Recent Comments
Re: “Activists track local hate movement”
Howard,
I totally agree with your perspective in some sense and not in others. If this article is about the deeper and more insidious white supremacy that faces our country, you're absolutely right that I'm not the person to interview.
Institutionalized racism as it exists within our schools, workplaces, health care systems, "democracy" and political institutions are all incredibly vital places to be fighting. Metro Justice is engaged in work in each of these arena, and you'll notice that I'm not the spokesperson for that work.
The emergence and work of MAMA is exciting to many, myself included, within the city. In fact, not long ago Metro Justice co-sponsored and helped publicize a candidates forum alongside you all. I'd be very excited about future opportunities to collaborate.
This article however, isn't about tackling that sort of institutionalized racism. It's about identifying and challenging the growing neo-fascist movement that has followers in our area. If there is something MAMA is doing in those regards, I'd love to know so we could collaborate there as well, but what you've shared doesn't seem to indicate that.
That said, the recent emergence of explicitly white supremacist and neo-fascist organizing can't be separated from the on-going fight against all forms of white supremacy. So I do think this article would have been strengthened by making those critical ties. But we're going to need to start developing strategies that do the work of uncovering and dismantling deeply embedded white supremacy AND begin to address the growing threat of an actively organized and violent white supremacist movement that is growing in numbers and boldness. I hope we can actually figure out a way to work meaningfully together to do that.
Re: “Activists track local hate movement”
Hannah,
I'm sorry if that's how you've at any point been treated by members of our organization. From most of what you've said though, it's pretty apparent to me that you haven't been very close to the organization much at all. The vast majority of what we do isn't around publicity. Strangely enough, the parts of what we do that are about publicity tend to have more attention paid to them.
You've got some claims there that I think need some real substantiating if you put them in writing. For instance, your quote is clearly not an actual quote. To say we don't listen to those we disagree with is an interesting take, especially today. Today we are planning a public candidates forum for mayoral candidates in Rochester - all of them. As an organization we don't even endorse candidates. So this is simply about ensuring greater dialogue in democracy locally.
As for claims of violence, those are some serious allegations. You really can't throw those around without something to back up the claim.
Re: “It's time for Medicare for All”
I'm so happy to see the cover of City highlight the importance of Medicare for All. So many of the rampant inefficiencies and inequities in our health system are due to an instance on private health insurance that is literally killing thousands every year. At the same time it's costing the rest of us billions of extra to uphold these inequities.
It's unfortunate though that this local paper didn't take some time to talk to the many activists and organizations that have been working diligently in the fight for genuinely universal health care for years. These organizations have shifted to a state-by-state strategy, knowing that the federal government isn't likely to pass this sort of reform any time soon.
However, in New York State, we're only a couple of state senators away form a majority in both the Assembly and Senate signed onto the bill! Single Payer is really possible in the short-term in New York. In Rochester there is a coalition of people from Metro Justice, ROCitizen and the Democratic Socialists of America that are leading this fight. They are working closely with the statewide Campaign for New York Health. Maybe City will do a follow-up to this informative article talking about the effort to win these reforms with the organizations doing the work.
Re: “A look back: Riots of '64 still haunt Rochester”
In recent weeks, there has been a great deal of effort to remember our collective history that came to public notice with the racial uprising of July 1964. This effort is incredibly important, as the history of people's movements demanding and winning change is essential to this day. The history of FIGHT taking on one of the largest and most powerful corporations of it's day to demand racial and economic justice is an incredible social justice victory in the history of this city.
What I find saddening however, is that there seems to be a collective amnesia about the history of many in the white community actively organized to support the demands of FIGHT, forming the organization Friends of FIGHT.
What is particularly alarming about this collective amnesia is that Friends of FIGHT continues to exist, as Metro Justice, a multi-racial community organization dedicated to social, economic, and racial justice to this day. There seems to be a convenience in forgetting Metro Justice, an organization of 900 members that continues to be a thorn in the side of current power players demanding genuine justice through people's movements.
Our 7-point program for Economic Justice (http://bit.ly/MJ7Points) call for justice in the fields of healthcare, education, and jobs to this day. We have recognized for 49 years the continued need for movements of everyday people to demand genuine justice in these fields. We continue to fight for genuine universal healthcare in New York State. We are working towards equitable education funding and restorative justice in our schools to end the school to prison pipeline. We are part of the nationwide Fight for 15, demanding a living wage and union with fast food workers in the city.
The multi-racial community fight for social, economic, and racial justice continues in Rochester, in part through Metro Justice (www.MetroJustice.org) who vividly remember our history as Friends of FIGHT.
Colin O'Malley
Organizing Director
Metro Justice
Re: “The real solution to Rochester's poverty”
Mr. Popper raises some fantastic points here. We don't live in a nation that is poor. We live in one of the wealthiest moments that this country has ever seen. Massive concentrations of wealth exist in very few hands. We don't have a resource problem, we have a distribution problem. Unions are the major way to ensure that wealth is distributed more fairly to working people - who are essential to the creation of that wealth in the first place. If we continue to legislate away workers ability to organize, then we shouldn't be surprised by the growing rates of poverty in our community.
Re: “The real solution to Rochester's poverty”
Unions actually worked incredibly well for Detroit. Detroit had nearly 50 years of constant prosperity. What didn't work well for Detroit was free trade deals that aided tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs to move out of country and GM and Ford constantly demanding concession after concession.
Re: “Activists track local hate movement”
I was reached out to because they targeted me personally and Metro Justice more broadly. I was reached out to because they came to my house and my job to threaten me. I was reached out to because I helped share information specifically related to Robert Sayer and Jarrod Kuhn, two leaders who are organizing in this work.
I also don't subscribe to the notion that white supremacy is something that white people can't stop. In fact, I hear the same line of thinking that you're using now used to say that white people are critically responsible for taking up this work. I've heard leaders in the black community call for both increased white engagement in dealing with white supremacy and for white people to step back. I can respect both positions, but fundamentally I think that defeating white supremacy will take all of us and I think we are living in times when we need far more activity and far less stepping back. I'm not going to step back and put the entire burden of dismantling white supremacy at the door-step of communities of color, and frankly I think in dealing with the most entrenched, problematic and dangerous folks, there is a clear responsibility for other white people to engage and confront.