{"id":231992,"date":"2020-07-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-10T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/del-cerro-4-black-lives-matter\/"},"modified":"2020-07-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T07:00:00","slug":"del-cerro-4-black-lives-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/del-cerro-4-black-lives-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Del Cerro 4 Black Lives Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JEFF CLEMETSON | Mission Times Courier<\/p>\n

Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which sparked nationwide protests led by Black Lives Matter, Del Cerro resident Grace Hatch dealt with her emotions about watching yet another Black man killed by police by drawing Floyd\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably did like 25 versions with ink and marker. I had no plan, but that was something I wanted to do,\u201d said the 19-year-old Hatch, who is currently attending UC Santa Cruz, but is back home in the community she grew up in due to coronavirus concerns and summer break.<\/p>\n

Grace\u2019s older brother, Morgan Hatch, saw the drawings and suggested putting them up around the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the next day, most of them were torn down,\u201d Grace said.The incident illuminated how the community was dealing with the nationwide protests. \u201cThat just encouraged us to keep putting them up and keep pushing the conversation about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hatch\u2019s across-the-street neighbor Jen Coburn also became part of that push.<\/p>\n

\u201cI noticed that [the posters] were up in the community and I thought, \u2018Right on Del Cerro for getting into the conversation,\u2019\u201d she said. But when Coburn learned that the posters were torn down, she took to the social media site Nextdoor to comment on the destroyed artwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a picture of Grace\u2019s artwork and I said, \u2018I think this great. I support it. But if you don\u2019t, make your own poster from the opposing view, there\u2019s plenty of room on the lightpost, but don\u2019t tear down somebody else\u2019s work \u2014 add to the conversation. We can have a discussion with differing opinions,\u2019\u201d Coburn said.<\/p>\n

That post on Nextdoor immediately sparked a discussion with over 500 comments from neighbors in Del Cerro.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very lively, very productive, very messy and sometimes contentious,\u201d Coburn said. \u201cBut that\u2019s sometimes how it is when you\u2019re discussing racial reconciliation. It\u2019s not going to be easy and it\u2019s not going to be smooth, but it still must happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grace Hatch also welcomed the discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople started commenting about what they thought about George Floyd, what they thought about racism in America, Black Lives Matter \u2014 all sorts of things. And some of them were incredibly hateful. Some of them were hopeful,\u201d she said, adding that it was \u201cnice to have the community talking about something.\u201d<\/p>\n

A discussion evolves<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mayisha Fruge is a Black resident in the predominantly white Del Cerro\/Allied Gardens area, where she has lived for over 10 years now. Fruge said that while 90% of the interactions she has had with the community have been good over the years, 10% have been troubling because of racial stereotyping.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey assume that because I am Black, I am poor \u2014 I\u2019ve gotten that,\u201d she said. \u201cThey assume that I\u2019m living in subsidized housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fruge said her son Omar Hammond also experiences occasional stereotyping, like the time he was selling candy as part of a track team effort to fund a trip to Reno.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne lady said to him, \u2018We can just raise money since you can\u2019t afford it,\u2019\u201d Fruge said.<\/p>\n

\"Del<\/a>
(clockwise from top left) A Del Cerro home with Hatch posters and American flag (Photo courtesy Jennifer Coburn); Mayisha Fruge with her son Omar Hammond (Photo courtesy Mayisha Fruge); Morgan Hatch (Photo by Jennifer Coburn); art poster of Breonna Taylor by Grace Hatch (Courtesy Grace Hatch)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harsher treatment by white neighbors over the years has included being called racial epitaphs, but still Fruge insists on pointing out that the majority of her interactions with the community have been very positive.<\/p>\n

When she first read the discussion thread on Nextdoor about Grace\u2019s posters being torn down, Fruge said she initially didn\u2019t want to say anything or \u201cget in the back and forth.\u201d But as the discussions got more vitriolic with some neighbors calling Black Lives Matter protesters \u201cthugs\u201d and misdirecting the issue by bringing up topics like black-on-black crime, Fruge decided to speak up.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne lady wrote, \u2018If Black lives matter, why is the leading cause of death for Black babies abortion?\u2019 That\u2019s when it got to a point where I said I just got to say something,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In that same discussion thread, another white neighbor shared that she was afraid of Black Lives Matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I said, \u2018Well, if you feel that way, we can meet.\u2019 So we met, had an open conversation and came out both of us being educated,\u201d Fruge said.<\/p>\n

Fruge\u2019s interaction also educated and inspired Grace and Morgan Hatch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat got us thinking, \u2018Wow, we can have constructive conversations that can change people\u2019s opinions and give people a broader perspective,\u201d Grace said, \u201cThat\u2019s how the idea for Del Cerro 4 Back Lives Matter started.\u201d<\/p>\n

A discussion organizes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although not an official chapter of Black Lives Matter, the Del Cerro 4 BLM group has permission to use the moniker, Grace said, adding that the group was formed with the goal of \u201cgetting people together to start thinking about how to get community talking about race, talking about racism and talking about how we can improve our community to make it safer and make it more inclusive and to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first meeting of the group was just an informal gathering of about 10 neighbors putting up Grace\u2019s posters together. The next meeting was held in the Hatch family\u2019s backyard where over 30 neighbors sat socially distancing and watched a video produced by SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), then got into groups to discuss contemplate what each individual\u2019s stake is in ending white supremacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question was posed by the SURJ group, intended to be very daunting and big,\u201d Grace said. \u201cBut it\u2019s supposed to get a read on how we tie ourselves into this process, especially since the majority of the group were white. It\u2019s a way to get everyone involved and know it\u2019s important to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s structure is very open ended and there is no formal leadership role. People join by emailing DelCerro4BLM@gmail.com, which also adds you to the group chats. A recent chat in the group was about the proposed police reform measures going on the ballot in November for the city that include citizen oversight. Other topics found in the chats include sharing resources, articles, dates of protests and other informative items.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of action steps that we\u2019ve been putting out there but we\u2019re still developing how we can keep going with that,\u201d Grace said, although the focus of the group at the moment is just introducing each other and talking about ways to overcome racism. \u201cA big thing about this ongoing racist behavior is that we don\u2019t confront it and we don\u2019t see it in ourselves and we don\u2019t talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That people are talking about racism \u2014 especially white people \u2014 has given Fruge hope that this moment in time might see real change in America.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels a lot different,\u201d she said. \u201cI have never seen allies like this before. I\u2019ve never seen the white women marching with signs that much. It feels totally different and I hope we can keep this momentum up. I\u2019m just so excited to see that my neighbors are actually getting together on the Black Lives movement. I just love to see it. It makes so proud to live in that neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

- Comun\u00edquese con el editor Jeff Clemetson en jeff@sdnews.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JEFF CLEMETSON | Mission Times Courier Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which sparked nationwide protests led by Black Lives Matter, Del Cerro resident Grace Hatch dealt with her emotions about watching yet another Black man killed by police by drawing Floyd\u2019s face. \u201cI probably did like 25 versions with ink and […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":778,"featured_media":231993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Del Cerro 4 Black Lives Matter","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11558,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}