HomeMy WebLinkAbouteverything_
Christian, Kevin
From:Logan Babcock <logan.babcock2@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, June 2, 2020 12:40 PM
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:everything.
Dear Mayor Heidi Harmon and City Council,
My name is Logan Babcock, I am a Cal Poly Alumni and a SLO City resident.
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.
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 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, the overfunding of police
and instead invest in our community.
Black lives matter.
1