HRC: ‘No Kings’ an important moment for human rights

Presenter: At the Eugene Human Rights Commission June 17, a farewell address from the outgoing chair, Blake Burrell.

[00:00:07] Blake Burrell (Human Rights Commission, chair): As I’m stepping away from the Human Rights Commission and I end my term, I think that we are in a country that’s in turmoil. And this constitutional crisis and the dialogue that we’re having surrounding these issues, there are very real human rights implications.

[00:00:30] And watching Los Angeles and the use of military…we are a progressive West Coast city and we do have policies that have been specifically indexed. We have funds that have been restricted. The airport’s a great example of just infrastructure money that we can’t access as a result of the city of Eugene saying, ‘We’re not going to participate in that. We value immigrants and we’re not collaborating with ICE.’

[00:00:54] We’re looking at a genuine defunding of our local municipality due to our honoring human rights in various areas. And there’s a lot of providers in our community that are being asked to remove DEI, being asked to not promote illegal gender ideology, being asked to use immigrant screening databases in order to access pass-through dollars for public funds.

[00:01:21] Presenter: Office of Equity and Community Engagement Manager Fabio Andrade:

[00:01:26] Fabio Andrade (Eugene, Office of Equity and Community Engagement): The city may lose about $32 million in federal funding if the requirements for the grants all include, like, adding in that the city supports immigration enforcement—which the city cannot do based on the state and local law.

[00:01:42] Presenter: Blake said he saw the massive ‘No Kings’ protests as a resurgence in support for human rights.

[00:01:49] Blake Burrell (Human Rights Commission, chair): The ‘No Kings’ protest was I think a pretty significant moment in us talking about human rights issues and emerging issues at a national level and a lot of folks locally showed up to that.

[00:02:00] And I wanted to just share my participation in that and that it was a really valuable display of solidarity among a lot of different demographics on a lot of different human rights issues that have been perpetuated as a result of decisions within our executive branch.

[00:02:15] And I think that that was a very important moment for the city of Eugene’s human rights movement. And I just wanted to acknowledge that moment and the folks that organized that because it is not easy to organize a protest of that scale.

[00:02:33] Presenter: Outgoing vice chair of the Human Rights Commission, Thomas Hiura:

[00:02:38] Thomas Hiura (Human Rights Commission, vice chair): It’s just powerful to see the extent of the fascism we’re living under and how we seek to reclaim dignity for all people.

[00:02:48] Presenter: Human Rights Commissioner Cynthia Cannon Poindexter:

[00:02:52] Cynthia Cannon Poindexter (Eugene Human Rights Commission): I wanted to echo the human rights focus of the ‘No Kings’ signs and speeches, because even if ‘human rights’ was not stated, that’s what the topic was. Most of the signs, most of the speeches were directly related to reinstating and protecting human rights. That was very awesome. Basically, we took over the whole city on Saturday (Yeah. Fabulous.).

[00:03:23] Blake Burrell (Human Rights Commission, chair): I took some pictures of signs: ‘Human rights are everyone’s rights.’ ‘We, the people, have the power.’ ‘No parades with tanks, No ICE, no thanks.’ ‘Honk if you’re done being on the couch.’ ‘Immigrants are not the enemy.’ ‘No one is illegal on colonized land.’ ‘Love your neighbor.’ ‘More love, less hate.’ ‘Feed the hungry.’

[00:03:55] I think that it’s very clear that the public engaging in this protest is just asking for common decency within the United States.

[00:04:04] What’s happening is that we have a federal government that’s saying, ‘If you don’t play ball with us, you don’t get the resources to fund your community, and to support populations that we don’t agree with on an ideological level.’ And that is a abhorrent breach of human rights globally and nationally.

[00:04:24] And watching legislators and mayors and people being vocal, getting arrested is dangerous. And that we’re in that country right now. And that’s what’s happening here. And there are people that work in this building that that could happen to very easily.

[00:04:40] Cynthia Cannon Poindexter (Eugene Human Rights Commission): So, I’m glad that the Sunday meeting is focused on what resistance now looks like because resistance is the only option.

[00:04:54] Presenter: The Human Rights Commission will conduct an award ceremony and panel discussion Sunday June 22. The panel discussion is titled, ‘Reimagining Resistance.’ From the Office of Equity and Community Engagement, Melissa Cariño:

[00:05:09] Melissa Cariño: We did have a meeting a couple of weeks ago to discuss the leadership awards and the community panel happening this Sunday at the downtown library in the Bascom-Tykeson Room. And that’s happening from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. We will have Councilor (Lyndsie) Leech, hopefully, if everything’s okay, will announce the awardees.

[00:05:32] And then we’re going to hold a community panel. We currently have four secured to talk about ‘Reimagining Resistance’ in these times.

[00:05:42] And I know that the Commissioners are drafting up some questions to ask the panelists that I’d like to share with them before Sunday. I’m also collecting their bios and I’ll order the awards as well.

[00:05:57] So far we have Guadalupe Quinn who will be on the panel; someone from our interfaith rapid response network for immigrants; some of you may remember Anna Lardner, who was at our panel in December. She’s agreed to come back, which is awesome. Her organization has also been nominated for the awards. And then Dr. Lawrence Rasheed and his wife will be there. He’s from LCC and he works with young people. So he is trying to see if there’s a youth voice that can be there as well. We’re also asking a young person from our youth advisory council as well.

[00:06:36] Presenter: With the ‘No Kings’ protest demonstrating new interest in human rights, Eugene’s Human Rights Commission will hold its annual awards ceremony at the downtown library Sunday, June 22, starting at 1 p.m.