HomeMy WebLinkAboutRegarding the BLM and the Future of San Luis Obispo
Christian, Kevin
From:Josie Buchanan <josiemunrobuchanan@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, June 2, 2020 1:54 PM
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Regarding the BLM and the Future of San Luis Obispo
Dear Mayor Heidi Harmon and City Council,
My name is Josie Buchanan, I am a Master’s student at Cal Poly in city and regional planning, and I grew up in
Arroyo Grande.
SLO calls itself “The Happiest Place on Earth”, I am writing you today to say we cannot be the happiest place
on earth when peaceful demonstrators are met with weapons that are considered a war crime.
Do you know that by the time I graduated high school I personally knew 6 peers who had overdosed on
narcotic drugs, I lived here when a cross was burned in the yard of a black family, when a noose and
Confederate flag was hung on Cal Poly’s campus, I’m here every weekend when white people drive trucks with
racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs and images drive to our dunes - polluting our air and harming our wildlife.
San Luis Obispo is pandering to the comfort of their wealthy, white, landowning residents instead of investing
in youth, diversity, and the future.
The city of SLO decided to pass 3 high end hotels downtown instead of housing - prioritizing TOT tax and high
end tourists over people who work here. The city decided to reallow ‘cruise night’, a ‘community gathering’ that
celebrates the privilege of an almost entirely white, wealthy group to gather in a global pandemic and spread
not just a deadly virus, but emissions in a community with the most aggressive climate goal in America.
I attended Sunday’s demonstration for Black Lives Matter in Mitchell Park, I saw a crowd of hundreds turn and
stare at a single white, male heckler - forcing that man for a moment to confront his privilege in these eyes of
hundreds of people standing up for justice. I got to be proud yesterday when police officers knelt alongside
protestors, in solidarity against the murder of George Floyd by their brother in arms. I had conversations with
fellow allies that brought tears to my eyes about how far San Luis Obispo had come; that we believed this
community was really listening.
Last night I was forced to confront that I had been wrong, that San Luis Obispo is continuing to cover its eyes
and destroy young bodies and bodies of color to preserve their notion of what a nice normal town should be.
Our community was confronted with the fact that all of America is currently confronting, that power and
militarized weapons in the hands of the police is dangerous. That when you give someone violent tools they
will not use them to keep the peace. Police officers last night in SLO, and officers across the nation last week,
last night, and for decades have broken their side of the bargain to black people in America - to serve and
protect. People cannot truly be surprised when citizens do not uphold their side of the social contract. San Luis
Obispo cannot continue to pretend they are exempt from the systemic issues of the world: racism, systemic
violence, and power-hungry, violent police. Injustice and racism is as real here as anywhere else.
Please city council I urge you to do the right thing and stand up again police brutality, address and redistribute
the 25% of the city’s budget that goes to the police in our city, and instead invest in our community.
I urge you to call off the demonstration of militarized police force tonight and instead to consider and adopt
policies from Campaign Zero -
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https://www.joincampaignzero.org/
And from the Black Lives Matter Official platform
https://blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice/
In solidarity,
Josie
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