Issue Position: Racial Justice

Issue Position

LEGISLATIVE IMPERATIVES:
Directly and explicitly addressing the legacies of racist policies and structural racism by equitably funding our public schools, implementing Medicare for All, ending the affordable housing crisis, and closing the wealth, income, and power gap between communities of color and white communities

Decriminalizing poverty and stopping racist law enforcement by ending the war on drugs and mass incarceration in Massachusetts

Defunding the police. Reduce the role of law enforcement in mental health and trauma related services, and reallocate funding to non-police solutions, such as housing, healthcare, and public education.

MY PLATFORM:
Racial justice is fundamental to my work as a progressive activist, organizer, and leader. We cannot both be neutral and anti-racist. True anti-racism requires deliberate advocacy. We must engage deeply and thoughtfully with the historical injustices that are actively perpetuated by some, and passively sustained by most of us. Every policy decision must be made through the lens of anti-racism: is this decision perpetuating the status quo and therefore racist, or is it actively dismantling racism? I will bring this lens to every decision I face as a state representative and I am committed to standing against policies that do not actively address racial disparities, by putting forth anti-racist policies in all issue areas.

To achieve racial justice, we must first acknowledge that across all policy areas today people of color face worse outcomes than white people, and we must face the historical truth that these disparities stem directly from advantages that are inherited at birth by people with privilege. To understand this history is to understand how white supremacy has intentionally constructed and institutionalized the dehumanization of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples, deeply embedding these practices and policies into the society we inherit today. We see the legacies of this systematic dehumanization in all aspects of our society including our schools, health care system, criminal justice system, housing, transportation and more. The intentional othering of people who are not deemed white enough is unfortunately a very real part of our current reality. Despite the steps towards equality that have been hard won by civil rights activists, xenophobia, racism, and anti-semitism including Islamophobia pervade our policies, practices, and institutions. Each year we see an increase in these blatant acts of hatred. To see the devastation that generations of racism causes, you need not look any further than the COVID-19 crisis: Black and Brown communities are most at risk, are least likely to be able to shelter in place, are more likely to be frontline workers, and are dying at the highest rates.

The experience of being othered as a person of color is deeply personal for me. I am a nisei (二世, Japanese for second generation) Asian American, and unfortunately I have had to experience both structural and interpersonal racism. My first memory of preschool was my mom picking me up and seeing other parents make fun of my mom's English. My mom remembers this too and she retells the story that at 4 years old, I was consoling her, that I told her, "It's ok, I don't care how my mom speaks English." Experiences such as this one become a part of your sense of self and influences what you think you are capable of and willing to try. For me, it's why I completely shied away from humanities, history, and literature, for all of my formal education. I gave up on English because all my teachers said I was good at math and science, a common stereotype about Asians. I remember feeling there was no way for me to leave the box my teachers put me in as an Asian student. These boxes are what students of color live and breathe everyday. I empathize with young students of color yearning to be outside that box --to truly belong-- and know how damaging and heartbreaking it is when students give up on leaving that box.

It is important to note that despite generations of oppression, Black and Brown people and other people of color have thrived, created, built, and succeeded. People of color have the resiliency, tenacity, optimism, and hope that our country needs to face the challenges of today and of the future. People of color must be centered in all of the work that we do. The activism of people of color has laid the groundwork for all recent protest movements, and has pushed our nation to grow towards embodying our creed of "life, liberty, and justice for all." The fight against racism pushes us to fight against all injustices and to recognize how racism and white supremacy hurts everyone in the end. As your State Representative, I am dedicated to elevating the experiences of my constituents of color and fighting to undo the injustices we face.

WE WILL FIGHT FOR:
Anti-racism work intersects with all other policy areas. As your State Representative, I will fight for:

Criminal Justice Reform

Advocate for decarceration -- commuting the sentences of anyone serving time for minor offenses and low level felonies, and releasing all people held on probation

End cash bail which penalizes people before they are convicted and creates a judicial system that discriminates based on income

Ensure the right to due process and the right to counsel by vastly increasing funding for public defenders

Eliminate the exploitive and immoral prison labor system, mandating a living wage for incarcerated workers

Employ a civilian oversight board, increasing accountability and transparency in policing

Defund the police, recognizing the lengthy history of racism, police brutality, and systematic violence perpetrated by law enforcement -- reallocating funding to non-police resources, such as housing, healthcare, and public education

Anti-racist housing policies

Reforming of racist zoning laws and real estate practices, including redlining, exclusionary zoning, and predatory lending

Fully funding a homes guarantee by expanding the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Trust

Advocating for state and federal funding for the refurbishment and construction of social housing and a repeal of the Faircloth Amendment, which prohibits the creation of new public housing

Ending the anti-democratic, state-wide ban on rent control

Investing in mixed-income public housing to eliminate gentrification and create individual economic stability

Environmental and climate justice

Environmental justice, which guarantees equal protection from pollution and toxins to all those within the Commonwealth, and equal access to clean natural spaces and environmental benefits

Ensuring sound and pollution barriers are built along I-93. Environmental justice communities in Somerville deserve clean air. It is outrageous that such barriers have been built long ago in affluent suburbs and yet our densely inhabited, largely immigrant community bordering I-93 in Somerville has not.

A Massachusetts Green New Deal, recognizing that communities of color, low-income, and immigrant communities are on the frontlines of environmental harm, and are exposed disproportionately to the effects of climate change

Expansion of free, reliable public transportation infrastructure, mitigating the carbon emissions and air pollution caused by personal vehicles, and ensuring that all communities have equal access to mobility

Immigrant rights

Passage of the Safe Communities Act and the Family Mobility Act, ensuring safety, dignity, and economic opportunity for all Massachusetts residents, regardless of immigration status

Equal opportunity for in-state public university tuition, scholarships, and grants, regardless of documentation or DACA eligibility

Creation of a pathway to citizenship and legal permanent residency

Racial justice in public education

Creation of a culturally competent and historically rigorous curriculum

Funding more pathways for educators of color

Funding Hub Community Schools, which center the needs of the local community (including students, parents, and teachers), and include their voices in decision-making

Pay equity, particularly for paraprofessionals and support staff

Lower student-counselor ratios and greater mental health supports

De-emphasizing and termination of standardized testing, which creates racially-discriminatory benchmarks of achievement

Guaranteeing that all Massachusetts students can attend and graduate public universities debt-free

Healthcare & COVID-19

Pass the Reduce Racial Disparities in Maternal Health Act, which would start to rectify the injustice that black people are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy than white people, and fund community-based maternal care organizations

Passage of Medicare for all in Massachusetts, and expanded access to essential services, including mental health, reproductive and maternal care, and emergency assistance

During the COVID-19 pandemic

Moratorium on all co-pays and costs related to COVID-19 care

Ensure health protections (e.g. PPE access, gloves, disinfectant materials) for all frontline and essential workers -- which are disproportionately Black and Brown individuals

Stop the closure of essential services and healthcare facilities , particularly in historically underserved communities

Economic Justice

Pass the Fair Share Amendment, increase corporate taxes on C-corps, and levy taxes on wealth because large salaries in excess of $1 million and accumulated wealth are byproducts of the racist belief that the rich generate more value for society than people of color

Establish a truly livable minimum wage for all workers and eliminate the tipped minimum wage

Passage of the Act to Prevent Wage Theft to prevent employers from making labor markets more "flexible" when their underlying objective is to bust unions and disadvantage workers

Protect the Right to Vote and Right to Political Participation

Expand vote registration opportunities and protect voting rights, through same-day, automatic, and pre-registration, enfranchising of the incarcerated, and illegalizing of any voter suppression practices

Creating pathways for people of color to enter public service, by providing support and resources to candidates of color

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