Fil-Am abuse prevention group slams racism, urges self-exam

ALLICE PHOTO

DALY CITY, California –  The all-volunteer abuse-prevention organization ALLICE Alliance for Community Empowerment issued a statement condemning the May 25 death of George Floyd while in custody of Minneapolis police officers.  Floyd, 46, was arrested for allegedly trying to buy cigarettes with a fake $20 bill.

The statement renounced racism as it linked the Floyd case with recent incidences in the United States which have triggered worldwide demonstrations against racism and police brutality.

“These cases are a glaring depiction of abuse, the pattern of behavior where one party feels entitled to dominate the other by various forms of attacks,” said Cherie Querol Moreno, who founded the nonprofit in 2003.  “Such behavior is learned and abetted by passive bystanders, which is why we need to speak up and call out the injustice.”

“The dynamics of abuse – whether between intimate partners, family members, co-workers, or perfect strangers – are the same,” ALLICE founding president Bettina Santos Yap said with a warning:  “These worsen over time, unless the perpetrator acknowledges the behavior and gets help.  And there is help from public and private agencies, including free programs to learn healthy interaction.”

ALLICE has canceled its two annual abuse-prevention events to protect the public from COVID-19.  For information on resources for safe and healthy relationships, visit www.allicekumares.com.

ALLICE STATEMENT

ALLICE Alliance for Community Empowerment stands in solidarity with black communities mourning the death of yet another unarmed member in the hands of law enforcers.

We condemn all forms of abuse and we specifically denounce the brutality of the Minneapolis police officers – the one who dug his knee on the neck of George Floyd and the three others who did not try to stop what effectively became a lynching.

News footage did not show George Floyd, who had battled mental issues, resisting arrest for allegedly paying with a counterfeit $20 bill. That’s how the officers justified their aggressive response to the situation. The Hennepin County medical examiner ruled Floyd’s death a homicide. His heart and lungs collapsed while restrained. Indeed, he could not breathe.

Just hours prior, a white woman called 911 falsely and hysterically reporting being “threatened by an African American man” after he began recording her negative response to his request to keep her dog leashed as required at the bird sanctuary in Central Park. Christian Cooper is actually a Harvard-educated known bird-watcher.

That was days after a white father and son shot to death a black man named Ahmaud Arbery whom they suspected to be a burglar as he was jogging in his own neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia.

Life is sacred. How we treat one another reflects our own humanity. So how is it that some who are sworn to protect become oppressors and persecutors? Executioners?

We reject racism and decry the injustice perpetrated against black people in this country to whom all of us Americans of color owe the freedoms we enjoy and often take for granted. So how is it that they who founded and nurtured the Civil Rights Movement bear the brunt of race hatred – subtle, direct and institutional?

We urge Filipinos everywhere to look up the history of the Civil Rights Movement to appreciate the courage and conviction Americans of African descent mustered to achieve liberation and swept us along with them.

We urge a good examination of how our very own colonial history has conditioned us to see through the lenses of subjugation – finding light skin better and dark skin less so, disliking ourselves if we have the latter rather than the former.

We urge authorities to censure racism, call it what it is, establish reforms and mete harsh penalties to those who use their power and privilege to commit racist acts.

We commend law enforcers who commiserated with protestors and knelt with them to honor the fallen, giving hope in the face of desperation.

While we, too, have suffered decades of prejudice, we appeal for calm and reflection over rage and destruction. We must reach out to one another, contemplate our responsibility and accountability as fellow humans.

If ours is truly the land of equality and equity, each of us must have the will to weigh our own thoughts and actions, and have the humility to change if and when we recognize a shade of bias within us. Only then can we begin to empathize, be kind and truly help stop the violence.

ALLICE Alliance for Community Empowerment

June 2, 2020

Daly City, California