Community Coalition Updates

The Champaign County Community Coalition was interrupted in March by the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, but it has been hard at work and adapting to the situation. Recent meetings and events have been online and working with the community. This post has information on their most recent meeting as well as some previous meetings and events over the past month or so.

Their most recent meeting (agenda, video) was mainly a response to the George Floyd killing in police custody, the protests, and the outrage across the country and locally. There were several speakers:

• Mayor of Champaign Deb Feinen and Mayor of Urbana Diane Marlin
• NAACP of Champaign County President Minnie Pearson
• Paign to Peace youth group that organized the large recent protest
• U of I Chancellor Robert Jones
• Champaign County Sheriff and police chiefs of Champaign, Urbana, UIPD, and Parkland Police.
• Michael Schlosser of the U of I Police Training Institute  

Slides from the presentations are available in PDF format from the Coalition website here. The slides contain advice for white allies, book recommendations, and presentation slides from the NAACP of Champaign County and Paign to Peace. The advice for white people to listen and reflect on the concept of privilege was shared on social media quite a bit.

The concept or wording of "white privilege" can start arguments all on its own. In this context its not referring to a privileged lifestyle, but that even white people who have faced adversity and hardship in their lives may have faced even greater obstacles if they hadn't been white. For example working hard and scraping by one's whole life, but then add anti-black discrimination or biases on top of that. Even if folks might be able to have a civil discussion or disagreement at that point, it can be difficult just to get through the semantic debates without people getting frustrated and hurt.

The speakers all expressed what appeared to be a genuine desire for significant change from the status quo. In a room full of folks ranging from activists to law enforcement to politicians, the language used could leave room a great deal of disagreement on what that looks like to each of them. Minnie Pearson and the Paign to Peace members both made powerful arguments to be listened to and taken seriously. They are not complaining to complain, but have a very different experience in America that. They're asking the rest of the community to join them to change that.

The police chiefs generally condemned the killing of George Floyd and expressed their desire to work with the community to move forward and do better. Chief Seraphin of the Urbana Police Department was under more public pressure to build trust due to the local case of Aleyah Lewis and public protests demanding an investigation into the violent arrest and video (more on that in Urbana City Council updates here). Chief Cobb of the Champaign Police and Chief Seraphin were guests in the first hour of "Penny for Your Thoughts" radio program this week as well talking about these issues.

At the end of the meeting Tracy Parsons called on the anonymous critics in the Zoom and Facebook chat to show up to the Coalition meetings and join them in the work with the real names. WCCU had coverage of the meeting here. WCIA had some background information previewing the meeting here (with post-meeting coverage here).


Previous meetings:

The May Community Coalition meeting (agenda, video) was closer to the format prior to the coronavirus cancellations. The meeting minutes are up here on the Coalition website for anyone who would prefer to do a quick scan through the information covered as opposed to the full video.

As the first regular, but remote on-line, meeting of the Coalition there was an overview of the adaptations taking place in the community. The police chief updates unfortunately reported an early rise in gun violence compared to last year already at the County level and in Champaign-Urbana. The campus police are working on public safety in a situation where students are mostly absent from campuses.

The interim UIPD police chief is expecting a new chief to be appointed prior to his planned retirement at the end of July. He noted that there were four finalists being considered at that time and he hoped whoever is selected will be on the job by July 1st. I haven't seen any updates on that appointment yet.

After the coronavirus update from the C-UPHD, there was a look at programs and services adapting to the stay at home and social distancing requirements. Of special concern with local gun violence is a lack of summer activities as most are currently difficult if not impossible to adapt to under current restrictions.

The Community Violence Response Task Force was looking at the Boston 10 Point model for possible violence interrupter strategies locally. They were looking for feedback, volunteers, and potential funding sources towards that goal.

There was a panel discussion on Champaign-Urbana gun violence in a program highlighted by the Coalition and covered in a previous Cheat Sheet post here: Aiming for Peace 217

There was also a panel on April 29th discussing the impact and response for the coronavirus in local immigrant communities. From the Coalition facebook post:

We hosted our third panel discussion with community experts, this time to discuss the impact of COVID-19 in Champaign County’s immigrant communities.

Featuring: Gloria Yen (New American Welcome Center at the University YMCA), Mariel Huasanga (Illinois Small Business Development Center at Champaign County EDC), Lucía Maldonado (Urbana School District #116), and John Matanda (Congolese Community Center).

That full panel discussion is available here on vimeo. The University YMCA's New American Welcome Center had links and information for coronavirus for local immigrants in a resource guide here in multiple languages. The New American Welcome Center was also recently in the news for its fundraising efforts for immigrant relief. WCIA had a short blurb and article here. In general, many of the coronavirus impacts have been hitting various local immigrant communities in amplified or unique ways.

Maldonado and Matanda spoke of some of their unique experiences trying to get information and services to Latinx and Congolese immigrant communities. Getting information in a language or understandable and trustworthy way can be a challenge. Access to the internet and online resources can be a challenge for many immigrants, but especially undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants face additional challenges on top of being more likely to be essential workers and have less access to services. They are also not included in many of the relief programs available and legal fears and challenges interacting with various systems.

Huasanga spoke of various support and information available at the Champaign SBDC website and some of the language translation services they have been offering.

The information slide at the end had a short link to the YMCA New American Welcome Center's coronavirus resource guide: http://tinyurl.com/cuimmigrantcovid

And their immigrant helpline (in English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic languages): 217-417-5897