Housing Justice League stands in solidarity with the protesters in Minneapolis across the country fighting for Black lives.

Donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund to bail our community out: https://atlsolidarity.org/
Housing Justice League stands in solidarity with the protesters in Minneapolis across the country fighting for Black lives. We know and understand the anger that spills over in moments like this and we fully support all of the people fighting for justice in the streets.

The billionaire class and the government loots and robs our communities every minute of every day. Protesters damaging property is not violence. Minimum wage jobs and a racist job market, regressive tax systems, underfunded schools, segregation, eviction, homelessness, and police surveillance of poor and immigrant communities is violence. In Atlanta, development projects like the Gulch, the redevelopment of Turner Field, and the BeltLine, and the Mercedes Benz Stadium, which rob tax money from poor communities and lead to their displacement for the benefit of billionaires is violence.

Police repression of protests is violence. The City of Atlanta’s response to the justified anger and outrage was to call in the National Guard and impose a curfew to further repress the people demanding change. Once again, the Black elite of Atlanta show how they only know how to respond to Black pain, suffering, and the violence of poverty with state force and further repression to protect business as usual.

Policing and incarceration is how the government tries to manage economic and social issues to prevent rebellion in poor communities. Police and prisons do not protect us or keep us safe. They kill us, both with guns and with poverty. If we took all the money invested in mass incarceration, policing, and the military, and invested it in housing, education, health care, and other human needs instead, we would see a lot more safety, justice, and peace.

Words from Alison Johnson, HJL’s Executive Director:
My experience living in America as a black woman raising black boys is a traumatized, hyper exclusive that is filled with anxiety daily. Every single black child, boy, and man in my family at some point in their life has had an interaction with the police (there are 16 of them under the age of 30) and has served a sentence, both short and long. Most of my anxiety that I have today comes from sitting in a courtroom praying to God that the judge can see that this child is a good boy, and simply needs the right resources to help him navigate this challenging system that doesn't give a damn about him. My stomach has many air bubbles from me holding my breathe in the courtroom because the person before him is white and arrested for the same charge and is supported with a high power attorney who can articulate the judges language of why his client must have a sentencing of drug rehabilitation and his record wiped cleaned when the 90 day sentence is served and his voting rights are restored because he's not a convicted felon. When my family faces the judge, the tension is thick but the cut is deep and swift. We can't afford an attorney, we can't make bail. There's no attorney, just a public pretender that works with the state. My stomach and heart are knotted like a yeast roll when the judge gives his sentencing 10 years with 5 to serve in prison and the rest on parole. My heart is about to explode. He looks back at me as he's handcuffed and forced to sign the deal of his life to a prison. Then he's ushered off as I mouth to him “I love you always” and the next case is called. Going into the restroom and weeping uncontrollably and feeling such a profound sense of innocent loss and knowing he'll never be the same if he can make it out of this life altering experience. I lay awake for many nights wondering how did I fail him? We had done all we could to be sure he had a fighting chance. What happened? One mistake and this is his fate. Why? We have always been advocates of the community for investment in our children because we know that we are being ignored and underserved. These outcomes are far too normalized, but this is what our communities get when we don't have the essential resources for schools, housing, cultural learning, health access, mental health, clean air, good jobs -- all the concentrated conditions we are burdened to take on and city leaders that are more concerned about profit, while our black boys are still being objectified because of the way this society sees them. I'm outraged and disappointed in this continuum predicated system and in black leadership citywide. Our black children matter. We don't have the privilege to wait for justice, we have to demand it now!

#GeorgeFloyd #TonyMcDade #BreonnaTaylor #AmaudArbery #SayTheirNames #BlackLivesMatter #DefundThePolice #CancelRent