I am also supporting the ACTS Youth Council in their collaboration with the Education and Equity Task Force members, and taking next steps with Criminal Justice/Policing reform, where a new leader, DeWayne Comer, is being trained with unflagging enthusiasm. You will soon hear directly from those leaders on their work. Recently, I’ve worked with Bishop Colette Matthews-Carter, Board member and leader of the recently relaunched ACTS Clergy Caucus. I write this the day after their "debut" to the community, a Virtual Town Hall meeting with local officials to address the important needs of the community around COVID19. The online event was well attended and quite a success! Additionally, I've done quite a few wellness 1-on-1 calls, and I have a goal to do many more around our justice work.
As I shared at the Town Hall meeting, we CANNOT and SHALL NOT go back to business as usual whenever we reach a post-pandemic world. It is those very structures of racial and social inequities that produced the depth of harm that impacts so many in our community and country. To thwart those very pressures to go back will require engagement by you, your neighbors, your co-workers, your congregations. Only as a collective body can WE make a movement to both demand and create the change necessary for a truly just and equitable society. We must look forward and create a NEW NORMAL. Tell me your story, and I will tell you mine. Then we will share our stories with one another. That is how we build power. That is how we make change.
Linda Malik
ACTS Community Organizer
315-416-6363
lindamalik@acts-syracuse.org