1/Recap of yesterday’s Divest, Imagine, Invest Rally at McKinley Park w/@SunriseMvmtChi, @N4EJchicago, @GKMC18. Amrita spoke on environmental racism on the SW side & how elected officials like George Cardenas turn away from their community at times when we need them the most.
2/We want MAT out & want the Department of the Environment reestablished but the city says there’s no money. Amrita asked, “How can the city give MAT Asphalt over $50 MILLION in city contracts to poison their own people if there’s no money?"
3/How can the city give CPD $4.3 million dollars a day if there’s no money? About $1.8 BILLION A YEAR to fund CPD but there’s no money to fund a Department of Environment, fund our neglected schools, fund West and South Side communities or reopen mental health clinics?”
4/Cardenas, appointed Chair of the Health& Environmental Protection Committee by Lightfoot, is just 1 of many electees evading responsibility for their communities. Residents most impacted by environmental racism are the same people being overpoliced & brutalized by CPD the most.
5/As we marched towards MAT Asphalt, calling for an end to the system that allows violent actors to poison the air we breathe & emboldens police to use unnecessary force within our communities, a Sunrise member was arrested by CPD with no explanation.
6/Another @SunriseMvmtChi member told us to imagine what a Green New Deal could look like and what a future without police looks like. She said, “This is not safety, this is aggression and violence.” #DefundCPD #GreenNewDeal
7/We learned of BlPOC youth being beaten & arrested by CPD at another rally in the loop. @LoriLightfoot ordered bridges be raised. Youth barred from the affluent loop/NS. Racial & class divide we experience in this city was even more glaring. Our elected officials keep failing us
8/As Amrita asked yesterday, “What good is dreaming & fighting for a future with cleaner air to breathe, if the people- predominantly Black, Brown, & Indigenous- bearing the brunt of pollution are still being brutalized and killed by police every single day?” #DefundCPD 
