Justice News, Events and Action Alerts Update

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♦ = Immediate Action Requested   ♦ = Event
♦ = News   ♦ = Article

JUUstice Washington Organizational News

Refuge, Immigrant and Migrant Solidarity (RIMS) Action Team

RIMS Calendar

♦ Nourishing Network presents Guest Speaker: Chris Lovings, speaking on  Immigration 101: What to do if ICE visits.  Lovings, an East Side Legal Assistance Program  pro bono attorney, will provide you with information and tools to help inform and educate your clients and yourself on individual rights and what you can and cannot do when confronted by ICE officials at your home or office. You will also be given a list of other resources you can share. January 21st, 3:00-4:30 pm, Issaquah YWCA. More 

♦ Washington state sues over courthouse immigration arrests.  Washington state sued the Trump administration Tuesday seeking to stop its practice of arresting people at courthouses for immigration violations, saying it interferes with the state’s authority to run its judicial system and endangers public safety.  The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle says that when Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection agents patrol courthouse hallways and parking lots it deters crime victims and witnesses from testifying and interferes with criminal prosecutions.  Read more here.

♦ Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Day.  Hosted by WA Immigrant Solidarity Network -Red de Solidaridad de Inmigrantes en WA.  Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 8 AM – 3 PM.  Washington State Labor Council, 906 Columbia St NW, Olympia, Washington 98501.  https://www.facebook.com/events/963794510673905/

♦ Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs Evict Coastal GasLink from Territory.  Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs representing all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation have issued an eviction notice to the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline company. The eviction of CGL is effective immediately, and applies to “Camp 9A” on Dark House territory, as well as the neighbouring Gidimt’en, Tsayu, and Laksamshu clan territories. Hereditary chiefs have gathered on Gidimt’en and Gilseyhu territories to monitor the eviction.  Read more here.

♦ Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship is co-sponsoring with the Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival, a film related to the Truth and Reconciliation movement.  On Feb 24th 7:00 pm BUF and BHRFF will be showing Blood Memory, a film about Indian child removal and the Indian Child Welfare Act.

“Sandy White Hawk’s story of adoption is not of saving an orphan, but of creating one. At 18-months she was removed from her Sicangu Lakota relatives and taken to live with missionaries, a traumatic experience she later found to be part of a federally-funded assimilative movement that targeted American Indian children. As Sandy defies bureaucratic genocide and works to bring home members of this stolen generation, a buzz begins to form around Mark Fiddler, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians who put heritage on trial as lead attorney in the 2013 Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl. Mark argued against the Indian Child Welfare Act – a law passed in 1978 to fortify tribes and halt the systematic displacements of the Adoption Era. The Court’s controversial decision to bypass the Act in favor of a white adoptive couple was seen as a win for the “adoption industry,” outraging Sandy and fellow advocates and resurfacing generations of trauma throughout Indian Country.”

Legislative Advocacy         Legislative Advocacy Calendar

♦ Join Fix Democracy First & the League of Women Voters of Washington in Olympia on January 21, 2020 for a powerful day of advocating for democracy. You will learn about critical issues & bills, hear from legislators, be trained by professional lobbyists, meet with elected officials, and network with fellow constituents. Register here Lunch and refreshments provided. Donations welcome.  More

Economic Justice Action Team         Economic Justice Calendar

♦ 24 states, including Washington, will raise the minimum wage in 2020.  The minimum wage is set to go up in 72 jurisdictions in 2020. The increases will be in 24 states, including Washington, and 48 cities and counties.  More info here.

Criminal Justice Reform Action Team 

♦ League of Women Voters: 2020 Issue Paper: Criminal Justice Reform. Reform is needed at every stage of the criminal justice process, from the cash bail system that disproportionately locks up poor people, to a system of mass incarceration that is expensive, unjust, and ineffective, to the difficulties encountered by people who have been imprisoned once they return to society. While the Washington Legislature passed several bills in 2019 addressing criminal justice reform, there is still much work to be done. Read more here.

♦ MLK Day Rally Against Mass Incarceration.  Join us in Olympia on MLK Day January 20th at 5:00 PM on the steps of the capitol.  We’ll light 1,300 candles for the 1,300 people scheduled to die in Washington prisons. Our demand is clear: we want a #SecondChanceNOW for WA prisoners who are in longer than science, dignity, and safety recommend.  This rally is organized by many groups and individuals representing former and current prisoners and families and friends of prisoners and victims.  More info here.

Racial Justice Action Team          Racial Justice Calendar

Climate Justice Action Team          Climate Justice Calendar

♦♦ Join the Environmental Justice Practitioners Network (EJPN) webinar on January 23, 2020, with special guest Gail Forsyth-Vail, to learn about the 2020 UUA Common Read, An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Engage your congregation in a book with an environmental justice lens. This webinar program will discuss the original book as well as the newly released youth version of the book. More

♦♦♦ Volunteer to host a Sunrise Movement House Party January 29th, 2020, part of the youth-led Sunrise Movement’s plan to win a green new deal. Sign up here. From small towns to cities to Washington DC, we need to make the climate crisis and the Green New Deal the defining issues of the 2020 election. More

♦ Australia Is Committing Climate Suicide.  As record fires rage, the country’s leaders seem intent on sending it to its doom.  Australia today is ground zero for the climate catastrophe. Its glorious Great Barrier Reef is dying, its world-heritage rain forests are burning, its giant kelp forests have largely vanished, numerous towns have run out of water or are about to, and now the vast continent is burning on a scale never before seen.

The images of the fires are a cross between “Mad Max” and “On the Beach”: thousands driven onto beaches in a dull orange haze, crowded tableaux of people and animals almost medieval in their strange muteness — half-Bruegel, half-Bosch, ringed by fire, survivors’ faces hidden behind masks and swimming goggles. Day turns to night as smoke extinguishes all light in the horrifying minutes before the red glow announces the imminence of the inferno. Flames leaping 200 feet into the air. Fire tornadoes. Terrified children at the helm of dinghies, piloting away from the flames, refugees in their own country.  Read more here.

♦ Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship is co-sponsoring with the Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival, two climate/environmental films:

• Beyond Climate-Friday, Feb 21st, 7:00 pm.  Beyond Climate takes viewers beyond the headlines and into the heart of the issues. The film holistically connects the larger patterns of climate change with the human dimension, and what it looks like across BC from the top of the mountains to the depths of the oceans. Shot throughout the province over many years, the collective wisdom and perspectives of Indigenous leaders, local communities, scientists, and policymakers are featured.  Dr. David Suzuki – renowned scientist, broadcaster and environmentalist – helps guide the journey as the narrator of the film.
• The Wild-Thursday, Feb 27th, 7:00 pm. The Wild is a race against time, where the hard-fought-for/hard-won protections for Bristol Bay now seem as fleeting as morning mist. Focused through the lens of Mark Titus’ inherent love for wild salmon, the conflict in Alaska becomes a harbinger to a larger, global question: How do we reconcile human separation from the natural world that sustains us – and if we can change course – how do we save what remains? How do you save what you love?

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)          EDI Calendar

♦ Washington State 2020 DEI Summit. The Washington State Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council is hosting the 2020 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Summit January 21-22, 2020. While registration for the Summit has been closed, be on the lookout for information and documentation coming from the Summit.  More info here.

Featured Film “PARIS TO PITTSBURGH,” March 2nd, West Seattle WA

From coastal cities to our country’s heartland, this National Geographic documentary celebrates how people are demanding and developing real solutions to the climate emergency. As the weather grows more deadly and destructive, many of us aren’t waiting on Washington, D.C. to act. Set against the national debate over the United States’ energy future — and the explosive decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement — “Paris to Pittsburgh” captures what’s at stake for communities around the country and the inspiring ways Americans are responding. More

For other Movies for Justice, please check out the JUUstice Washington calendar or the Meaningful Movies® Website

Featured Flash Stance January 26th, Kirland, WA

♦ Join UU activists and others in a stand against the marginalization of people of color in our area and across the nation. We stand to get those that see us talking about this taboo subject later in their day with those they encounter.  NW corner of Peter Kirk Park, 3rd and Central, Kirkland WA, 12:30-1:30 pm.

For this and other scheduled protests, vigils, flash stances and rallies, please check out the JUUstice Washington calendar

Wellness for Justice Activists (tips/inspiration)

“Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.”                                                                             Barack Obama