar personal, institucional y global. Creemos que la cultura cambia antes que la política. Creemos que la cultura perdura más allá de la política. Escribimos este llamado porque nuestro trabajo dentro de la cultura y las artes está inextricablemente entrelazado con los movimientos sociales para el cambio. Les invitamos a adoptar y adaptar este Llamado para sus contextos particulares para responsabilizar a líderes, creadores de políticas e instituciones, al igual que nosotres mismes, por lograr la equidad y la justicia de forma responsable y transparente. En estos tiempos sin precedentes, conforme convergen los movimientos por la justicia, muches de nosotres nos hemos preguntado qué está en juego para la cultura que queremos avanzar. Hemos concluido que tenemos que cambiar las condiciones bajo las cuales nosotres les artistas y portadores de cultura trabajamos y vivimos. El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial nos dirige hacia nuevos entendimientos sobre cómo, juntos, podemos crear una cultura que es inclusiva, sustentable y que nos lleva hacía la justicia y la liberación para todes. Exigimos cronogramas que son inmediatos y que demuestran un cambio que no es aspiracional y que, más bien, es concreto, medible y visible dentro de 1 a 3 ciclos presupuestarios. Ofrecemos este Llamado en aras de avanzar la transparencia y la responsabilidad colectiva y urgimos que activen estas ideas dentro de su trabajo y dentro de nuestro futuro compartido.

As the United States faces a reckoning over its enduring racial caste system, a critical new front for civil rights was opened against the original system of caste that has its origins in South Asia. In June, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing launched a lawsuit against the tech company Cisco for caste-based discrimination toward an Indian American engineer, John Doe, who claims he was harassed by two co-workers and faced retaliation after complaining to the company. This is not the first instance of caste discrimination in the U.S. and unfortunately won’t be the last. Equality Labs continues to receive first-hand responses from employees in tech, suggesting that the culture of discrimination against Dalits is prevalent and goes beyond the office to the caste networks in the institutions and communities where companies recruit. “One engineer reported to Equality Labs that her department supervisor discovered she was part of the Valmiki Dalit caste whose members, called “manual scavengers,” were often forced to clean up excrement. Her supervisor shared this with her team and they started ridiculing her, going so far as to asking her to clean up after team meetings. She left that workplace after she was sexually harassed by one of her supervisors, which she also believes was targeted towards her in connection to the pervasiveness of the culture of caste-based sexual violence against Dalit women in India.” (Washington Post, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, July 2020) “‘Higher’ caste Indians use the knowledge of a person’s caste to place him or her on the social hierarchy despite professional qualifications. I usually ignored these conversations,” another Dalit worker added. “If they knew I was Dalit, it could ruin my career.” (NYTimes, Yashica Dutt, July 2020) Why is this important? Like race and gender protections, caste protections would provide accountability for instances of caste discrimination, which are not limited to Silicon Valley. Our 2018 Caste in the US report shows that a staggering 67 percent of Dalits in the Indian diaspora admitted to facing caste-based harassment at the workplace.

Anti-Blackness and white supremacy undergird the very foundation of the United States. The vestiges of settler colonialism, chattel enslavement, Jim Crow segregation, mass incarceration, and racial apartheid continue to influence the cultural, educational, legal, political, and social institutions of our society. There is a long documented pattern of anti-Blackness at Cal State LA that has created an unwelcoming environment for Black students, faculty, staff, and community members. Many Black people and others at this campus continue to lose confidence in the University leadership’s professed commitment to social justice, equity, and inclusion. The current national tragedies of institutional anti-Blackness, are not isolated from this institution. This University must not only reflect on its success, but also its failures. Touting the success of launching the second College of Ethnic Studies while Black faculty, staff, and students are denied equal treatment and the benefit of a welcoming campus is a travesty. We cannot allow the selling of a false narrative. Instead of the boldness shown by many campuses who are owning up to the systemic biases at their institutions, we have experienced disregard, delay tactics, empty platitudes, and rhetoric. During this #BlackLivesMatter movement-moment of national uprisings against racial injustice and state-sanctioned violence, we call upon Cal State LA to take immediate, concrete steps to eradicate all manifestations of anti-Blackness on campus. Administrators must end the practices that have allowed institutionalized racism to function—overtly and covertly—in the day-to-day operations of the University. For example, over the past decade, there has been a precipitous decline in the percentage of Black students attending Cal State LA, with no coherent plan of action by administrators to address the problem. Currently, the Black student population on campus has dropped to roughly 3%, which is three times smaller than the percentage of Black students in LAUSD. Upper administrators have also forestalled the potential appointment of Dr. Melina Abdullah as the inaugural dean of the College of Ethnic Studies despite her long history of fighting for the expansion of Ethnic Studies in K-12 and higher education. She was told in no uncertain terms that they would not appoint her due to her unapologetic opposition to all expressions of anti-Blackness on campus and in the community. We believe Dr. Abdullah is the only person capable of leaning into the role of Dean on day one to help stabilize the fledging, new College of Ethnic Studies. Melina has the humility, integrity, and visionary insight necessary to navigate the CoES during the global COVID-19 pandemic, budgetary crisis, and nationwide uprising against police violence. The College urgently requires a leader who will be responsive to the needs of students, faculty, staff, and the community, and who will contest the entrenched manifestations of academic neoliberalism and anti-Blackness so prevalent at Cal State LA. Therefore, in solidarity with the Black Student Union, Black Faculty and Staff Caucus, Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, California Faculty Association, the Department of Pan-African Studies, the Latin American Studies Association, LatinxFaculty4BLM, and El Movimiento de Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan, the students, faculty, staff, and community of Cal State LA recognize the urgency of this movement-moment and call on President William Covino and campus administration to make Black Lives Matter and build a Freedom Campus by meeting the following demands: Appoint Dr. Melina Abdullah as the inaugural dean of the College based on the collective demand of students, faculty, staff, and community. For the entire list of Freedom Campus demands, please visit the following link: https://forms.gle/UQWd4EZyLCpdA4rWA

PLEASE HELP THE BIPOC COMMUNITY BY SUPPORTING THEIR LIST OF COMMUNITY DEMANDS & PETITION TO HSDC & ITS BOARD TO ADDRESS SYSTEMIC RACISM THAT HAS EXISTED FOR YEARS WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION. THE BIPOC DEAF COMMUNITY NEEDS MORE EQUITY & A SAFE SPACE FOR THEM HERE IN SEATTLE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akp4PPlQGFc&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0wR2BD4ohF4BqqM30dERdb1L2sMSiHZEhTCuQdzHUHBrQYH0nYPl2rF-Q #EndSystemicRacism #Equity4DeafBIPOC

Sodexo is a billion-dollar company operating internationally, despite being infamous for taking advantage of marginalized and isolated populations in countries around the world. Sodexo hires impoverished people and offers no benefits, wages as low as 33 cents, harmful work conditions, among many other human rights violations. Most shockingly, Sodexo profits off private prisons and immigration detention centers. Large corporations in America often profit from prisons by using prisoners for FREE LABOR. This means, our form of punishment is making criminals drive our capitalistic society. “For every person who is in prison, companies get money,” said Dr. Marilou Marcillo, business ethics professor, “If a prison’s profit derives from the number of people who are incarcerated, they’re going to look for ways to incarcerate more people, not rehabilitate them.” The Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) sums up the narrative that companies view mass incarceration as opportunity. The PIC means people with racial, social, and economic privileges will remain at the top while lower classes will remain in endless cycles of poverty and incarceration. Students at Scripps College thoroughly researched Sodexo and held their college accountable, resulting in Scripps terminating its contract. The following is a website created by the students detailing the issue and their initiative: https://dropsodexo.wordpress.com/ge/ Using local vendors can provide higher quality food that can actually save the college money, as outlined in this study detailing the steps Pomona College took to shift from Sodexo to “self-operated dining services”: https://tsl.news/news1733/ Sodexo Justice Services, a subsidiary of Sodexo, controls the total operation of five prisons in England and Scotland. (source: https://uk.sodexo.com/home/your-industry/justice/services-in-prisons.html) This source details the repeated cases of abuse, neglect, and torture in prisons operated by Sodexo: https://investigate.afsc.org/company/sodexo The investigation also reveals that as of 2017 Sodexo’s website revealed that it had operations in 22 prisons across eight countries. These operations often included “community corrections”, a vague title for operations that should have been conducted by the prison, instead of an outside company. These issues are not solely prevalent abroad, as Sodexo workers in the US typically live below the poverty line. For instance, after working in the cafeteria at Tulane University in New Orleans for forty years, one Sodexo worker still makes less than $10.00 per hour. ‘I’m a proud woman, so I’m going to do my job no matter what they tell me to do,’ she says, ‘but this isn’t fair.’” More examples of Sodexo's corrupt prisons: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3910000/Living-bars-Inmates-binge-alcohol-drugs-cell-party-shocking-video.html#ixzz4XkGV2866 http://www.thepauwwow.org/news/inside-sodexo-s-relationship-with-the-private-prison-system/article_9517c1b4-fb55-11e9-b226-1797ad91a09a.html Examples of its human rights violations: • Awful and unsafe factory conditions • Failure to accommodate worker's medical conditions • Separate and unequal treatment • Severely underpaid workers ($0.33/hour) • Not paying workers for all hours worked • Inaccurately labeling workers as seasonal to avoid providing benefits • Prohibits worker’s Right to Association (ability to form unions) Around the world, Sodexo’s workers argue that its employment practices violate their human rights. Sodexo routinely hires poor and undereducated workers who are often geographically isolated, pays them low wages, and at times, reportedly fails to pay in full for hours worked including overtime pay. Sodexo employees reported being denied breaks during the day as well as being docked pay for meals they cannot eat due to an immense workload. The business model Sodexo employs keeps workers poor and locks their communities into seemingly endless cycles of poverty. This study details all the issues outlined above through employee interviews conducted nationally: http://news.emory.edu/special/workforce_and_labor/documents/transafrica_report.pdf Feel free to ask me any questions or contact me if you want to get more involved: [email protected]