BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org
PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:Indybay-18808213
SEQUENCE:18949452
CREATED:20180404T174300Z
DESCRIPTION:Throughout the Great State of California an unspoken festering unhealed 
 wound remains.\n\nThis Year of the 170th Anniversary of the California Gold 
 Rush is poised to open up the State Library and State Archives for a 
 forensic review of source documents that may identify how uniquely 
 "California Grown" systemic institutional racism continues to impact us 
 today.\n\nWe join in solidarity with National faithbased leaders in 
 Washington D.C. and share the good news here at in Sacramento.\n\nHere are 
 remarks by Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner at the Rally To End Racism, Washington 
 D.C. \n\nApril 4, 2018\n\nGood morning. I am Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, 
 Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism – the largest 
 and most diverse Jewish Movement in North America.  From our historic 
 building just a couple of miles from this National Mall, we organize and 
 mobilize 2 million Reform Jewish souls, led by 2,000 rabbis, in nearly 900 
 Reform congregations across North America.\n\nWe take great pride in the 
 fact that for its entire six-decade existence, the Religious Action Center 
 has been working to confront racial injustice on behalf of the American 
 Jewish community.  For decades our headquarters was also home to the 
 Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the largest umbrella civil 
 rights organization in our nation. It is where parts of the Civil Rights 
 Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were drafted and where strategies 
 to pass scores of civil rights laws were forged. And it is especially 
 meaningful to us on this day, that  Dr. King, whose memory we honor, would 
 often work at our offices when he was in town.\n\nDr. King preached that 
 “we are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted 
 with the fierce urgency of now…there is such a thing as being too 
 late.”\n\nFor Stephon Clark, we are already too late.\n\nFor Eric Garner, 
 Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, and far too many other people of color killed by 
 law enforcement, it is too late.\n\nBut it is not too late for us to act to 
 stop this cycle of injustice, to dismantle the structures of inequality and 
 oppression that undercut our nation’s commitment to justice and equality 
 for all.\n\nFor the young people of color caught up in the school-to-prison 
 pipeline, we cannot be too late.\n\nFor all those facing voter suppression, 
 we cannot be too late.\n\nAnd hearing King’s warning today, of all days, 
 during the holiday of Passover, is especially stirring. The story of the 
 Exodus retold during Passover was a constant source of inspiration to Dr. 
 King. Our liberation from Egypt was set in motion when God heard our 
 ancestors cry out from their bondage. God appeared to Moses from the 
 burning bush and Moses responded:\n\nHineni. Here I am.\n\nAs leaders of 
 religious communities, bearing witness to injustice, God calls to each of 
 us, demanding a response. To say “Hineni” is to pledge to meet the 
 challenge.\n\nSo say that with me now: Hineni!\n\nBut within each of our 
 communities, we have not always been united in our call for the liberation 
 of all people. We need to be honest about how systemic racism not only 
 pervades our society, but also how some of us have, at times, been too 
 reluctant to examine our own denominations, our own white privilege, or to 
 do all we can to tear down systems of oppression.\n\nAs Dr. King said in 
 his final speech 50 years ago just yesterday:\n\n“Whenever Pharaoh wanted 
 to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt he had a favorite, favorite 
 formula for doing it.  What was that?  He kept the slaves fighting among 
 themselves… When the slaves get together that’s the beginning of 
 getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.”\n\nHere we are today, 
 united and together, precisely because we will not allow the opponents of 
 social justice to divide us. We will not be divided by the perpetrators of 
 white supremacy and homophobia and Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.\n\nIn 
 1964, Dr. King called on his friends in our national rabbinic association 
 to urgently come down to St. Augustine, Florida to join the campaign 
 against segregation. Seventeen Reform Jewish leaders immediately left a 
 rabbinic convention in New Jersey to travel south. When they arrived in St. 
 Augustine, they joined Black activists at segregated restaurants and, 
 together, jumped into the swimming pool of a segregated motor lodge. The 
 motel manager dumped acid into the pool to get them out. The police used a 
 cattle prod on a young woman.\n\nIn jail, a local rabbi came to visit his 
 17 colleagues. He didn’t offer support. He came to tell them they 
 shouldn’t have come to St. Augustine. He came to tell these rabbis that 
 they were causing trouble.\n\nWell, we know that sometimes we need to 
 cause, as Congressman John Lewis says, “good trouble.”   \n\nOur 
 collective liberation has not yet been achieved. Today, the Pharaoh is the 
 New Jim Crow. The Pharaoh is mass incarceration. The Pharaoh is voter 
 suppression. The Pharaoh is the all too frequent killing of unarmed Black 
 men – like Stephon Clark, shot eight times in his grandmother’s 
 backyard – by law enforcement.\n\nWe will not rest until all of us are 
 free.\n\nWe join together and say, in the plural of Moses’ 
 response:\n\nHineinu. Here we are!\n\nAnd we have so much work to 
 do.\n\nTogether, we will honor Dr. King’s legacy and be the movement that 
 finally dismantles white supremacy and overcomes the systemic 
 racism\n\nthat still plagues our country.\n\nHineinu! Here we are, striving 
 to overcome mass incarceration.\n\nHineinu! Demanding that all citizens of 
 age have access to the ballot.\n\nHineinu! Mobilizing so that all children 
 can attend school without fear of gun violence.\n\nHineinu! Protecting 
 immigrants who fear deportation.\n\nHineinu! Defending equal rights for 
 LGBTQ Americans.\n\nHineinu! United and together, we will confront 
 anti-Semitism, racism, and all forms of bigotry.\n\nBecause injustice 
 against any of us is injustice against all of us.\n\nWe are here today 
 because Dr. King’s prophetic vision remains unrealized. All of us, 
 together, are entrusted with making good trouble. \n\nAnd continuing the 
 work; Ennobled by the knowledge that the light entrusted to us is the light 
 of God’s justice and freedom; Renewed in our abiding commitment that, no 
 matter the challenges ahead, our work will not be complete until the 
 fetters of wickedness are broken, the oppressed go free, and justice rolls 
 down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Until then, our 
 work will not be complete.\n\nBut in the meantime, we refuse to be too 
 late.\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/04/04/18808213.php
SUMMARY:A.C.T. 2 End Racism - California State Capitol
LOCATION:California State Capitol \nNorth Steps 
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/04/04/18808213.php
DTSTART:20180405T183000Z
DTEND:20180405T193000Z
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR