Author: Josue Rodriguez

In the middle of a pandemic, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are not just being killed at alarming rates by COVID19, but are yet again being senselessly targeted by police, and some have been murdered.

For years, on the first day of each National ADAPT Action we hold legal and new members’ meetings. These meetings always include a reminder of police brutality toward Black, brown and indigenous people, and people from other oppressed communities.

National ADAPT condemns the recent murders of:

Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old, unarmed young man who was out jogging, and murdered by the McMichaels, who were tipped off by an off-duty police officer;

Nicolas Chavez, a 27-year-old father of 3 young children, was fatally shot after Chavez was on his knees reeling from being shot not only by sandbags but also a taser;

Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old certified EMT and first responder during the pandemic. On May 13 police forcibly entered her apartment and shot her 8 times as she slept.

Malik Williams The Police Department in Federal Way, Washington executed this man while he sat in his car. Not being able to move he was shot 86 times.

Jeremy McDole 28, parapalegic killed by Wilmington, DE police.

Saheed Vassell shot 19 times by NYC police Department. The officers jumped out and started firing without warning.He had a psychiatric disability.

Dreasjon “Sean” Reed, a 21-year-old, gunned down by Indianapolis police while he was live streaming a Facebook video; and

On May 26, George Floyd, who was murdered by suffocation while handcuffed and on the ground when a police officer kneeled with all his weight on Floyd’s neck.

We vehemently condemn and must put an end to all murders of BIPOC by police brutality.

Engaging in protest and non-violent civil disobedience is a right National ADAPT has long exercised under the First Amendment of our nation’s Constitution.
However, to protest without fear of violent reprisal, and even death, is a privilege reserved for our white siblings in the disability rights movement. Our disability rights movement owes a great deal to the Black civil rights movement that laid the groundwork for us under the spray of firehoses, the torrent of fists, and too many bullets.

We live today with a system that compounds the social and psychic damage experienced by the ancestors of Black, brown and Indigenous people, bridging the mob lynchings, and smallpox laden blankets of yesteryear into police “lynchings” of today. It is long past time for this to end!

National ADAPT, our local chapters, and our individual advocates and activists commit to the following:

We will call out as racial terrorism the acts of white people when they threaten, harass, and commit acts of violence against Black people and other people of color in public spaces.

We will not re-play, post, or amplify images, videos or depictions of Black people and other people from marginalized groups experiencing violence, because we recognize the trauma experienced by repeated exposure to these images.

We will continue to actively oppose the institutionalization of all people, and the damage done through institutionalization. Our fight includes opposing mass incarceration, the over-criminalization in the legal system, and the racial presumption of guilt that permeate the Black experience in this country and result in disproportionate numbers of BIPOC living in prisons, jails, psychiatric facilities, nursing facilities, and other institutions.

We will continue our anti-racism and equity work to lift up the experiences of multiply marginalized members of our community, to center them, their stories, and their solutions to the systemic racism and ableism we are committed to bringing to an end.
We hold ourselves and our disability rights siblings to the anti-racism work that is intrinsically linked to the fight for disability rights.

As an organization made up of committed social justice warriors, ADAPT cleaves to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as one of the leaders of the movement we build upon in our work, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

We, the members of National ADAPT, demand the senseless murders end. We can have no justice, no peace, no freedom and no rest until we have justice for our Black and Brown and Indigenous family.

#BlackLivesMatter

#SayTheirNames

#LivesWorthyOfLife