PUBLIC BANK NYC COALITION MEMBERS ISSUE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES

 

The undersigned members of the Public Bank NYC coalition made the following statement:

We stand with all those participating in the ongoing movement for Black liberation. We demand justice for Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Rayshard Brooks, and the many other Black lives cut short by police and anti-Black violence.

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Our coalition is organizing for a world where Black communities are safe, healthy, and have autonomy, care, and self-determination. That world is impossible while police and prisons inflict state-sanctioned violence on Black people and Black communities. We acknowledge that our work follows in the wake of centuries-old movements to dismantle and reimagine institutions rooted in a history of anti-Blackness. This systemic anti-Blackness began on plantations, but is mirrored today, in part, in the ways Wall Street banks and megacorporations loot Black communities for profit. The police exist to maintain this exploitative economic system by protecting and serving private property, capital and profit. Just compare the criminalization and brutal treatment of protesters with the complete lack of accountability imposed on Wall Street by our “justice system.”

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A public bank would allow NYC to increase the impact and oversight of public money -- including funds divested from the NYPD -- and provide an avenue to divest from Wall Street banks that support policing, prisons and other exploitative institutions. We support the demands of NYC Budget Justice, and strongly encourage the NYC Council, especially those members who support our coalition and its work, to take decisive action to end police violence and incarceration in our city. Through public banking, NYC can invest our vast public resources into institutions that truly make communities safe: affordable housing, small and worker-owned businesses, community-controlled renewable energy, financial cooperatives, and more.

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In this moment, it is essential to imagine and build institutions that enable bountiful Black life and Black futures. Our coalition pledges to continue the fight to shift economic power to Black and Indigenous communities in New York. This work is not done until we fully divest from institutions that exploit and extract wealth from people, and invest in an economy rooted in cooperation, democracy, and Black life.

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[list in formation]

• Carroll Gardens Association

• Community and Worker Ownership Project, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies

• Cooper Square Committee

• Food and Water Watch

• Freedom to Thrive

• Housing Conservation Coordinators

• Inclusiv

• Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union

• New Economy Project

• New York Communities for Change

• Sunrise NYC

• The Working World