Activists meet with local leaders to discuss race
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Panelists who led the Juneteenth Panel on Black Issues included, from left, Ahmad Morris-Walker, A’Shon Burgess, Zhiere Patmon, Faith McClendon and Kierra King.
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Legislators who attended a meeting with young activists about race were, from left, Reps. Tim O’Neal, Pam Snyder, and Jason Ortitay and state Sen. Camera Bartolotta.
After organizing peaceful demonstrations in the month after George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, a group of young activists wants to move from protest to policy change.
The Black Americans, all in their early 20s, met with local legislators Friday at the Juneteenth Panel on Black Issues at the LeMoyne Multicultural Community Center to ask them questions about issues that impact their push for racial equality and justice.
“We’re here to engage with and appeal to people of higher authority who can make change happen for us,” said Zhiere Patmon, 21, of Washington, one of the panelists.
In attendance were state Reps. Tim O’Neal, Pam Snyder and Jason Ortitay, and state Sen. Camera Bartolotta. State Rep. Bud Cook and U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler did not respond to an invitation to attend.
The panelists asked legislators for their positions on several topics, including curriculum on Black history in schools, defunding police, no knock warrants and choke holds, disparities in health care among Blacks and other populations, Black voter rights, and labor and workers’ rights.
Panelist Kierra King, 21, of Canonsburg, said today’s curriculum is designed in such a way that makes Black students feel inferior.
“The majority of us learn in school that, one, Black people were brought to this country on boats, picked cotton, discovered the underground railroad, and were freed by Abraham Lincoln, and two, that Martin Luther King Jr. was the face of the Civil Rights movement and that Rosa Parks said, ‘no,'” she said. “We do not address systemic racism or talk about the significant contributions (of Black Americans). How can we expect our Black children to believe they can can grow up to be anything they want to be if we continue to teach a history that subconsciously preaches and praises oppression?”
Panelists also shared implicit biases encountered by Black women, such as the belief that they feel less pain than white women and are, therefore, under-treated for pain.
Patmon discussed efforts to suppress Black voters and asked legislators to help ensure voting rights.
The panel also included Ahmad Morris-Walker and Faith McClendon of Canonsburg, and A’Shon Burgess of Washington.
Bartolotta said the topics discussed are “all conversations we desperately need to have.”
O’Neal said it was important to attend the event.
“Obviously, (race) is a huge topic here recently, but it’s long overdue to be a topic. The reality is every person, regardless of the color of their skin, is a person who deserves dignity.”
Ortitay said the meeting was “just the start of the conversation.”
“We want to continue working with you so we have meaningful reforms that actually work the way that you envision them,” he told the panel.
The panelists also thanked the lawmakers for attending and invited them to come to a peaceful protest that will be held in Canonsburg today.
“We know that we want to continue our contact with you and keep pushing to make change,” said King.
She said Saturday’s protest is “a gathering to spread awareness, to spread knowledge like we tried to do today, just to educate our community on the social injustices and changes we’re trying to make.”
The demonstration will begin at noon at the Canonsburg Borough building parking lot.