Year: 2020

Just a quick update to say our final General Meeting of 2020 will be held via Zoom on December 16th, 2020, at 6:30pm – 8pm! Zoom information will be sent out via email list and added to our Calendar event the morning of the meeting. We are not slowing down, though… municipal elections are coming up, and we will be organizing volunteers for the candidates we want to see on City Council! Additionally, the work to remove police from schools as well as challenge city leaders to invest in community based resources and solutions continues.

If you’d like to join us at our next General Meeting and have not been to SURJ Worcester yet, please click the Join Us! tab and fill out an interest form! Our next New Members Orientation is this evening, but we can loop you in in January, too.

Here’s to a new year of building up our communities together.

Our next General Meeting will take place on November 18th, 2020 from 6:30pm – 8pm ET on Zoom. Meeting information will be sent out to our mailing list as well as shared to our Facebook event on the morning of Nov. 18th!

We have launched our new onboarding process for new members! We are hoping this will make it easier and less intimidating to begin work with SURJ Worcester. Up on the menu bar, you’ll see a link to Join Us! Fill out a New Member Interest Form and then register for an upcoming New Members Orientation. We’ll use the Orientation time to talk all things SURJ Worcester mission and values, past and current work, affinity groups and work groups, and have plenty of time for Q&A! Once new folks’ have completed the form and an orientation meeting, you’re welcome to join an Affinity Group. After a few meetings with your Affinity Group, you may wish to join a Work Group or attend General Meetings, and participate fully throughout SURJ Worcester.

As always, we are open to feedback on this new process, and appreciate your patience as we learn and grow!

14 August 2020

Showing Up for Racial Justice-Worcester, MA

The Worcester chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ Worcester) supports the Worcester Board of Health in recommending that the Worcester Police Department adopt the twelve policy reforms put forth during the June 25th meeting of the Worcester Board of Health. Board member David Fort presented the Board with a list of twelve recommendations aimed at reducing racism and police brutality within the WPD, and the Board voted to send the WPD these recommendations with the intention of discussing the matter in greater depth in the near future. The WPD failed to appear at the Board’s following meeting on July 13th, to which they were directly invited. Adoption of these recommendations offers the WPD an opportunity to take meaningful, tangible steps towards greater accountability to the residents of Worcester. Refusal to take concrete steps toward improving the department would send a clear message to residents of Worcester and beyond about WPD’s accountability as an institution.

Systemic racism and its symptom of police brutality are unquestionably matters of public health. The COVID-19 pandemic has been but one recent showcase of race-based health inequities in this county, and in Worcester County, as in many other counties across the US, Black residents have the highest rate of infection of any racial group (NY Times, 7/5/2020). Compounding this crisis, as noted by Mr. Fort, police violence is a leading cause of death for young men of color, especially Black men (National Academy of Sciences). As Mr. Fort notes, even when interactions with police do not escalate to their most tragic conclusion, aggressive policing has wide-ranging impacts on the mental health of heavily-policed individuals and communities (American Journal of Public Health). We are continually being presented with more evidence that policing within structural racism is an issue of the utmost importance to the field of public health.

Given the indisputable prevalence of these inequities and the attention rightfully being paid to them, this moment provides us an opportunity to take action. It is imperative that, in working towards a more just, equitable future for Worcester, the Worcester Board of Health be part of the discussions and decision-making process. SURJ Worcester encourages the Worcester Police Department adopting these twelve recommendations as part of an ongoing, broad-based effort towards intersectional racial justice in Worcester. We support Board member Fort’s efforts to advance discussions and policies promoting racial justice and holding WPD to the standard that residents of Worcester deserve.

The response to Black Lives Matter can never be to rally behind policing. Please read SURJ Worcester’s statement regarding recent statements and upcoming events that attempt to distract from the rising social movements to question police department budgets and support the demands of BIPOC people for public investment in their communities.

Full Statement Here.