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Amaury Abreu talks about George Floyd, his own religion and desire to act in the face of the municipal construction of Lebanon in June. (Alanna Elder / Keystone Crossroads)
In early June, Amaury Abreu, 24, stood in front of a lot of outdoor municipal building demonstrators in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, calling through a megaphone the crowd to kneel to protest the police brutality and murder of George Floyd.
“What do we do with our breath?” the cry. “Are we silent? What about systems of oppression?”
More than two months later, Abreu and others are still pushing for a concrete replacement in the city of 26,000 other people between Harrisburg and Reading, not necessarily on the streets, but in the now virtual corridors of local government.
A major obstacle, they say, is representation.
“Lebanon is almost predominantly Hispanic. However, we don’t have any Hispanic commissions in the city,” Abreu said.
Most of the city and county government leaders are also white school boards. Abreu says too many local leaders don’t serve the whole community.
“When other people on the force have the ability to reinforce others but don’t have it, that’s a problem,” Abreu said.
Abreu criticized Lebanon’s mayor, Sherry Capello, for posting a video on social media after the demonstration demanding donations for the city’s pyrotechnic show, but wrote nothing about racism.
Capello, who refused to be interviewed for this article, spoke at the June protest and expressed his condolences to Floyd’s family. He directed others to the network bulletin forums on the sidewalk, where he said they can simply “share their considerations or write a person’s call in memory.”
“We see this activity as an opportunity for constructive engagement and we hope you will too. And they’ll be more in the future,” he said.
As an example of a disconnect between leaders and others of color, Jamari “J” Davis, a Lebanese loan officer, cited an editorial by District Attorney Pierre Hess Graf condemning riots and violence against the police.
“Now she’s the head of the police, so she has to say all that,” Davis said. “But once you communicate why, we can communicate the effect but the cause.”
“He didn’t even mention [George Floyd’s] name,” added Davis-Buie, Davis’ sister.
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Amaury Abreu says Floyd’s death brought the cause of racial justice to the fore. He admits that racism has not been at the heart of his concerns. Growing up in the Dominican Republic, where he said the breed was less “taboo,” he experienced the benefits of having light skin. Since the death of George Floyd, life-filled activists like Abreu have partnered with those who have been running to replace them for years.
An organization of facilitators, in addition to Abreu and Davis-Buie, organized an anti-racism seminar at the Sexual Assault Resources and Advice Center in Lebanon.
Davis-Buie was pleased to see that more of the same old suspects were listening, but still has reservations.
“I’m 50/50 with that. I think there are a lot of other people who come in and tick a box and say, “I did this, I’m fine.” And I think we have other people who come because they need to know, they need to learn,” he says.
Davis-Buie is a psychotherapist who lives in Lebanon but works basically in Dauphin County. As a black woman, she may not see her business thrive in her hometown. His brother says he has also discovered less in the county for the purpose of helping other people of color create wealth.
In June, as anti-racist education came to an end, Davis-Buie said he was surprised by the community’s willingness to learn.
“If you had told me three weeks ago that we were going to the Action Against Racism seminars, I would have laughed at you,” he says. “And if you had told me that they were going to fill up overnight, I would have laughed even louder.
The organization created the workshop in about ten days, hoping to channel the will to communicate about racism in action. Approximately 80 other people participated, most of them from the region, some registered in Australia, Minneapolis and Chicago. Davis-Buie said the seminar, which is expected to continue in partnership with a church and some other nonprofit in the county, encourages participants to go beyond what she calls “white dissonance.”
“So, even if you’re sitting there ticking a box, it’s going to be for them to sit through the 3 portions and not have some kind of ‘aha’ moment,” he says.
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Most of the people who attended the virtual workshop were white, as well as Mayor Capello and Police Chief Todd Breiner.
Davis-Buie more local decision makers will be present.
“They’re the ones who sit in the back workplace and say, ‘Okay, that’s what we’re going to do and that’s how it’s going to be.’ These are the ones I want to achieve, ” he said. “These are the ones I want to make sure you have a transparent perception. You can’t fight a war if you don’t feel what the challenge is.”
The seminar appears to have had a specific effect on Amy Keller, the only member of the city’s Democratic council.
“As a privileged white woman, I wasn’t aware of some of the things that came up, so it opened my eyes,” she said.
All participants were invited to plan the movements that would take place in seven days, seven weeks and seven months to combat racism. From there, Keller has become a key best friend for police transparency that many activists were about. She sought to download the city police manual, so she could review restrictions on the use of force and compare them with the national crusade 8 cannot wait, which supporters say reduces incidents of police brutality.
“First of all, I want to know what the policies are, so we can’t do anything without having to see them again,” Keller said in June. “So I’m just looking to get to it now, the first step, but it’s a little tricky to get there.”
Keller requested the policies at a city council assembly held through a videoconference. His connection fails, so he had to ask several times. Mayor Capello said she could not provide what she called “tactical” policies, and said her release could threaten officials or public safety.
Keller filed a request for the right to information to download the document. She said that tracking the police had to leave her area of convenience.
“We [my spouse and I] are donating to the police. We respect them. I pass them and greet them, and finally, lately, I’ve had black looks,” he says. “They know who I am, they know what I asked for, and they’re not happy. I wish you’d sense it’s not for me to have a challenge with the paintings you make personally. But I’ve heard other people of color in netpaintings say there are racial biases.”
On July 7, about two weeks later, the city published the police manual, clearing the tactical sections. Keller met with the mayor and the leader of the police to comb the main points and then said she was convinced that, at least in terms of policy, the people had put the right guarantees in place. The 200-page drafted document may be a starting point for a more detailed verbal exchange on police in Lebanon.
Around the same time, the mayor issued a series of “commitments to racial equity.” The police don’t use a strangulation, he said. Officers will now be forced to interfere to avoid excessive force. The police will go through a new annual training to reduce intellectual aptitude, and the Chief will inform the mayor of all court cases that oppose the officers.
Capello also pledged to organize a city corridor in user on surveillance. However, a date has not yet been selected due to the limit of 25 users for indoor events set to mitigate coronavirus spread.
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An organization that includes Keller, Davis and Davis-Buie advances with its own calendar. They started the assembly in early August to talk about their next steps in the fight against racism: attracting more people of color to local forums and political offices as the main topic.
Davis-Buie said those policing were a start, but would like to see more details and a more serious commitment.
“Personally, I think they’re lollipops. That’s how I feel,” he says. “So yes, we did what you wanted, now leave us alone.” I think movements speak more than words, even those that are posted online.”
Amaury Abreu believes that getting the police manual is a minor victory, she plans to keep pushing. He’s on the next thing.
At a recent COVID outdoor food control and distribution site in Lebanon, Abreu drove through a row of cars, greeted others in Spanish and English, and asked if they were registered to vote. He dressed in a mask and dressed and dressed in a paperweight with a pile of registration bureaucracy and mail-order voting requests. A couple of drivers took bureaucracy for the rest of the family circle to complete later.
Abreu can’t vote himself. He moved to the United States five years ago and is applying for citizenship. But now he attends council meetings online every month, talking about each and every aspect, from local art to the application of the housing code.
“It’s fun, to be honest, ” he said.
He says he’s more interested in setting an example of how more people can participate.
“We have the front thing that we’re looking to solve, but the truth is that it goes beyond that,” he said, “like, who’s looking, who’s inspired, who has the resources, and who says, ‘Wow, other people are running on it; we need them, we must give them power.’
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