Opinion: Equity Under Attack by Amherst Town Government #2: A Call for Inclusion

By Allegra Clark, Debora Ferreira, Pat Ononibaku, Darius Cage, Russ Vernon-Jones, Brianna Owen, Ellisha Walker, and Tashina Bowman

This is the second in a series of opinion pieces prepared by the co-chairs of the town’s Community Safety and Social Justice Committee and former members of the town’s Community Safety Working Group. Read the first installment in the series, “Equity Under Attack by Town Government,” here. 

Years ago, the Community Safety Working Group (CSWG) was assembled to create recommendations for alternate safety services for the town, following the brutal murder of George Floyd by police. Today, four years later, we stand united in our values rooted in equity & inclusion and committed to the fight for justice here in Amherst. As the budget season approaches, we are demanding that all the recommendations in Part A and Part B of CSWG’s report to the town be fully funded, fully staffed, and fully developed.

Our fourth recommendation—to establish a BIPOC-led Youth Empowerment Center and, importantly, a BIPOC Cultural Center—has yet to be fully explored or mentioned by the Town Council. On page 15 of our report for Part A, we explore why a BIPOC Cultural Center would be so critical to the Amherst Community, specifically highlighting how it could:

• Provide a welcoming space for BIPOC families through the center’s commitment to staffing the center with leadership who bring cultural awareness, lived experience and authentic representation. 
  
• Mobilize the community to provide BIPOC families a space to receive a variety of services and information in one place. This center would mobilize all the organizations in the Amherst area that can be utilized to support BIPOC families to bridge the gap to educational services, job opportunities, food security, domestic violence resources, and access to mental health services.
  
• Be open to all and be a way to showcase, celebrate, and honor the various cultural traditions of those in the Amherst community, creating a culture of inclusion.

What drew us to this recommendation? A theme in our listening sessions emphasized that BIPOC families have nowhere to turn when crises arise, some requiring urgent action that departments like CRESS can appropriately respond to, and others requiring other solutions such as community resources, peer support, and being in community. In line with the solutions we proposed through our listening sessions, the 7GenMovementCollective found in their research that cultural organizations similar to the one proposed by the CSWG have helped to raise the quality of life in municipalities by creating safer communities, and that cultural organizations strengthen social connections, make surrounding communities more attractive to live in, and build revenue and social capital “essential to community function.”

Their research also suggested that “community centers have been used around the world to bring people together to solve problems and build community, and that community centers in the southeastern United States provided a space for exchanging resources, learning about services and gathering information and access to emotional support.

”In this budget season, we are asking the Town Council to honor its commitment to dismantling white supremacy as written in their 2020 ”Resolution Affirming the Town of Amherst’s Commitment to End Structural Racism and Achieve Racial Equity for Black Residents,” and to envision Amherst as a place where every community member can thrive by prioritizing the establishment of a BIPOC Cultural Center—a powerful step toward lasting and meaningful equity and unity.

Allegra Clark and Débora D. Ferreira are co-chairs of the Town of Amherst’s Community Safety and Social Justice Committee.

Pat Ononibaku, Darius Cage, Russ Vernon-Jones, Brianna Owen, Ellisha Walker, Tashina Bowman and Débora D. Ferreira were members of the Town of Amherst’s Community Safety Working Group. Owen and Walker were co-chairs of that working group.