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In the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police officers and uprisings across the world, we took the call to action seriously and formed a committee at CERI to examine anti-Black racism within us. As a regular feature of our staff meetings, we dedicated safe space for critical self-reflection, honest sharing, and consciousness building about what lives within our bodies. Together, we processed current events, from the protests of summer 2020 to the recent white supremacist attacks at our nation’s Capitol, we educated ourselves on Black histories, such as the massacre in Tulsa, and we deepened our solidarity with Black Lives Matter. As survivors of war, genocide, refugee camps, resettlement, and violence, we know that the struggles of our communities are connected with the struggles of Black people. In August 2020, we held a town hall event in collaboration with Asian Prisoner Support Committee and Devata Giving Circle. This town hall, which was attended by over 60 community members, drew connections and parallels between histories of survivors of the Khmer Rouge Genocide with structural violence faced by Black communities in the United States. From there, we brought discussions to our weekly support groups and learned about the complicated relationships between Southeast Asian communities and Black communities here in Oakland, with conditions of poverty and over-policing that often pitted communities against each other. In these conversations, many community members moved from judgement to commitment to Black Lives Matter.
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