EBLRLA Supports BAAMLS Letter to SF Mayor Gavin Newsom against SF Police Chief George Gascón's Recent Remarks
Through the Minority Bar Coalition (MBC), the EBLRLA Board of Directors learned of and voted to endorse the Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers (BAAML)’s letter to SF Mayor Gavin Newsom against SF Police Chief George Gascón’s recent remarks, which reportedly associated terrorist violence with the Middle Eastern community of San Francisco.
In its letter, BAAML asks for more than a generic apology, seeking concrete measures to redress the Chief Gascón’s symbolic harm and to reestablish the Middle Eastern community’s faith in the SF Police Department.
“Associating Middle Eastern, Muslim or Arab communities with terrorist violence plays into the trope that those communities are inherently violent, which is premised on longstanding, fundamentally racist (orientalist) stereotypes,” noted EBLRLA president Marc-Tizoc González.
He continued, “While Chief Gascón and others may think the remark merits no more than a simple apology, this notion misunderstands the symbolic power of authority figures’ statements. We need police chiefs who are educated about the pernicious history and effects of racism, willing to take responsibility when they make mistakes and courageous enough to make sincere redress even for inadvertent harms.”