Bridge City on Systemic Racism

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Minute on the deaths of George Floyd and the thousands of other persons of color who have been murdered at the hands of police:

We stand with our brothers and sisters in protest of the police murder of George Floyd. Although we stand with police officers who exercise, with integrity, their duty to serve and protect all members of our society, we are outraged and saddened by George Floyd’s death which reflects the systemic racism that persists in our society.

As Quakers we worship at the junction of spirituality and activism. From our long history striving for peace and justice, we are led to call for changes of law, policy, and regulations at all levels of local, regional, statewide and national governments.

We call on mayors and city councils, Oregon Metro, Oregon State Legislature, and U.S. Congress to pass meaningful police reform legislation to address the broken American policing system and to establish uniform nation-wide standards on the use of force by police in the performance of their duties. We call on all citizens to contact their elected officials.

We call for these changes immediately:

• Establish and implement local, state, and national “necessary-use-of-force” standards preventing police officers from using lethal force unless all non-lethal methods have been exhausted.
• Implement immediate and annual training in implicit bias recognition and de-escalation techniques.
• Make it illegal for police to use any hold or grip that blocks the throat or windpipe.
• Stop military hardware from flowing into civilian law enforcement agencies by ending the 1033 program.
• End racial and religious profiling.

In The Light of Peace, Justice and Love, Bridge City Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends Portland, Oregon June 21, 2020

from Nancy McLauchlan, Bridge City Friends Meeting (6/27/2020)