LA City Council reminds us to revive Black and brown unity

After acknowledging and celebrating our history, as well as recognizing the Latinx champions who came before us, the commemoration of Latinx Heritage Month is once again fading from the nation’s collective consciousness. Every year, the same goes for Black History Month or Indigenous Heritage Month. 

As a brown person who works in partnership with organizations that advocate for Black liberation, I believe the solution lies in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) unity. 

This week, that unity has been threatened. The release of racist anti-Black rhetoric from three Latinx members of the Los Angeles City Council has exposed fractures in a political partnership that has been essential in the fight for equity and justice across California and the nation. President Biden himself has weighed in on the events, calling for the leader’s resignation. 

LA’s model of ethnically diverse governance is under threat, and its fallout would have major national implications ahead of the November election. 

Now, more than ever, BIPOC allyship needs to be recentered in the heart of our shared fight for equity and justice. 

In my work, I’ve seen first-hand that to achieve abject justice and equity in this country, BIPOC activists must work together, uplifting and rebuilding vibrant, healthy communities across the country. 

Our shared BIPOC struggle, reflected during annual heritage months, clearly articulates the fight for liberation across race and class, against white supremacy. It’s time we harness that momentum and turn it into a moment of unity, bringing together new and growing coalitions. 

As the United States inches closer to becoming a majority people of color nation, teaching and learning from past struggles is essential. It’s our moral, economic and political duty to harness the examples of the activists who came before us to build up BIPOC leaders to run social justice organizations and drive systemic change.

The through line is clear, and, as coalitions, we must unify our shared generational experience of disinvestment and work to transform the social and economic conditions that foster addiction, crime, violence and poverty by building community-based institutions that involve millions in creating, influencing, and changing public policy. We are stronger together.

Some organizations are leading the charge: Community Coalition (CoCo), for example, is a South Los Angeles organization at the heart of rebuilding efforts from the cocaine public health crisis and 1992 uprising. Founded by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), CoCo has been a part of Los Angeles’ political landscape for three decades. It works to unite Black and Latino people in South Los Angeles around issues of housing discrimination, economic development and better transportation services — and was founded intentionally as an African American and Latino organization to advance racial and economic justice.

As a member of CoCo’s inaugural National Organizing Fellowship Class, I am learning alongside other BIPOC activists with extensive organizing experience. Together, we’re expanding our toolbox to apply tried and true power-building strategies to move key campaigns within our own community, by designing local projects and bringing the lessons learned home to implement movements and activations. 

While movements cannot be exported, all our communities benefit when we lean into knowledge sharing and work through the greatest lessons learned over decades of developing leaders, winning policies and building power. Building out an advanced civic engagement apparatus to activate at home is how we build up the leaders of tomorrow. 

With Latinx Heritage Month in the rearview mirror and Indigenous Heritage Month just around the corner, the moment is now. We must come together, remembering historical allyships and our shared struggle for justice and equity, learning from the champions who came before us to effect strategic change today.

Phillip Roybal, a formerly incarcerated youth and athlete working to create stability in his community through advocacy and athletics, is a 2022 National Community Coalition fellow.  Roybal is also the youth justice organizing manager at Colorado Circles for Change.