No. So we'll get started. I want to welcome everyone. My name is Marcy Sklow and I chair this task force, racial justice task force for the League of Women Voters. This, the folks that are all signed up and joining us tonight, it really is very moving and exciting for us in the task force. The interest in this event is really phenomenal and we're really happy about it. It also is somewhat timely given, you know, the racial killings that happened in Atlanta last week and just generally how there's so much, so much work to be done and it's very inspiring to see the interest in Amherst toward doing this racial justice work. The League of Women Voters is a non-partisan organization that helps and encourages the, to inform, let me say that again, encourages the informed and active participation of residents in government in and works to increase understanding of major public policy issues and influences public policy through education and advocacy. That's a pretty big sentence. Sorry, I flubbed it a little bit. But the League is doing really interesting work. We're always in a kind of interesting position of this non-partisanship but also advocacy and keeping track of things that are important to society. So we do encourage you all to look into our website and consider joining the League of Women Voters of Amherst so that I wanted to put in a plug for. This meeting is being recorded. It's also being streamed live on the Facebook page, Amherst League of Women Voters. And that's a first that's never happened before. And I want to welcome everyone who's joining us from Facebook. It's also being streamed at Amherst Media and they will be rebroadcasting the program in the days to come as well. So many thanks to Amherst Media for their work. So the second hour of this program will be devoted to your questions and comments. That is the dialogue aspect of the program. If you have questions even now or at any time, in the chat you will see four names. But please address your questions just to Sada Setti. She is the one who'll be receiving all the questions. And I think that's all I needed to say. I want to introduce our beloved moderator, Andrea Battle, who will take the program over for now. Thank you so much. You did so long. Thank you, Marcy. And she is a really good leader of this task force. This has been some exciting work that we're trying to get started. And that's what we're talking. We're starting. And I thank all of you who have agreed to participate. This is a very big first step. And I'd like to introduce the participants of the group. First, the reparations for Amherst like to introduce, you could just wave when I, Michelle Miller and Matthew Andrews. I know he's here. Then I would like to introduce in Cobra, we have, which is the national organization of reparations in America, and our own Kathleen Anderson. Hi, Kathleen. And the racial equity task force, Dr. D. Shabazz and Dr. Amilkar Shabazz are here representing them. And then the Poku people of Color United Club that's part of Amherst Regional High School, Monica Cage is president, right? Are you president? Yes. And Phoenix Ferreira Ford is vice president. He's here too. Okay. And I'd like to also introduce CEDEC, Jewish Community of Amherst Racial Justice Initiative. Two people are representing them. Amy Middlemann and Rabbi Benjamin Weiner. And last but certainly not least, our Interfaith Opportunities Network, ION, being represented by Anita Sorrow. I know she's here also. And also I'd like to thank Kathy Campbell for all the work you're doing, even up until this point. Thank you, Amherst Media, for coming in to help us by recording it so it will be part of an important part of Amherst Media's repertoire. And you have four names in the chat. Remember, Suda Seti, S-E-T-T-T-Y-S-U-D-H-A. Please, if they have a question or something you want to and you want to know who you want to address to or just in general, put it to her. Okay. The groups all have a purpose that they fulfill. I'm not going to ask you specifically to explain what your purpose is exactly because we want to give you a full five minutes to answer the question that we set to you to have answered. So I'm asking for the first group is the Reparations for Amherst, Michelle and Matthew, and or I don't know how you want to do this, but could you answer the question? It says, given the current time in our country and in our town and also knowing that we have your introductory statements and everyone is available to you, how would you like to talk about your work in bringing racial equity and justice to Amherst? So I'm asking the Reparations for Amherst to go first. Sure, and I'll get us started. So we would like to talk about reparations in terms of the movement. Last night was a big night for the reparations movement. Some of you may have already heard that Evanston became the first city ever to offer reparation money to their Black residents. So it was a really, really amazing culmination of over two years of work that brought them to that point. And I personally learned about that news in our own Town Council meeting last night, which was so neat. It so happened that after a few weeks of waiting to speak or actually have a request that we made, Reparations for Amherst made a request to Town Manager Backelman to give us $5,000 to help us to compensate Black folks in the community for work that we're doing research and education. And so it just so happened that that conversation was occurring right as the vote or right after the vote had happened in Evanston and Town Manager Backelman announced it at the meeting. So it was a really neat moment. And I think that it sort of helped center from my perspective watching the meeting. I wasn't participating, but I was watching the meeting and it sort of helped to center and focus the conversation. So I think that right now we're in a place where we have requested this $5,000 and it last night was I think favorably spoken about. And so we have no formal response yet on that, but it did more importantly prompt a larger awareness about making space for the Town Council to discuss reparations. And this is something we've really been waiting for to happen. So Lynn, our wonderful president of our Town Council asked us to come back and present at a future meeting so that they would have some context for discussing reparations as a council. And so what we'll be presenting in the future is a disparity report that we've been working on for a couple months with an excellent team of researchers. And we're almost completed with that. Although what we'd like to be able to do is to speak and take more oral interviews from past and present Black residents. And then we had a couple weeks ago, Alderman Robin Rue Simmons came and she led a discussion with Kathleen Anderson with about 21 Black stakeholders in the community. And they are working on a report as well. So we're hoping that we can get back into the Town Council and have an opportunity then to present our disparity data to make our case for reparations, as well as to really hear from the Black community and what they would like to see for reparations in Amherst. And really that is the Black community will really guide this process and lead this process and design what the repair will look like. So we're very eager to see how that report comes out. And of course there will be, and Kathleen will probably speak to this, but there will be more conversations that are going to occur within the Black community in the coming weeks. So I'm going to pass it to Matthew quickly just to talk about the National HR 40 bill to sort of round everything out. And you have one more minute for this answer. Thank you. Great, thanks. So as much as we're working on the local level and our main focus is on reparations in Amherst, we're also supportive of HR 40, which is the House resolution. It's basically a remedy bill to investigate and recommend solutions for reparations on the national level. There's also a Senate bill, S40, that's happening at the same time. So we work locally on reparations here and we also support the national movement, which I'm sure Kathleen will talk more about. Thank you so much. Next is in Cobra, which Kathleen and Anderson is our representative for this region. So take it away. Yeah, so the question had to do with our work here. And I just want to say that starting in 2000, I was part of the becoming a multicultural school system committee for the region, the school district region. Coming out of that, I was the co-founder along with Debra Hau, Laurie Benoit, who was the wife of the former town manager, Edith Allison and others. We organized the study circles dialogues on race and class. And so for four years, we worked with over 350 town residents from various segments of the town. And then out of that, for six years, a number of people, including Edith Allison, worked with a group of students in the high school. And then the study circles dialogues on race and class had the vision keepers. We're a group of organizers from the study circles working together to continue this work of racial justice in the town. Out of the vision keepers came the radar group, the race action discipline rights group, where we worked with a number of people, including the Pat Onanibako was one of the people who organized Norma Jean, Dr. Norma Jean Anderson Award for educators in this district who work for racial justice. I'm a former, the former president of the Amherst NAACP. And then I'm the founder of the community circles, the community summit, which organized the leadership of social justice leaders throughout the Connecticut River Valley. And one of the outcomes of that community summit was that each of the leadership groups would have a house party. And Marcy Slove has organized the house party for the League of Women Voters. And we're doing that right now. I am now the female co-chair for the New England region of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. And working through in COBRA, I'm working with a group of people out of the racial justice rising organization out of Greenfield and a couple of people out of Springfield working to address reparations in the state of Massachusetts. That would be the Bill HD 5140 that Senator Bill Owens introduced in the 1980s, I believe. So for a couple of decades, I've been working on racial justice issues in the town of Amherst. And now working towards reparations. The older woman from Evanston, whose town just passed their reparations, Bill, worked with our stakeholders in Amherst, the Black community members in the town of Amherst, just to begin the conversation about what does reparations look like in our town. And so we've just started having those conversations and we'll be continuing to have the conversations in the weeks ahead. Alderwoman Simmons has been focused on her organization and the bill in Evanston. So now that that bill has passed, I'm looking forward to initiating future conversations with her about reparations in Amherst and what that looks like for us. Kathleen, you have one more minute. Sorry. Yes. So people can go to incobra.org on the web to look at the areas that incobra espouses as important for addressing reparations. Interestingly, those five injury areas they're called in incobra are also similar to if not the same as the five game changer issues that the NAACP talks about. So go to incobra.org to get more information about incobra. We have a Facebook page for the New England region. It's New England incobra on Facebook. And so you can stay abreast of the various issues around reparations and justice that are posted there. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And you know, I think everybody has copies of the sheets that describe the different agencies so incobra and that addresses in there also. Next, the racial equity task force. You clear on the question because I know we've moved on, but the current situation, how would you like to talk about your work bringing racial equity injustice to Amherst? So Drs. Shabazz. Well, I'll say a little bit. I'm an historian, so I always oftentimes approach things historically, but I'm asked to cut to the chase. But as I said, for me, history is the chase. But as has been said, you know, when we arrived in 2007, we didn't see much racial equity injustice work going on at all. In a lot of it was very issue-focused. We did note the race and discipline action rights or radar. Ms. Patton Onabaku is one of the founding members, another active member with that, Michael Burkhardt. These were the two people who encouraged me to run for school for the school committee. Michael Burkhardt was my treasurer. Ms. Onabaku was the one put it in my head. But yet we did see a lot of problems were going on. In fall of 2007, there was a Halloween incident on the UMass campus where Afro-Latinx woman was humiliated. And, you know, everybody, no one knew what to do. We had in spring for Super Bowl, the evening of 2008, Jason Vacell attacked in his dorm and the tables get turned. All of a sudden, he finds himself facing District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel wanting 30 years, wanting him to go to prison for 30 years. Young man had never committed a crime, never had any brush with the law. The two people he was in the fight with, they're laughing on their way. They weren't mauled or harmed in any significant way by the fight. It was a fight. But nonetheless, she wanted 30 years of this young man's life. Well, things organized around Jason Vacell's case. We met Ed and Vera Cage. They were fighting for a young man, their nephew that was locked up for life, a life conviction for a crime he did not commit. And they got a second trial. And in the second trial, that conviction was overturned.  So we saw a lot of problems going on, but the organization, the organization on the ground we saw is really lacking. Good people around, you know, Ray Elliott, one of my mentors, my elders, you know, forming the citizens for racial amity now with just the basic idea that we need more amity to bring us together.  But unfortunately, he passed on and I didn't get to play that game with them. But his work continues, his legacy continues. So anyway, fast forward now in the wake of the killing of, no, not killing of Breonna Taylor and of George Floyd, we find a lot of concern with what's going on. So as calls came to us, you know, what's going on, what are we doing, what's happening, you know, we go into action. This is what we do. And, you know, talk to the Chief, talk to and pull the meeting together with him and Captain Ting, because people are concerned, could what happened in Minneapolis or in Kentucky, could it happen here? And, you know, wanting to talk about what's the accountability? What are the mechanisms in place? What's the training like? People had a lot of questions on their mind and they got together with us and we had in this virtual format an extensive discussion with him. And these and interestingly, he says in that meeting that he welcomed some type of citizen civilian oversight review body or whatever. And yet here we are months later, still moving along, still go slow with our council manager form of government to endlessly deliberate before we ever get to some get to some action. But again, that's where we have to take charge as people. That's where we have to organize and continue to apply pressure, because the people in power never do it without it. They'll never do it. But they'll have a million other things on their minds before they concern themselves with racial equity and injustice. You can believe that. Dr. Chavaz on this particular question have about 30 seconds more. Sorry. I yield the balance of my time. Oh, did you want to jump in there? Just, you know, in terms of racial equity during the time of COVID, but the horrible summer of 2020, we felt compelled as a community to come together and really look at what could change, what could move forward, how can we challenge those in power in this community. And that's why we formed the Racial Equity Task Force of Amherst. Great. Thank you. So much. The next group that I'd like to ask to speak on this is the people of color United, Poku of the high school. Do you need the question again? Are you good? No, we're all good. Oh, good. I knew. Young people always. Good fight. Hi. So my name is Phoenix Rareford, Vice President of Poku for those of us who's joining now. So we just wanted to talk about like things that work that we have done in this town has been just community events that all of us have cooperated in, such as the speeches that the Amherst faculty and staff and teachers put on during the summer after the murder of George Floyd, myself and Monica and three other Poku members all spoke. And you know that our words as youth if power and energize other folks so that this work that we are trying to do racial equity can be solved in our lifetimes. Also another thing that we've been doing is this group that we created in the following year revolving around the election of 2021. And that was the defending democracy group. And our main main goals for this group was to have a discussion with the students of color and students of our school revolving around how they're feeling about this election because there's a lot of tension going on in our country in our school as many people know. Another thing that we've done is the march coming up on Saturday, standing in solidarity where our Asian American fellow students at Amherst High. India. Yes, so we've been involved with those, you know, rallies and protests over the summer. A group that was an extension of Poku. We had a few Poku members. It was called Youth for BLM Black Lives Matter, right? And so we held a march starting at the high school ending at Switzer Park right in front of the police station. Yeah, we had a few students speaking there. Another thing that Poku has done when there was the graffiti that was left outside of the high school a few months ago. There was a racial slur and an image that was like, you know, scrolled into the sidewalk outside of the high school. Our, like what we've learned as, you know, very engaged students is to not rely on the people of power to, you know, create the change that we want to see, like we have to do that for ourselves, right? So we reached out to Mr. Siddiqui who is one of his assistant principals at the high school and we had a meeting with him to see how, how do we move forward? How are we going to be there for our students of color? Because there's no way that we can leave this alone. And so Poku around this time, we had just started our Instagram account so we can not only reach students of color within the high school, but we asked, like, how can we connect with people in the town? How can we, you know, engage everyone? So we're not just a club at the high school. And we gained a lot of, you know, traction. A lot of people saw our posts, like asking, how, how do we feel about, you know, how racial slurs are still being thrown around in Amherst? In Amherst high school, that's supposed to be so loving and supportive to our students. So that's, that's one way that Poku has been very involved. Thank you very much. Is that it? Okay. Thank you very much both of you. The next group I'm going to ask is CEDEC, the Jewish Community of Amherst Racial Justice Initiative, and representing them are Rabbi, Rabbi Benjamin Weiner and Amy Middleman. So take it away. Great. Thanks, everybody. I'm Rabbi Benjamin Weiner of the Jewish Community of Amherst. CEDEC, which is a Hebrew word that means justice, is a project of the JCA, which came into being last late spring summer in response to the murder of George Floyd. I'm here purely as a figurehead. It was largely lay organized and a number of amazing congregants at the JCA who felt that this was an important moment to join the struggle and who wanted to do it not just as individuals, but to do it within the context of Jewish community and have been leading that effort for us ever since. In terms of our work, to do work like this in the context of what's essentially a religious and ethnic minority community like ours is a bit complex because it involves a high degree of internal conversation, in addition as a way of building consensus around external action. So Amy will speak to some of the external action, but the internal conversation that we've been engaging in, study consciousness raising and conversation with ourselves, largely relates to how do we experience the issues and the potential for activism around this as Jews specifically. So there's been a great deal of internal conversation with that on two levels. Firstly, drawing upon our own legacy of oppression and persecution and the way that that shaped our culture to find both a religious basis for our action and also lessons from our own history that might be applicable. The other part about it is how do we as Jews, those of us who have white skin wrestle with the notion of white privilege. As Jews only about a generation moved from a genocide, it's sometimes difficult to think about ourselves as being people of power as well. So part of that has been how do we come to terms with the reality of our own participation of white privilege and then build with the overall goal being building strong and that this is important work that we should be engaging in as a Jewish community into the world. I'll turn it over to Amy to finish the answer. Yeah, I think I was one of the organizers, but I'm not the only one. And we wanted, as the rabbi was saying, to do this social justice racial equity work within the context of us being Jewish and within our institution, which we all care a lot about. And, you know, our goal is one to make the JCA a more actively racist, actively anti-racist, sorry, anti-racist institution. And then in the work we've been doing, if we have learned things about what it means to be both an ethnic minority, but also have white privilege and bring that to the larger community. So that is the work we've been focused on. And as if you read our statement, we have subgroups that have been working on particular issues. One is reparations. Another is criminal justice. And in general, we've just been trying to study the intersection of racism, anti-racism, and Judaism in America. Thank you so much. And last but certainly not least, the Interfaith Opportunities Network. I like the word for that. Oh, you put with the question already. Anita? Okay. So I think Ion is unique among the groups here tonight. It is a network. It's a group comprised of groups that started out as a way to build an understanding among Muslim Jewish and Christian faiths within Amherst. But now it's 20 communities are more diversified and they reach even beyond Amherst. And although we frame our belief systems differently sometimes, we share concerns for peace and justice, a sense of purpose, a caring for others, and doing good. So we've taken on some significant programs and projects that I wrote about in our statement. But Ion is evolving, as all groups do. So it's not just about how we relate to each other in different faiths and where we can cooperate, but how our faiths inform the way we view and react and act in response to what we see around us. So as for many, George Floyd's murder was a galvanizing moment, a long overdue wake up call to dig into this work in a very meaningful way. And an immediate response Ion initiated, helped initiate the vigil that took place the following Sunday after George Floyd's death that attracted more than a thousand participants. And since then, two weekly vigils have continued ever since that day, one in Amherst on Tuesdays at five and another in South Hadley on Saturday morning. But working for racial justice takes more than vigils. So at our meetings, because Ion fosters dialogue, we started talking about where can we take this desire to work towards racial justice, to understand reparations, and what do we bring to this dialogue that is unique? How do we approach racial justice from our belief systems? Most of our member communities are predominantly white, and some have never really addressed racism as squarely and in depth as we are now. Some have already found ways to translate belief into action. First Church, for example, has had an interracial and interdenominational dialogues for years, and of course just completed three and a half years of being sanctuary for Lucia Perez. Others are doing intensive work and JC certainly has really been in the forefront of this. How well thought out, how deliberate their efforts have been is really an inspiring model. And Mount Toby also has developed opportunities for dialogue with South Hadley Center Church. Youth Group has done a lot of work in talking and understanding reparations, but we're all in different places. So what can Ion as a network do? It can be a method to share resources, encourage each other, deepen our understanding, and help develop a townwide and regionwide energy and understanding of this important work. And that has in part led to one effort, which is to have a Zoom conference on April 25th on reparations and racial equity from a faith framework. It's working title right now is inter-gathering for racial justice, but we're hoping for something a little bit severe. It's going to be how do we look at our history? What is the role that religion had and has in perpetuating racism? What are examples within the faith communities of how to approach this in understanding and actions? And really inspiring us all to take on the work of equity and reparations and repair more fully. And it's also going to be an opportunity to listen to people of African descent who will talk about their point of view through their lens of faith. It's open to all whether in a faith community or not. We all have beliefs and values. Often I hear someone say, well, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. So that's fine. So give that spirituality shape. Give it a definition. How does it inform an understanding of race and inequality? And how does it help us react to injustices that we see and propel us to action? And especially for us white folks, how do we help each other approach this with humility, with a willingness to listen, and with a willingness to be led? One last thing that I do want to emphasize is that we're a network of groups. And because of that, we have the potential to reach a lot of people. So one value that we can bring to this table is the ability to magnify and amplify a message. We look for opportunities throughout our communities and beyond to spread the word, to share resources and to really keep the energy up. So when your groups are doing something, when they want something, when they need something, please keep us in mind because we do have a wide net that even goes beyond the inverse. Great. That's it. Thank you. That was good. You got it in. Thank you all of you for the first question. Now we're going to get to the second question. After this is done, we will be doing around the questions that people have asked either during this time or one of you may have sent it early. The second question to remind you all is what are the obstacles that you are finding in Amherst? What makes the work hard for you? Andrea, you're muted. Andrea, you're muted. Okay. Because of the extra screen, it's covering these, so I'm holding the space bar down. Would anybody like to answer it by volunteer or do I just pick somebody? I can start. Okay. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thanks again to the League of Women Voters of Amherst for holding this event. When we talk about barriers to what we're trying to do in terms of racial equity, we have to look at specifically at Amherst as having structural barriers to not only racial equity in general, but in how we organize. So when I say that, we're talking about from the town government to our school district to how this community is planned, real estate, everything. Because honestly, people of color do not have spaces or places where we can organize safely. That is of course complicated even more so due to COVID, where we're all organizing online. That's what brought our group racial equity task force to hold people's assemblies. We didn't want to necessarily replicate and duplicate many of what we see as the higher article structures that are present within Amherst and that do not allow inclusivity. It doesn't even embrace it in a sense because of the bureaucracies and the layers of bureaucracies for people to engage and fully participate and then act in some ways not only living here as as a resident, but their citizenship. And so we created what's called the People's Assemblies. We borrowed it from other activists, particularly those in Jackson, Mississippi, that we saw as a successful model to bring people together to voice concerns and to begin to organize. And I think it did have a positive effect. We hope to continue these types of forums in order to make that happen. It brought folks together across a diversity of racial, ethnic groups. But honestly it's the structure here in Amherst that makes it really problematic in terms of organizing. When we look at not only the town government and how it's set up, it was great being able to organize online and listen in online. But it's very much class based. We're talking about working people, the working poor because the poor are working all the time. They are asleep at the time when the town council meets. Folks who where English is not their first language, they're locked out of the whole conversation because there is no translation. People who maybe need ASL in order to participate. These are things that I feel a community like Amherst could pay for, could value by bringing other folks in. And we still have not had that within the town council. Other areas where structural, we are structurally disenfranchised have to do with businesses. Businesses owned by people of color aren't really supported here in the way they should. This has been complicated by COVID. I know for sure that folks that applied for funding through the state, they received that they were a business owned by a person of color. They received less than many of the white businesses. So this is anecdotal evidence, but these are structural problems, structural challenges that are present in this town for people of color. Need we go on about some of the school district problems? The budget cuts, for instance, that are occurring right now. They are cutting a bilingual therapist, a counselor in the schools. We're talking about that's the largest growing group in the school district in terms of folks where English is a second language. So there are many problems. And those are, like I said, it has to do with the structures that are present. Thank you. Perfect timing. Okay. All right. Would anybody else like to volunteer to go next? Do I call somebody? I will. Michelle, are you looking or just? Sure. I'm happy. I'm happy. Okay. Yeah. Well, there are a lot of challenges doing this work. And when I was thinking about the question, you know, one of the things that really stands out is we're in a predominantly white community. And we're also in a community of academics, which is wonderful. And we're a strong community because of that, I think. But it also means that many of us are operating from a cognitive place most of the time, and or much of the time. And that unfortunately upholds white supremacy. So all of the sort of behaviors that come along with that, you know, are present. And so the challenge I think for Matthew and I has been to really understand what, when we're organizing and activating, how can we do something counter to that so we can, you know, feel, actually feel something. Because without that capacity to really feel and pause and be in the silence and make space, we're sort of operating in these conditioned ways that perpetuate harm. And so that's been our sort of work is really to focus on that and really listen and make connections with people, including and most importantly, as we're doing this reparations work, black members of the community. And so we've spent, you know, the past couple months doing our best to reach out and connect and really have that human that human relationship. And just one last thing before I'll turn it over to Matthew is just to say that, you know, our approach has been to not turn our backs on anyone. And when we're doing this work, it can be incredibly activating and triggering. And we get impatient and frustrated. And, you know, we just try to keep leaning into it as best we can, and not counting or discounting anyone in the conversation. So that's my piece. And I think Matthew's still here, although I don't see him anymore. Okay, you've got a couple of more minutes. Okay, great. I'll just add to what Michelle said that Amherst and also to what Dee was talking about. Amherst is a white enclave. And it didn't just happen by mistake that it became a white enclave. There's a process of neighborhood apartheid that has created Amherst. And it's not something that I think a lot of white people think about when they think about the history of the town and how it got to be this way. But Amherst, you know, even when we think about reparations, Amherst isn't just Amherst, the crime of opportunity theft that has taken place in this town, like the crime of displace or like kind of hoarding opportunity and keeping certain people out of those opportunities has not just happened to the current black residents of Amherst. It's happened to black residents who used to live here and don't live here anymore, and also people who would have loved to live in Amherst and partake of the opportunities, the great schools, the clean town, the safe neighborhoods that Amherst has to offer, but were prohibited from from living here, either by direct racial covenants and kind of redlining as it were in Amherst as it happened, but also just that sense of being unwelcome here. And so kind of grappling as a locally oriented reparations movement with what even is Amherst and who are the injured party to the crimes of opportunity theft that have happened in this town is a challenging slippery question, not, you know, added compounded by what Michelle talked about and how challenging it is just on an individual level to be present and open our hearts and bear the pain and past and present of so many of our neighbors and friends and, you know, fellow citizens of Amherst. Thank you, Matthew. Perfect timing. Poku. Can I get Poku to respond to what are the obstacles? Question? Okay. So the problem that we do that I've seen is performative activism amongst our school, right? So we have students who are only engaging in these protest rallies gatherings just because they don't want to lose their friends who will call them out on why they're saying silent about very prominent issues, right? So they'll show up to these events, they'll take pictures, they'll post it on their social media, they'll raise their fist and say Black Lives Matter, but they won't practice these same things like when they're in school or within their friend groups behind closed doors, right? Another thing that's an obstacle would be how students are engaged and how they are, you know, how they do care about these issues, but they're just sitting back and waiting for someone else to do the work for them. So like Poku is often called upon not only by students but by adults and teachers to say like, what are you guys going to do about this problem? Like, what's the plan? What's the action plan? But why do we have to be the ones to propose these things and to make things happen? Like, you know, we're not like, we are full of like change makers and things and people who are very strong and have very powerful voices, but we still need to engage our community. It shouldn't just be students of color, you know, solving these problems when it's an issue involving everyone. Next, what would you like to add? Yeah, adding on. We're also students in Amherst High, which is a hard school. Like for me, I'm part of three, four different clubs. I take all honors classes and I can't. There's only 24 hours in a day. So having more students and more people, more faculty doing the work would definitely break a lot of the barriers in terms of time restricting us to do everything that we want to do. And also another thing is just difference in like agendas. For instance, when we were doing the Defending Democracy group, we had the idea that we were going to be making noise, doing speeches, doing an actual march around the town common, but just like a silent walk. And I thought that like as youth, we love to be loud. We love to get our point across. And I know that that doesn't sit well with a lot of people. But when we do do that, I feel like it's more powerful and it really gets work done. Yeah. Thank you so much. Can I get? Oh, yes. Okay. Ion, interface. I just wanted to follow up on something that Monica said, because just recently I was listening to a short video of Brittany Patnett and she's an activist. And what she talked about was the difference between an ally and accomplice and a co-conspirator in racial work and how an ally is one who shows up when it's convenient. And an accomplice shows up when there is a risk and a co-conspirator is actually proactive and just really getting out there. And it really was exactly what Monica was talking about. And the conversation, there is clearly systemic racism in Amherst as there is everywhere. And when I think about systemic racism, I think of the institutionalized racism and the interpersonal, and that one leads to the other and one potentiates the other. And I think in reflecting on what Ion is trying to do and what our individual communities are trying to do, there's a lot of language that we have to learn. We've got to hear white supremacy without defensiveness, to willing to go into those spaces of discomfort. And it's a first baby step to be able to identify this unrecognized racism in all of us. And how do we learn that, especially in predominantly white congregations without asking BIPOC community who is inundated with this, with requests to talk to us, to teach us, to help us learn. But we have to recognize that when we're asking for that kind of learning, first we're asking an expert and it takes time and it takes energy and they should be compensated. But there also must be, and I will ask this of those of you in that community to see if I'm off the mark. But it does seem that when we're asking to hear those stories of trauma, we're asking the speaker to relive the trauma. And that must have an emotional cost as well. So I think this is very hard all in every way that we've talked about. And even especially in faith communities that are not monolithic, where conflict is to be avoided, where discomfort is to be avoided, everybody wants to make nice. But we have to get beyond that. And that really is the hardest part when you're talking on an interpersonal racism level and a personal racism level. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Is anybody, I don't know the protocol, are people allowed to speak on this? We would rather people do that and then we open it in a dialogue. If we could do that. Okay. All right. We want to hear from our tremendous audience here. Please put your question in the chat to Sada. I'd like to go next. Well, it's just because of what Anita was saying. And I think that the JCA is also taking baby steps. And what the rabbi was referring to is that we feel it's very important to try to build consensus in our communities so that we can, well, there won't be disgruntled congregants, but also so that we can be a cohesive united front. And of course, we are primarily Ashkenazi Jews who in America have acquired a big degree of whiteness. And so we've been trying to educate ourselves about both the diversity in our own broader Jewish community, the Jewish community in America is actually very diverse and is not just white Ashkenazi Jews. And then also trying to make connections to the larger Amherst community to work on trying to be co-conspirators. But it has to be, I think it has to be a process because not everyone, you know, not everyone in Amherst is on the same page. Not everyone in the JCA is on the same page. And certainly in our country, not everyone's on the same page. I mean, I'm also historian and 20 years ago, I think if you said to most white people, you have white privilege, they wouldn't have had a clue of what we're talking about. So we've all been, and certainly since George Floyd's murder, been trying to educate ourselves about these concepts. And they're complicated concepts with a lot of nuance.  You have to be mindful that a lot of people, I don't think it's that you have to avoid conflict at all. But a lot, you know, we're trying to do this work, both as social justice work, but also from a spiritual place and to connect the social justice work to our spiritual and religious identities. And so you have to be aware that people join religious institutions for so many different reasons. And you have to be sensitive to that. I don't know if the rabbi wanted it, had anything, but... Well, I would just reinforce what you said, Amy, that I don't think that being in religious community is necessarily about avoiding conflict. I think at its best, it's the opposite. It's about learning how to lead into conflict from a place of mutual love, I guess you could say. Yeah, respect, love. We can to leverage, as it were, this sense of commitment we have to each other as a community to try to take ourselves to some of the hard places. And I guess the frustration can be that it often, at this point, seems like it's an insular conversation. It can get a little navel gazing. And we wonder where is it actually meeting need and where are we actually encountering the needs of people of color and the work that we're reportedly doing on their behalf. But we hope that this is part of a trajectory that is going to have a real serious and deep impact on the people that are participating in it and open ourselves to all kinds of new awareness and new action. Thank you so much, Anne. And to wind it up, I'm sorry. Will you now finish? I'm sorry. I just wanted to mention that I think that point of not avoiding conflict, but kind of loving conflict where you're able to bring people in. Instead, you know, there's about Toby is doing a whole workshop on calling out versus calling in, calling in with love and working not to avoid conflict, but to do it in a healthy way, the way the rabbi and Amy are suggesting. Okay. And Kathleen, can you bring it home now? The second question, what are your obstacles? Yes. Yes. So one of the obstacles I see is the silo syndrome, which is what caused me to organize the community summit, the silo syndrome where there's this group here doing this work and this group there doing that work and that group over there doing that work and they're doing similar work, but they're not talking to each other. And so my hope was that by getting the leaders of these different groups together, we would have eventually what I started to call a house party where each organization would invite people to a meeting of their organization so that the organizations could broaden their reach and broaden their outlook and so start bringing groups together instead of having them separate. So everybody has made some very good points and I don't want to reiterate them. They're all very good and poignant and purposeful for our discussion here. What's hard and amorous, there are a number of things that are hard and amorous. This is an academic community, somebody mentioned that. And so there's a sense I think that there's a certain level of what was going to say expertise, a certain level of something I'm not sure exactly how to define it that comes with being in an academic environment. So I have a master's degree in education and recently somebody asked me well where did you get your master's degree? So there's this hierarchy of what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. So I guess I can't really add a lot more to what other people have said because everybody brought into this conversation the very obstacles that are very real and that have been here for decades if not generations. So the best question that I ask is so what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it? Here we have an opportunity in this particular house party that the League of Women Voters is sponsoring to come together and to look at each other to see who we are, to strategize on next steps we can take. So in terms of reparations there's the like I said the group that is working on reparations on the state level for Massachusetts and then there's the group that is working on reparations for the town of Amherst. Sometimes an obstacle is that people want stuff to happen quickly. If it doesn't happen in two months or six months or a year or three years then it doesn't happen and people lose interest and they go away. So to sustain the interest in these various issues over time is an obstacle that needs to be overcome. So those are just some last final things that I want to insert that we really need to stay focused. You know I think about the Montgomery bus boycott and there's this idea that oh well Rosa Parks sat on refused to give up her seat on the bus and that's what caused people to then all of a sudden decide to boycott the bus. But what often people don't really know is that that had been a plan for 10 years that had been being organized for 10 years before before it ignited when Rosa Parks was arrested and before her was a teenager who was also arrested and that didn't get people motivated but the secretary of the NAACP Rosa Parks sparked the initiative. So we have to understand that you know things don't happen overnight. We like them to. Reparations initiative has been in the Senate for a number of decades now. A recent chart shows that there have been reparations paid to various groups in the United States and not one zero has gone to the descendants of the enslaved population here in the United States. So we have to keep working we have to keep pushing we have to keep our focus and work together and so hopefully this will be another step of this organizing where people come together to have this conversation and that we come together to take a particular action that we see are as useful. Thanks Kathleen. Andrea you're muted. I'm muted Andrea please. Okay sorry all six of the groups thank you all for your your answers you know I did see them but to hear them vocalize really really makes a difference and now is now that we've gotten through the questions we asked now it's time to go to the next level. There are the dialogue portion of the program so we're going to ask is it I don't know whether it's going to be Meg or whoever's going to read the questions. If the person if the people or persons want to ask a specific group then let us know what it is otherwise we'll see who would like to answer it. So take it away our question people. So thanks Andrea I think it will be both me and Meg and different points who are asking questions that have come into the chat and that have come in otherwise. To say that I'm going to paraphrase a bit of this question and then also add in some other things that have been coming into the chat folks are very active which I appreciate. The question follows up very nicely on the last one you posed Andrea. Hello. Nate again I'm sorry can you close up a little. It's okay can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. The last one you posed Andrea and also on the comments that Kathleen had shared earlier. So the first question is asking people on the panel to let audience move the work of their organization. You're picking up a little bit. Okay Meg do you want to go ahead and ask this question the first one that we had ordered up? Sure I'm not quite I will do that right now. So why don't you ask it so that since you halfway did ask it. Okay let me come out. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Okay the question is asking for people on the panel to let folks know as specifically as possible how the work of their organization could be supported and how others could get involved in the work of their organization and the question writer asks I know many white people who are newly aware of how bad racism still is who have been studying the history of racism. They are looking for something in the real world now and they're looking for ways to help and I want to just as the panel is talking about it I'm also going to put in the chat for others to see various questions that have come in about how to support these groups. So for example for the Monica and Phoenix if you could share I can post that in the chat to let folks know how to follow you. You're asking Monica and Phoenix to say how people can follow them or also? No I'm asking everyone whoever would like to go first to talk specifically about how folks can help and one of the very specific questions that came in I was asking the folks at Poku if there's a if they can if people can attend their Saturday event to share some details about it and be if you would share the Instagram handle. All right um well maybe uh maybe you guys can put it into the chat you know and say you know the Poku Instagram handle you could put that there so you know and we'll announce it also. Who would like to who would like to take this first? What Kathleen? Yeah so um so what people can do to help um for the uh issue of reparations there are two people that I want you to find they both have uh YouTube talk you can do an internet search if you have Google use Google to search them the first person is Sean Rochester that's S-H-A-W-N Rochester like New York his talk is the black tax the cost of being black in America and he gives a good historical contact for reparations the next person I want to mention is Leah L-E-A-H Penamon people may recognize that name Penamon um she's related to a former Amherst Regional High School teacher Leah Penamon is a farmer and educator and she has an excellent talk titled Farming Wild Black and she also gives a good historical perspective on uh the history of of blacks in America particularly around the farming issue but those two African-American people are excellent voices to listen to in terms of reparations for the state and for the nation people can reach out to their representatives um our representative in this area is Joe Cummifer I know what Mindy Dom was on the call she could be helpful and then our state senators and representatives they both encouraged them to support the HR 40 bill which is the House of Representatives bill and the Senate bill S 40 and then talk with your friends neighbors and relatives about how they will actively support reparations and the Amherst town council what was that okay with someone in the Amherst town council and also I just want to when I was talking about um the organizations that have been working on racial justice and in Amherst I did fail to mention um Michael Burkhart and Russ Vernon Jones and I wanted to make sure that they're both mentioned because they have given a good amount of their energy towards a justice system in our particularly in our school system Andrea are we going on to the next question or more more responses you need to unmute you're muted because some help is anybody else or what what I'm not uh I just wanted to say that any some of our events are just for the jca but any of our events that are open to the public are open to the public and anyone is welcome to uh attend them we have a book and film group we most recently just Sunday showed I'm not your Negro which is a great film about James Baldwin and um you can really just probably go to the jca website and see the kinds of events we're having and then I'll also put my my name in the chat and anyone who's interested um in um joining any of our subgroups you um you can join a subgroup you cannot um because if you're not a member of the jca you wouldn't be able to be a chair of a subgroup but you're more than welcome to be a member of one of the subgroups which are the book and film group a vetting group which is essentially to um to look at organizations causes and actions that we can recommend to the jca community to get more involved in either through action or funds the action group which is looking at criminal justice and policing and the reparations group which is self-named thank you Monica also had her hand yes yes so ways that um people can support poku is by donating to our club right every year we have the opportunity of going on beautiful trips and um I remember I think it was my sophomore year we took a trip to Harlem and we um you know watched amateur night at the Apollo we broke off into little groups and like we were able to tour the city right but that wouldn't have happened if we weren't able to pay for the buses and things like that and it's poku goes on so many beautiful trips that are so they're very educational and you know a lot of kids don't have the means to like travel right so even though I won't be able to you know experience like or benefit from that like definitely the generations to come if poku was still around like that's these are amazing opportunities and the instagram handle is poku.co.cu under score 4013 and it should be in the chat now um Phoenix can explain more about the event on Saturday. All right well first I just want to say my internet connection might be low and stable no longer we can't hear you I can put it in the chat and then we can go on oh those monkeys are finishing there well all right let's go um so in terms of the march happening on Saturday um poku isn't running it but we're going to be working with another group that is running it we're just showing our solidarity with the Asian Americans in Amherst but it's going to be located in the Amherstown common and starting at one o'clock on Saturday for those of you that are wondering and please show up it'd be great support the hideous matters that happened over this past week and um speaking of events um uh ii and we'll be having that zoom-based event um on uh interface conversations about racial justice and that's April 25th and um the information will be on our website which is at interfaithamherst.org and I'll put that in the chat as well now add in one more event on April 27th I just want to interrupt a second sure thank you the events and things can go into the chat I really want to hear more substantive things first of all and I see Dee has her hand raised but I we have such limited time I really want and we've we've got some really good provocative questions that have come in too yeah let's let's not get bogged down in the weeds of the events we can we can also put all of these events and other things into the league website and the facebook pages etc thank you Dee so I just want to speak real quick about when people talk about what can we do something you can do on a daily basis besides just being into personally much more um you know embrace of kind of love your sister and brother how you would want to be loved it is looking around you when you are in a space and place and trying to figure out why aren't people of color there with me if you are on a board most of our nonprofits in this town are run by white people they are populated by white people ask where are the people of color and why aren't they here and then do something about it in our school district budget cuts are happening that are affecting the most vulnerable in our community ask why is that happening and put a stop to it use your budgets whether it's on the town council or in the school district to vote our values and really really make that clear so when people ask what can you do on a everyday basis look at the groups your places of worship your interactions in terms of businesses etc and figure out where the people of color and what can I do to bring them into these these spaces and places that are mainly white I want to include my friend and fellow activist Isolda I am Isolda's part of the racial equity task force and she wanted to say a little bit about this real quick I know that we have other questions so I'm I apologize for not being on camera I'm literally working on a giant contract renewal while I listen to you and I have limited bandwidth so I apologize for that thank you so much for organizing this and I just wanted to point out an example of what Dee is saying to this question when the town council put forward the goals for the town manager how is the town manager of Amherst to be evaluated for the next year initially racial equity and justice were not even mentioned in those goals in that evaluation document so the really concrete question is did Isolda Demetri and Shabazz need to be there for those goals to be mentioned and I should say there's other members of the task force here Anita, Sarah, Carly and many others have participated and supported Rosana Salazar, Jose Mugo and others but it was a fascinating moment because here we have a document that tells you what the top executive in town will be focused on evaluated on we wrote a response to that and said the way to do this is to interweave the goals of racial equity into every goal that was rejected and many of you know the story however the issue was brought more to the forefront and that's an example where white I like the co-collaborators conspirators whatever that phrase was need to actually be attending these meetings because for many of us this is very difficult if it's not a Sunday afternoon we will have no class diversity in these meetings the majority of immigrant workers are working Monday through Saturday 7 a.m to 7 p.m so just the selection of the time and the no interpretation you've already you know inadvertently I understand excluded many people right so what we really you know I think it's people going to the town council meetings getting informed about the issues speaking out same for school committee how does this issue affect poor people and BIPOC people in town and anybody who is not being represented and it will be in painful moments where your neighbors will say to you we're preserving the environment and will you be willing to say how do we do that and have affordable housing and you know question the budget are we allocating for needs why do we have a volunteer helping every single family and at self point fill out paperwork for any any needs because we don't have a part-time social worker in town why are we asking to cut the EL interpreters in the schools typically because we don't you know we don't it's very difficult for people to participate so we really you know appreciate the opportunity and there's there's a lot of of everyday issues that are coming up and so I appreciate um Dimitri and Shabana's inviting us to to be on the task force and to try to bring forward some of the issues and hope that many of you here will think about organizing things in a way that doesn't center only people who are college educated who do speak English and who are available at specific times thanks Andrea are we ready for another question yes I think we are so um I appreciate we appreciate Kathleen mentioning uh Russ Vernon Jones and Michael Burkart the question from Russ Vernon Jones that came in before the session that's not unrelated to what we've been talking about for white people who would like to follow and back BIPOC leaders what are some of the constructive ways to do that in Amherst and everybody doesn't have to answer I think I think just if you have something to say so that we can get as many of these questions asked as possible so sort of and I have a bunch of questions that have come in is anybody anybody want to volunteer to answer that this question could be generalized a little bit to talk about black leadership in town sure so there's black yeah how can people support black leadership in town in Amherst specifically yeah well support people when they run for office is one thing see how you can lend support but the other thing is um you know on this on this idea of reparative justice and I say that to distinguish some put it pure reparations from the kind of work we do on the local level pure reparations is HR 40 S 40 that's at the federal level that's pure reparations what we're hoping will will take place there at the local level this is repair work this is reparative justice work and uh you know one way of supporting people we you know change the name of this town you know if this if this was Hitler massachusetts what we would we live here would we just say ah that's history you know whatever you know are we going to go with that if this was George Wallace you know Wallace town are we going to go with that no we need to change the name of this town we need to support the cultural events the public cultural events of the various cultures and peoples that are here and not do little little tequila parties or or uh single demayo you know tequila events you know because you know you think it's it's it's chic or whatever also raise the funds now evanston community reparations fund exists now and people are giving to it and it's giving out to to concerns and things that the black evanston community is you know is in need of so you know we don't have to wait on on uh uh vocal men in the and the council start the fund now and start contributing towards it right now so those are those are just a few other things i would say great is anybody else want to respond to that because i know you have a bunch of questions also okay we could always come back to it and we give another question okay uh it's not unrelated uh that came up about the reparations work uh the question was how the it's which everyone is you know it's wonderful the reparations work that's going on how uh were the decisions made about which uh BIPOC leaders to reach out to include in that work if we're talking about reparations for slavery here then it's not a BIPOC thing it's a black thing okay right right thank you yep and the question of black folk black folk need to come together and we gotta first do we got two things to figure out one is you know given that this generates from the intergenerational trauma going back to slavery but then how it never has been resolved and how that harm has been revisited over generations to the present then in my own view and i'm saying it as my individual view any one of african descent that is resident here and has been here for at least a decade i would say you know welcome to the conversation welcome to the stakeholders community i don't draw distinctions against cape vertian born or nigerian born if you're black you live in a black experience you claim a black identity and you're and you're resident here and you've been here a while then i think you know have a seat at the table uh now i know other folks have different views of that and at the pure reparations level of the federal of the federal issue yes we can get more into the lineage question and who actually had ancestors that go back to to the 19th century uh but but this isn't pure reparations this is about repairing the intergenerational harm of a white supremacist racist culture racist structures that we can do if we commit ourselves to doing great so the question is how how has the reparations group chosen black stakeholders to partner with i can speak something to that make um in addition to what dr shabazz said we invited i think around 70 different people and no one was intentionally included or excluded we tried to cast as broad in that as possible and contact as many people as we could and the people who showed up or the people who showed up um but the meeting that happened the black stakeholders meeting that happened a few weeks ago was not the the only or the last one um and so this work is ongoing so there isn't any kind of choosing going on it's just a matter of uh contacting people and and um trying to engage as many people as we could and and i would say that um the group of people listed has been sent around to the group of people listed and um uh and also the request has gone out if you see a name missing from that list please send it to me um i will resend the email to the list of people on the list so that it's fresh in people's mind please pay attention to it i know that um at least 65 people got it got that email and not everyone has responded so um so that's that about how people were listed we uh put names of the people in our community that we knew we listed their names as we knew them as they came to us and so um again if there is a name missing from the list i would ask people to uh add to the list send it to me at kdq anderson um at gmail and um we will be uh organizing a next session soon enough as soon as i get the feedback from alderwoman um Simmons again she was working on the reparations in evanston that was just passed so i she can wipe her brow now and um and have some time to respond to me so that's that if you didn't get the email again send me an email okay okay i've got another question if someone doesn't have what have you put in uh white people uh how comfortable do you think white people are calling people in when racist things are said and heard and how do we support more of that creative culture in amherst where that's uh expected and celebrate and welcome i and you know i i'll just speak for myself here and say not comfortable at all i don't think white people are comfortable at all doing that and it's very easy as a white person living in amherst to be disconnected emotionally and even cognitively from the real situation of uh five people in this town and around this town is very very easy to be disconnected so being connected step one and then actually participating in a meaningful way and speaking to someone when you see something in you know d uh spoke very clearly about the specific structural aspects of our community that are built on white supremacy so um how do we address those things are structures but then there's you know people engaging with those structures and perpetuating those structures and how do we engage in a conversation about that all these things in a way that isn't um aggressive or diminishing but that is also very sincere and clear and doesn't hide from like rabbi ben was saying like leaning into the conflict i i think it's a real challenge i it's not something that i see happening a lot just from my own personal experience and i know just as a you know as a person um it's it's hard it's scary it's uh it's difficult but it's absolutely necessary i mean yeah i i also i do think i i do think this is a place where education is really important important and then self reflection because you can consider yourself like i consider myself a very progressive person who's been involved in activist politics really all my life but i wound up living in this very white place and i didn't do it consciously but i think i unconsciously benefited from a lot of structural things that helped me um wind up in this place so i think it's a process of realizing that about your own life as a white person and then thinking how you can in a non um aggressive way he non-threatening way communicate that to other people because you know um even in amherst there are probably a poor white people who think what privilege do i have because they're very they're poor and they're living paycheck to paycheck so this is a very complicated thing and i do think that systemic racism won't end unless white people actively end it but we have to do the work i'm gonna ask what we're nearing the time when we're supposed to stop we're actually past it but there are a couple of really direct specific questions that have come in that are about things we could do in amherst how do we make sure the community sit when the community safety working group makes its recommendations to the town manager and the town council that those recommendations are put in place and they don't just get shelved somewhere collecting dust and i'm going to ask the other one because i know there isn't going to be time to ask another but for the last 20 years amherst has since the creation of the human rights commission over 20 years ago uh we uh have not had a full-time human rights director for the last several years that person should be able to act as a diversity equity inclusion director working with groups on complaints but also working on community inclusion we've lost positions where there may have been a lack of support for individuals in those positions how do we maintain support for paid positions and long-term plans as funding and attention goes away over time so two questions about funding staff positions and also the recommendations of the community safety working group i know we go till eight marcie but i thought we you had some closing things to say we go till eight thirty thirty i mean um i i do have some closing things but i also uh why don't we hear some responses to those questions make you sad and then i have i guess final question because these have to do with amherst you know uh are and what we do okay excuse me yeah if i could respond to those because they both have to have to do with with town government and it is difficult for a lot of people to keep a track i'm retired now i couldn't watch these things for hours i've kind of become a junkie when it comes to you know watching amherst media and and the town council and i think one simple but consistent thing that we can do is to make sure there should be at every meeting of council in some way some discussion about uh reparative justice and about racial equity and what is going on in the town because there there is it's easy to go on and you know talk about other things but when when it's talking about planning when it's talking about climate all of those things have racial components and um disparities that that come up all the time so i think a simple thing that all this can do is to keep keep an ear open and use use our voices there is the ability to reach out to all of our district representatives and to town manager and i think it's a matter of keeping the topic well to the fore of every discussion and every meeting i agree i echo that and i just would say you know this calling in idea um it really comes from a place of love i call in for example elissa broer all the time you know but it's because i it's i love her you know and and and and i she was there when i the night i was elected to the school committee she came out to the to the butternut you know uh community room so i'll call her in on issues because it comes from a place of love i'll call out call in uh lynn greismar you know i've been to lynn's home i can call in she may not know me from adam but i'll call her call her in by name because it's a coming from a place of love now the men on the town council somebody else gonna have to pick up the slack on that because i i can't vouch for none of the men on there so somebody else with a bigger heart than mine gonna have to deal with deal with those men on the council okay it's a deal here's what i want to do we just we do have about 10 more minutes and um i i love kathleen's just simple question what are we gonna do where are we going from here and i also am feeling very conscious of what isolta was saying about the timing and the lack of translation about this meeting and unfortunately the league is having two forums that are going to be really important for how learning how to run for office and both of them are also probably not at great times for people who are are full-time workers and work into the evening so i have that in my head but here we have all these people together doing this good work in amherst and my question is what do we do from here do is there a next step do you all want to you know try to create something to work not that anybody would be organizing or managing your own specific work but is there a way to create some sort of a network or a support system for you all to communicate with each other and for us to have you know for us to have some way to hold you support you could the league do something in that way uh i i'd like to hear you know what your thoughts are on next steps and apparently ah okay and rusford and jones is asking can there be an email list of attendees we have created a database based on the registrations um from from all of you who registered so yeah we are creating an email list for i mean i'm assuming people would be okay with sharing their email addresses but for the groups of panelists who spoke especially the folks of color i would really like to hear is there a way that you can see moving forward to get us more you know more involved so i'm going to reiterate what i said earlier budget your values if this town is really about equity equity then we need to budget our values and that old adage of put your money where your mouth is that's what we need to do and we need to do it by attending the town council meetings but also the school district meetings and make sure our voices are heard and we need a whole people's feet to the fire because by pocpo are exhausted and so if we're going to have our white allies be real co-conspirators and be with us in in terms of challenging what is is occurring in this town and as occurred for hundreds of years in different forms we're going to need you there but it can't just be you know the the pulpit of of speaking we must vote with our budget and it must speak our values and we have to do that together thank you d um you know um marcie marcie you know we can't say it enough we had the idea that maybe depending on how things went that the league could get involved with at least to the point of creating the network and really helping you all connect to each other or other kinds of things or you know not take over any of it we just will follow your leads whatever you need from us as a league it's one of the reasons that even though i was pulling back i got involved with the task force because they want to listen what's going on and listen to what you're doing and then put our name you know our good name behind it and and again we want i mean i know monica's a member and d and other people are members of the league we want a lot of you to come in the league and give us more and more ideas as we go on as we work on people how we're running for office what to do that kind of thing so you know the idea of a network is something that we wanted to to run by people who were here of at least having a place for people to connect to and we could you know dispense information so you know i think the network is a good idea if i could use the network real quick though if you need more information keep your hands down but if you're ready to move with us right now to say that the cannabis revenue ought to go into a reparative justice fund will you raise your hand right now will you just say something right now thank you thank you i'm done it's a no-brainer to me right now let's legalize some more stuff so okay i guess what i want to say it's now we want to be respectful of time uh it's 825 one thing i want to say is if you're uncomfortable having your email listed in a database or pass to the other members of this meeting could you email me you all got emails from me so if you would please email me that would be great and say please do take me off the list that's one thing i want to say the other thing is that the statements that i sent to everybody who registered and the very few last registrants i will send them to you tomorrow um they have a lot of contact information for every group so all your email addresses all the contact information is in that statement of uh participants and that would be a great resource for you moving forward to contact each group as you want to you know it doesn't have to go through any of us um let's see are we saving the chat i am uh we also there's some resources in there that have been posted yeah so i'm going to save the chat and i think part of what we will do in our task force as homework is go through all these resources and all these comments and um post them on our page the racial justice task force page of the league of women voters of amherst website so lwva is the amherst website amherst league website and then we'll have our own page so that can be a resource area from the league to um you know your statements are on there and all of this you know moving forward uh communication can happen there um so there's a few people who have their hand raised and all of this kind of stuff but it's i don't know where how we want to take it from here uh andrea do you um well i don't know i mean somebody if people have some questions but we don't have very much time um no for this um we definitely may end up you know we we just want to get some ideas so please by all means send it to marcie and the you know the uh league as well as to some of the people who have participated here i'm sure they would like to hear your ideas also um you know because certainly everyone spoke so beautifully and i think we did a good job there are other groups out here that we want to join together and and not be silos as we've been talking about unless let's join together you know people who can go and do this for this and people can do this and really really stand behind our young people you know so um in all the efforts that they put forth you know so again i don't think we're gonna have time to you know because we're gonna go past that you know whatever and people people are working so yeah yeah um as far oh kathleen yes yes so i somebody just posted a question about creating a calendar and there is a community summit calendar that has been in existence waiting for people to add to it and i what i'll do is send the information to marcie so that you have it but people need to post to it go look for it go look at it and um perfect yeah it's already in place we can use that as our format if that's okay with you kathleen that's it's a community summit it's what we're it's what it's all about okay all right well maybe we should stop here um i uh have a giant bug in my room here it just was big so it got me distracted from my closing statements um i maybe it's a sign you know maybe maybe it's it has something to do with this has been amazing um thank you so much i really really appreciate all of you who have come to share with us your work your struggles the communicating is just it's it's just the beginning it's really this whole event has been really intended to be the beginning um andrea thank you so much for moderating and managing so da and man for the questions have humble who's been our registrar and are behind the scenes doing all of the technical stuff marla is uh in the facebook world she's running the facebook so thank you to marla and uh thank you all for coming and and showing up for this and hopefully it's not one of these things that really happens a lot in amherst like oh let's have an event and then it fizzles so um let's see how we can keep it from from fizzling i think that's all i need to say thank you so much thank you thank you thank you good night


Internal Revenue Service IRS Tax News. IRS announces 2022 funding for low-income taxpayer clinic grant recipients. IR 2022-92 April 20, 2022, Washington. The Internal Revenue Service announced today that more than $12.1 million in matching grants were awarded to 131 organizations across the country for development, expansion, or continuation of qualified low-income clinics. That's the LITCs for the 2022 grant year. The grant year runs from January 1 to December 31, 2022. Through the LITC program, the IRS awards matching grants of up to $100,000 per year to qualifying organizations. The LITC program is a federal grant program administered by the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the IRS, led by the National Taxpayer Advocate Aaron M. Collins. Although LITCs receive partial funding from the IRS, LITCs, their employees and volunteers are independent from the IRS, qualified organizations awarded LITC grants, ensure the fairness and integrity of the tax system for taxpayers who are low-income or speak English as a second language ESL by providing pro bono representation for qualified taxpayers in tax disputes with the IRS, educating them about their rights and responsibilities as taxpayers and identifying and advocating on issues that impact these taxpayers. Here is a complete list of 2022 grant recipients. There's a link to that list here. The cities and states where they are located and the amounts awarded by the IRS. More information about LITCs and the work they do to represent, educate, and advocate on behalf of the low-income and ESL taxpayers This is available on IRS Publication 5066 LITC program report. There's a link to that report here. IRS Publication 4134 low-income tax clinic list, taxpayer clinic list. There's a link to that here. It provides information about LITCs by geographic area, including contact information and details about the languages served at the specific LITC locations. So there's a list of those items here. There will be a list of this in the description.