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violent slave rebellions where they revolted against their masters led to many successes. <br />Haiti became the first black -led republic and first independent Caribbean state as a result of <br />slave rebellion that fought off French colonial forces. <br />Our own San Mateo County Pride Center has a blog post commemorating the history of <br />PRIDE, and how it started out as a RIOT. The reason we rose our flag in the town square is <br />for trans black and brown sex workers like Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera who were <br />leaders in the demonstrations for LGBTQI+ community during the riots between the <br />LGBTQI+ and police at Stonewall Inn. ( https://sanmateopride.org/reflecting-upon-our- <br />queer-stork ). <br />So by taking the Obama Foundation's Mayor's Pledge the council is standing in favor of <br />police, the violent guard dogs for the beneficiaries of a racist, imperialist, capitalist system -- <br />just like Obama and every president before him that stood aside and let police terrorize <br />communities. Knowing full well that reform wasn't going to end the prison industrial complex <br />that allows corporations to profit off of crime and prison labor. Knowing full well that inmates <br />are being paid at most just cents a day. Knowing full well that inmates tend to our wildfires, <br />that they assemble items for Target, Walmart, and Victoria's Secret, and even farm animals <br />like fish for food. Criminal justice reform has happened all throughout Obama's presidency. <br />And yet policing, and incarceration continued to rise in jails, prisons, and ICE detention <br />centers. <br />The council believes they can suppress our anger with reforming police when police in fact <br />function solely to maintain an authoritarian form of order through force. The council's <br />incentive to have police is not for community safety, then, but for the profit and convenience <br />it delivers to corporations. <br />But we cannot wait for our council to get comfortable with recognizing the humanity of the <br />most vulnerable before those negatively impacted can see the economic redistribution of <br />land, wealth and resources back to black and brown people; to those impoverished; to <br />women, to trans and gender non -conforming people, to survivors, to addicts, to <br />undocumented people, to those formerly incarcerated, and anyone else in our community <br />who has been violated and had their livelihood and well-being taken from them by white - <br />supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. <br />Regards, <br />Lissette <br />