Friends,
“Bloomington is a BOTH/AND community, not an EITHER/OR one,” I’ve often said. Meaning, we have to do several things at once – address climate change while also building economic justice, or improve mobility options while also strengthening job growth, or increase affordable housing while also improving core neighborhoods.
But the past 10 days, this dichotomy has taken on a new meaning to me.
After seeing horrifying videos of a racist attack on a Black resident of Bloomington near Lake Monroe -- and additional race-related incidents around the same 4th of July weekend – it strikes me that, in an important sense, we must be an EITHER/OR community.
EITHER we really tackle the racism that persists among and around us, OR we’ll never truly be the progressive community we aim (and claim) to be. It’s one or the other.
Many of us are mobilizing, speaking up, and taking actions to assure justice is done in recent individual cases. That’s essential. We know also that it’s a long and hard effort to eliminate structural racism and implicit bias and create a truly inclusive, welcoming community (and country) for everyone.
We should gain resolve knowing that we have made progress as a community and country, over the past decade and centuries. And we should bolster our resolve knowing how much remains to be done, and with urgency. Bloomington must continue with serious efforts together to confront issues of race and our shortcomings.
You’ll hear more soon about our Bridges initiative on race. You’ll also see ideas in our Recovery Plan and our 2021 budget proposal about how Bloomington should move forward in how we fund and manage public safety, climate change, racial justice, economic opportunity and more. We need to embody our vision and values in our budgets and our actions. More ideas are welcome. Please share them with me and each other.
As we address all of these big challenges, we are square in the business of building the community we want to live in – a Bloomington that meets our highest aspirations.
In these challenging times, please take care of yourselves, each other, Bloomington, and our country and world.
Democratically yours,
John
P.S.: I’ll share some more thoughts on how to move forward, in a speech planned for noon on Thursday. Watch for it. I’d also encourage you to check out Joe Biden’s latest information about how we Build Back Better, full of very good ideas to help America get back on track. And finally, for more information about recent events in Bloomington, one source is the city website HERE, with FAQs and compiled media coverage.