Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #PayTheFee

ATTN: Sign up to tell the Liquor & Cannabis Board that it’s time to #PayTheFee and release 20 cannabis retail licenses for Black ownership in Seattle now. Details in thread below.

First session today from 5-8pm.

Registration: linktr.ee/kcequitynow
PW: LCBequi

In Seattle, & across Washington, Black people have been excluded from ownership in an industry that was built on their backs – cannabis.

Of the 48 cannabis retail stores in a rapidly gentrifying Seattle, ZERO are Black owned.

Those with money & power want to keep things exactly the way they are. They want the illusion of inclusion with wall murals & Black security personnel, but they have no interest in real equity.

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@AfricatownSEA

Welcome to Platinum Plush Fashions:

"We are the trendsetters & we are the trend-stars of Seattle. I am Nikita Mathis. I am the owner of Platinum Plush Fashions and I am @AfricatownSEA."

Support Black-owned businesses: myplushfashions.com | #PayTheFee #WeAreAfricatown

"We like a lot of bling here at Platinum Plush Fashion. My job is to find fun, affordable fashion and just kinda be the first to have it in community. I love when folks shop with me and they’ve never seen these items before."

myplushfashions.com | #PayTheFee #WeAreAfricatown

“It's no secret I support all Black-owned businesses. Our Black-owned biz community is kind of small percentage-wise. We all have to hold each other's hand. We kinda all circulate the money amongst us. They shop here, I eat there. I’m pretty proud we have a bond.” #PayTheFee

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@DecrimSeattle

Today, we and @DecrimSeattle are encouraged to see the @SeattleCouncil—emboldened by the support of tens of thousands of BIPOC community members (that's y'all!)—resist @MayorJenny ’s bullying tactics and anti-Black obstructionism.

@SeattleCouncil

Specifically, @SeattleCouncil upheld their decision to divest from the SPD by 3 million dollars—less than 1% of SPD’s annual budget—and invest modestly in Black communities.

@SeattleCouncil

As we head into the 2021 budget cycle, we expect @SeattleCouncil to maintain their conviction, elevate Black lives and uphold their public commitments to divest from policing and reinvest in Black communities.

Divest SPD

@DivestSPD

@SeattleFdn

Today is the big day!

2pm rally at Westlake Park to demand @SeattleFdn

- Stop grants to the Seattle Police Foundation & rightwing organizations
- Raise investment in blk & indigenous communities

@DecrimSeattle

We'll be joined by coalition partners @DecrimSeattle, @KCEquityNow and the Engage Team

Speakers:
@raadzzi
@NikkitaOliver
@SheraeForState
@eyesonthestorm

...and more!

MC: @babychickan
Music by Rise Up! Action Band

Demands:

-No More Charity for Cops! Stop grants to SPF
-#PayTheFee! $1.6m to blk & indigenous groups (2x past donations to SPF
-Spend Down! Stop hoarding wealth/providing tax shelters & circulate money in the community during this time of crisis

Divest SPD

@DivestSPD

@SeattleFdn

@SeattleFdn has awarded $635k in grants to evangelical groups that promote a homophobic, anti-science and anti-choice agenda.

(THREAD)

(1/10)

Yesterday, we talked about SF’s grants to libertarian think tanks. They also have given hundreds of thousands over the last decade to evangelical groups with far-right interests and funding sources that overlap with those think tanks.

(2/10)

@SeattleFdn

Since 2014, @SeattleFdn has awarded $172k in grants to the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. One of the main advocates for intelligent design, DI has pushed for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Its main funding source is the Koch-linked org DonorsTrust

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@KCEquityNow

"@KCEquityNow & @DecrimSeattle unified under the same mission: to improve conditions on the ground for marginalized communities."

Read the story by @M_Hellman for the @seattletimes:

seattletimes.com/seattle-news/p…

The massive coalitions that consist of "Black, Indigenous and people of color led organizations" and "individuals ranging from data analysts to community builders and lawyers...developed a plan backed collectively by decades of research & community building.”

@KCEquityNow

"@KCEquityNow’s platform centered around community ownership of land, along with acquiring funding to address the root of inequities."

"@DecrimSeattle consists of groups that had spent several years working on campaigns aimed at abolishing the incarceration system and policing."

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(Thread) Systemic inequity is deadly.

Failed policies and anti-Black action shorten Black lives.

Failed policies like the Seattle letting 47-acres of farmland—gifted to the City to host camps for inner-city kids—to sit vacant for over 7 years. All while Black neighborhoods remain food deserts.

Anti-Black action like the Mayor failing to invest in street-level violence prevention programs while community faces a gun violence epidemic. All while, in 28 days we've had over 40 shootings.

@SeattleCouncil

(Thread) Tomorrow @SeattleCouncil returns from recess to vote on the 2020 rebalancing budget.

TODAY we & @DecrimSeattle are hosting a caravan across all 7 districts to urge CMs to overRIDE the mayor's veto & invest in Black communities.

LIVE: facebook.com/kingcountyequi…

@InclusiveData

"For decades, while the Black community was told there weren’t enough resources to invest in the community, the Seattle Police Department’s budget grew to half a billion dollars completely unquestioned." - Research Director, Shaun Glaze (@InclusiveData)

Youth: "It rips at our community to have people, community leaders, friends & family being harmed & brutality murdered by police. It’s something that hits deep here in the South End...[Instead] we can invest in community like housing & small Black-owned businesses."

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READ:One City. Two Neighborhoods. A 30-year difference in life expectancy.

"Babies do not choose where they are born. But their parents’ ZIP code has a shocking bearing on the quality and length of life they can expect to live."

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

"Streeterville is a neighborhood of mostly white, affluent, college-educated families living in townhomes and high-rise condominiums along the shore of Lake Michigan. A baby born there in 2015 could expect to live to 90.

In nearby Englewood, a poor, predominantly Black neighborhood of low-rise apartments in the shadow of Interstate 94, a baby born in 2015 could not expect to reach 60."

A 30-year difference in life expectancy.

(Thread) CANNABIS EQUITY NOW kick-off!

ACTION 1: Tag, tweet, call, email your local weed shop to donate net proceeds from Black Aug to King County Equity Now towards a Black-led equity workgroup: us.commitchange.com/wa/seattle/afr…

ACTION 2: RT & get familiar w/ our full demands below...

@GovInslee

EXPUNGE all cannabis-related offenses including felonies, and RELEASE all prisoners.

In WA, approx. 80% of all cannabis-related arrests ended in felonies for Black men between the years 1990 and 2017. That is shameful, foul and unacceptable. @GovInslee, time to move different.

IMPLEMENT cannabis tax-funded reparations for people who were or are incarcerated for cannabis-related crimes, & their children—to promote generational wealth & educational access.

Reparations are just one step towards addressing racist cannabis policing harms. #PayTheFee

Black Education Event: Young Black queen is asked about current school lunches, she responds:

"Sometimes kids throw it away, or throw it on the ground because it's really hard to chew."

We need natural, enriching, & healthy public school meals. #EquityNow #NurturingRoots

Black Education Event: "We will no longer stand by while teachers don't teach our children what they need to know but are more than happy to shepherd Black kids into the school-to-prison pipeline. We need to invest in our children and our schools because they are our future."

Black Education Event: "In 1998, my brother was murder on the streets of Seattle...10 years later upon reflection, I know now that the first knife that went into my brother's heart was Seattle Public School Education. It failed him." Community builder Ms. Sabrina Burr

(A thread) Read our latest Black Joy Newsletter: mailchi.mp/7a8f65cba7f1/k…

"It is critical—particularly now—to properly engage with anti-Black racism to upend the current permanent racial caste system.

So, how can you do that?

First, become reacquainted with “racial realism."

"Racial realism" is the understanding that with current legal and societal structures, Black folx will never reach full equality in America. Said differently: the moral arc of the universe does NOT bend toward justice...

...and there is no magical moment in the future where whites and Blacks converge—as evidenced across many metrics, most notably the immutability of the wealth gap...

King County Equity Now Coalition (Official)

@DecrimSeattle

ICYMI: Takeaways from the 7/15 @DecrimSeattle & @KCEquityNow budget meeting with @SeattleCouncil (a thread)

For the full detail, check out the 13-page blueprint here: documentcloud.org/documents/6989… #DefundSPD

@CMTMosqueda

"This is about broadening the number of tools that we offer to community and investing upstream…to protect our community as well as investing in their health.” @CMTMosqueda

Calling for cuts to the 2020 SPD budget beyond the $20M already identified. 50% cut will be taken from the remaining Summer/Fall SPD budget and will be phased in over time. Redistributing 2020 budget now will empower the community to fully re-envision 2021 budget.

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Political Education of the Day, a thread:

Check the racist paradigm of experts v. so-called "non-experts."

Entrenched power, when threatened, will appeal to its inherent "expertise" – which is often a veiled dog whistle for white supremacy...

For example, the Mayor's office current posturing:

"how on earth could these Black communities possibly repurpose the bloated SPD budget into pro-community initiatives?! Its so complicated! I mean, golly, I guess they do include esteemed educators & community healers…

national experts…and technical wizards….brilliant visionaries…generational activists...and the collective wisdom of their elders."

So, to be clear: what would we do without the City's failed leadership and policies, and SPD’s "expert" oversight?...

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A thread:

"Black study and resistance must begin with love.
To love all is to fight relentlessly to end exploitation and oppression everywhere, even on behalf of those who think they hate us.

To love this way requires deep study and relentless struggle."

According to Black legal scholar Robin D. G. Kelley, Black resistance involves an endless cycle of love, study, & struggle. But we think it's equally important—as we toil for liberation—to pause intentionally and revel in the small and large moments of celebration...

@DecrimSeattle

Today is one of those moments.

Its been reported that a veto-proof majority of Seattle City Council publicly pledged to repurpose 50% of the Seattle Police Department (SPD) budget for pro-community initiatives, in support of @DecrimSeattle & our joint budget proposals.

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