2021 PRIORITIES

Acknowledging Difficult Truths

After the Capitol insurrection, many proclaimed that “This is not who we are.” However, we must acknowledge that white supremacy enforced by violence is an indelible aspect of American history.”

There is a direct line from the violent growth of our State and City to the violence that is visited upon communities of Color, particularly Black Angelenos, to this day.

LA County is one of the most progressive parts of the most progressive state in the U.S, but we bear our own scars of a racist system that has perpetuated white supremacy, anti-Black violence and profound inequity.

These inequities threaten to collapse our region’s future stability.

“We must reckon with the fact that our systems of government, business and civil society were built to serve the power structures based on racist principles, angry violent mobs are just one tool used to enforce these structures.”

We must hold our current leaders to an equal account in repairing the trauma and suffering embedded in our society.

After the release of the Committee’s report, No Going Back, in the fall, we spent months meeting with more than 1,000 community stakeholders, elected officials, business and civic leaders. Over the course of those conversations and after deliberation within the Committee, we decided that we can start by effecting immediate change in a few key areas:

We have identified a few areas to make immediate impact in 2021:

Our systems did not fail. They were, in fact, designed to benefit the rich and powerful and they have been devastatingly effective.

We all share a responsibility to dismantle and recreate systems amid an atmosphere of violent protection of the status quo.

We encourage everyone who invested in systems change in Los Angeles to use the No Going Back report as a reference point as we rebuild our organizations, institutions and systems and to join us by signing the No Going Back LA pledge.

Miguel Santana
Chair of the Committee for Greater LA