Sacramento curfew is ‘oppressive,’ and activists say they’re ‘insulted’ by the move
Two community activists say Sacramento and its mayor are making a mistake by instituting an evening curfew that will only create more methods to criminalize those protesting against police killings and government oppression of black people.
The city of Sacramento will have a curfew Monday night, and city officials called in the National Guard after three days of protests in response to the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.
Tanya Faison, the leader of Black Lives Matter Sacramento, said city officials need to be talking to those protesting and learn why they’re marching in the streets. She said city officials need to find solutions that will help stop the ongoing racial oppression by police and others that has so many angry.
“I think curfews are very oppressive,” Faison said Monday afternoon. “If they need to respond to what’s going on, they need to do it with resolution.”
Demonstrations have continued late into the night, marches have blocked downtown streets and momentarily stalled traffic on nearby Interstate 5. The two past nights have resulted in theft and vandalism in downtown and midtown, which came after peaceful protests against police brutality. About 130 businesses had their doors and windows broken over the course of both night, according to the Downtown Sacramento Partnership.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Monday he wants to shut down the city before it gets dark to end the type of destruction the downtown has experienced this weekend. He said he doesn’t know how effective the curfew will be, but he wants to provide another tool to police.
Sonia Lewis, of the Liberation For Black Sacramento, said she was “insulted” after learning of the city’s curfew. She said the curfew shows the city’s lack of compassion and unwillingness to listen to the demands of the young demonstrators who want to end police brutality.
Lewis said she has received many calls from community leaders throughout Sacramento, including black community leaders, asking her to convince young protesters to end their demonstrations and calm them down. She said she’s not going to do it, saying it would compromise her own beliefs.
“We’ve been trying calm for 400 years, and it didn’t get us anywhere,” said Lewis, who also is a member of Decarcerate Sacramento.
She said the city’s curfew is only daring protesters to violate it, “a notion that people are going to push back on.” She said law enforcement is agitating protesters on the street, which has resulted in police firing rubber bullets and tear gas at people under the cover of darkness.
Faison said she’s received many calls and messages from businesses demanding that members of Black Lives Matter clean up the damaged property. She said members of her group have not been breaking into businesses to steal merchandise. Faison said she saw a lot of people with “white faces” tearing up buildings.
“I’m not going to tell black folks how to vent (their frustration),” Fasion said. “Although, I have not seen our people looting at all, in Sacramento.”
Lewis said the majority of demonstrators are protesting against injustice, while there are others joining the protests only as opportunists trying to steal and create havoc. She said she saw huge gatherings of white people “doing things that put black lives in danger.”
Faison said the main focus of the protests has been a response to a long history of “terror and murder” at the hands of the government and racist people. She said those who want to join in the fight against oppression of black people need to fight for that reason.
Lewis says “disorganized chaos” can send a message to a capitalist system that continues “looting and rioting” from communities. She said has compassion for business owners, especially black and minority-owned business owners, hit hard by vandalism and theft.
“The frustration has so many layers,” Lewis said Monday afternoon. “Every business has insurance, and that’s what it’s for.”
Lewis hopes that there are plenty of people on the streets Monday night violating the curfew to show the politicians that it is not the right solution.
Faison said the city’s curfew will give police a “green light” to cite, arrest or jail who are trying to fight against oppression. She said calling in the National Guard will having a long-lasting negative affect on Sacramento.
“The mayor is creating more opportunities for criminalizing us,” Faison said. “He’s creating a war zone. And that’s trauma for everyone, especially black people.”
Faison said she was part of meeting between Gov. Gavin Newsom and other community leaders to discuss this weekend’s unrest. She said the meeting went well, and it seemed that Newsom wanted to genuinely hear from community leaders, which could lead to lasting change.
“The problems that we have are bigger than one person can fix,” Faison said.
But Faison believes the city’s curfew is sending the wrong message to those who are being oppressed and want to make their voices heard.
“Our mayor cares more about property than about lives,” Faison said. “And he’s making it very obvious.”
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 5:10 PM.
