The Black Trans Lives Matter mural at Fresno Barrios Unidos with Laguna Collective. Photo/Ram Reyes
☀️ Hello, Fresno! It is Sunday, June 28, 2020.
Welcome to Fiveby’s (shorthand for this newsletter) new post date: Sunday! I think Sunday is just a nice day to post the newsletter to end/start the week.
Also, this installment will have our first Original Content™ for Fiveby. It’s a story on the Black Trans Lives Matter that was put up as part of Dulce Upfront’s “Lift Every Voice” Mural tour. I had a chance to document and chat with the artists involved with the mural. Read it at the end of the regular newsletter content. My hope is to do more original reporting soon as that has always been the goal for this newsletter.
See y’all next week <3 -Ram
Fresno By Five
✌🏽 Advance Peace Moves Forward
The Fresno City Council has approved the Advance Peace program that aims to curb gun violence in Fresno after much public outcry and changes to the program. $300,000 of the city funds will be allocated for the program for its first year. The vote was 5-1 with councilmember Bredefeld being the sole opposing vote, citing that he needs to see results before supporting.
Last year it was approved but vetoed by Mayor Brand. But this time, the motion came to the council with Brand’s support and recommendation to pass. The changes weren’t exactly detailed but one part is that the new version assures that city’s dollars will go to the Fresno Equal Opportunity Commission and none to the participants of Advance Peace. More details will be available as a contract gets drawn up.
The program is considered controversial as Advance Peace works in that it targets people most likely to commit shootings and puts them through the program and gives them access to help and resources. The resources part is what is controversial as participants can potentially get a $1,000 stipend. This has led to many thinking the core of it is to “pay the shooter.”
Another example why CA is going off the rails- Paying criminals to be nice...Following the lead of Richmond, Sacramento and Stockton, a new proposal would have @CityofFresno pay violent criminals to refrain from shootings or other violent acts. The first step is in discussion with Fresno's 2020 budget: https://t.co/w9ntqDwIR5The San Joaquin Valley Sun @SJVSun
Richmond, Stockton and Sacramento are currently using the program. In Richmond, where the program started, it reduced gun homicides and assaults by 55% from 1996 to 2016. Although other violent crimes did rise by 16% also, gun violence has other issues that contribute to crimes.
H. Spees, Fresno’s director of strategic initiatives, assured the council during the meeting that no participant will even receive money until they’ve successfully gone through the program for at least six months.
During the motion hearing for Advance Peace, Fresno Police Chief Andy Hall and Fresno council president Miguel Arias got into a spicy exchange regarding some of the council’s close scrutiny of Advance Peace.
Council president Arias said:
“Not one time did we ask, is it performance metrics for the police department? Right. Do they even exist? Are they even meeting those performance metrics?”
Fresno police chief Hall noted also that FPD does show performance metrics and said:
“I think we’re doing a very good job in Fresno. We’re spending your money very wisely. And I get upset when I when a councilmember gets on a soapbox without the facts.”
Arias before voting on Advance Peace:
“I get upset when the chief of police decides to be selective of what data he shares and where he shares it. So I’m looking forward to you presenting to the Commission on Police Reform and being fully transparent on all the information. I recognize that our officers do good work. I recognize that you guys have your own performance measures, but not one time in this budget hearing or last year’s budget hearing that you use performance measures or metrics to justify requests for millions of dollars in new money.”
🤬 ‘Share this post if you’re racist.’
The racists are out here posting! Two different people, both in positions of power in education, resigned this week due to their racist posts on Facebook.
The first was Central Unified School District trustee Richard Atkins. He posted this on Facebook:
Screenshot of Richard Atkins’ Facebook post
After the screenshot circulated around social media and petitions were made, people called in during the Central Unified board meeting on Tuesday, June 23. He abruptly resigned after hearing overwhelming public comment calling for his resignation or recall.
The second person to post a racism on their Facebook TL was president of Madera County Board of Education, Sara Wilkins. She posted this on her Facebook:
Screenshot of Sara Wilkins’ Facebook post
People made petitions, people in the Madera County Board of Education decried her post. Days later, she resigned. Y’all remember when Boomers kept telling younger people to think about what they post? Maybe they should listen to their own advice.
🐮 Nunes v. Cow: Cow Wins
A judge has thrown out the case Rep. Devin Nunes brought against a Twitter account of his fake cow. Judge John Marshall ruled that Nunes had no right to sue the users and Twitter because Nunes wanted to treat Twitter as the publisher and speaker of the content and alleged they were allowing for the defamation to occur. Twitter’s lawyers countered that Twitter is not liable for what the users post on their platform, a federal law known as Section 230. We are lucky to still have @DevinCow and @NunesAlt to be on our timelines.
In other law-related news, the ACLU has settled a case to reinstate the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno as a voter ballot drop-box location. In June 2019, Fresno County moved the polling place designated at the church due to their sign that stated “Black Lives Matter” because it made some voters uncomfortable. The terms settled that the church will be a voter ballot drop-box location for the next four years and it won’t have to cover up or remove the BLM sign outside of their church.
🏥 Coronavirus Updates: *Cardi B voice* CORONAVIIIRUS
Every week it just keeps getting worse!
As of June 27, the most recent data available at the time of writing, there have been a total of 4,374 (+1,187 from last week) total confirmed cases and 72 (+6) deaths in Fresno County. Since I started tracking this for the newsletter, this is the biggest weekly jump. A total of 1,135 (+214) people have recovered and 350 (+56) have ever been hospitalized.
This has been the biggest jump in hospitalization. The 61% increase has Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, very worried. If this trend continues, we will hit that threshold when our hospitals cannot take the surge of patients. Y’know that whole “flattening the curve” thing people seemed to have forgotten.
Dr. Vohra to the Fresno Bee:
I saw more saw more COVID patients (Thursday) night than in any of my shifts previously. All of our hospital partners are telling us the pandemic is really being seen in our emergency departments.
NEW TESTING SITE: The County of Fresno announced another testing site through Optumserve/LHI. In addition to the Fresno City College testing site I’ve been linking on this newsletter, another one will be located in west Fresno, located at West Fresno Regional Center.
Visit lhi.care to set up an appointment. It’s free even without insurance. If you have insurance, you can also try these other testing sites here.
😲 EARTHQUAKE
2020 just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it? Did you feel the earthquake?
The 5.8 magnitude earthquake was reported near the town of Lone Pine, about 95 miles east of Fresno.
I did not feel the earthquake because I was going to the bathroom when it did happen. But I did hear an odd shaking sound but I thought the building was just settling. Y’know… as buildings do.
Mitchell George Erron Lee painting one of the figures on the Black Trans Lives Matter mural
Reflections on the Wall
Words and Photos by Ram Reyes
“Black trans people run the show behind the scenes. That's part of what makes this so important is that we’re bringing that to the forefront,” Mitchell George Erron Lee, one of the lead artists, said as he painted one of the Black transgender people outlined on the wall of Fresno Barrios Unidos on Saturday, June 21.
The two figures on the wall, at that point, were just sketches. Community volunteers gathered to paint the mural’s garden setting. Many would come in and out, lending their hand to the mural, each paint stroke creating the mural.
The Black Trans Lives Matter mural is one of the murals for Dulce Upfront’s mural tour. Three murals were being painted on three walls at Fresno Barrios Unidos. The two others were one honoring Breonna Taylor and the other Isiah Murrietta-Golding, the teenager shot and killed running from Fresno Police.
“Muralism is an important part of movement building,” Omequetzal Lopez, co-founder of Dulce Upfront, said. “For us as artists, we are using art as our weapon.”
The Black Trans Lives Mural was spearheaded by Laguna Collective, a local Riso publisher in downtown Fresno. They called on the community to design posters to be put up along the top of the mural. While the posters had many different designs, they all said the same thing: Black Trans Lives Matter.
Through and through, the mural was a collective effort; many hands designed, painted, and elevated the message of Black trans people. The design was intentionally created to be serene, to show trans people proud and at peace.
“We wanted to show Black transgender people being represented in a positive light,” Alexandra Harrell, one of the artists, said. “Because there’s so much focus on their pain and suffering that we didn’t want to depict them in that way.”
Transgender women of color are disproportionately affected by fatal violence, Black trans women even more so, according to the Humans Rights Campaign. Their very existence is at the intersection of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.
Riah Milton in Ohio and Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells in Pennsylvania were killed earlier this month and in 2020 alone, including them, 14 transgender or non-conforming people have been killed, according to HRC.
“Historically speaking black trans lives have been undermined by everybody. By the queer community, by the black community,” Lee said. “When you look at the media, when you look at fashion, when you look at anything really, culture down to its core, it can be rooted not only in the black experience but in the black trans experience. It's about time we acknowledge that.”
There’s already movement within Fresno for Black lives. We have had protests. People are calling to defund the police. We have “BLACK LIVES MATTER” written in front of City Hall. But Lee cautions even if we achieve all of these things, it is not enough.
“After we defund the police. We gotta think of what's next. Racism didn't end when the slaves got freed. Racism didn't end when we had our first black president,” Lee said. “It's not gonna end when we defund the police. it's really important to think about the next few steps.”
Lee continues to say that the next thing to look at would be our education system and how history is told. With how racism is rearing its head in several Central Valley school district, that seems to be the right direction.
The mural is just one step towards progress. It is just one way to memorialize that Black trans people are here and have always been here. It is the hope that someone who walks past the mural can see themselves on the wall and see their reflection.
“We haven’t been erased. We’re still here. We’re not going anywhere,” Lopez said.