San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
PROTESTS CONTINUE WITH FOCUS ON KIDS
San Diego area protests in support of the separate Black Lives Matter and Abolish ICE movements combined Saturday in a plea for justice.
Children played a central role in the day’s various demonstrations. In La Mesa, families gathered to teach youngsters how to become advocates for racial equality, while in downtown San Diego, protesters advocated on behalf of the many youth in immigration detention.
In the afternoon, both causes converged when a separate Black Lives Matter group met the immigrant advocates at San Diego’s Waterfront Park. They joined forces, and marched together to the convention center.
“Our struggles are interlocked,” shouted a speaker with a megaphone. “We’ve got all races here.”
Earlier in the day, nearly 200 people gathered in La Mesita Park in La Mesa for the Kids Protest, one of many in response to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Angela Barley, a White woman with a 4-year-old daughter, said she started the group Kids Voices 4 Change to set an example for children, and that the event Saturday was their third protest.
“If we really and truly intend to break this cycle of racism in our country, it starts with us,” she said in remarks to the crowd. “We can’t just sit down and watch it all happen. Our kids are watching us.”
The group listened to brief speeches, sang “This Little Heart of Mine,” and then chanted “Black Lives Matter” while walking around the park.
Tess Bryan of Lemon Grove was there with her biracial daughter Dylyn, who is 4, and some of their relatives. Bryan said she wants Dylyn to know that people of color can be treated unfairly, and she needs to stand up for her rights. But Bryan added that she also is careful how she explains that to children.
“You don’t want to scare them, but you want them to know what’s going on,” Bryan said. “I don’t think all police are bad, but I want her to be cautious.”
Anita Lewis sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called The Black National Anthem, to enthusiastic applause. The song is a poem written by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson in 1899.
“I’m just a parent, a very new parent, who cares about my life, my son’s life and all our Black, brown and other brothers and sisters,” the young Black woman said afterward. “This is amazing to see so many people out here.”
A different group gathered at Waterfront Park to advocate for children held in detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to call for the agency’s abolition.
“This is our struggle,” said Gabriela Rojo Lopez, 24, of City Heights. “To me it’s everyone’s family ... and I want justice for everyone.”
Lopez said she organized the ICE protest, her first, inspired by the outpouring of demonstrations for Black Lives Matter.
ICE reported in May it was detaining 184 children at three U.S. detention centers, which are separate from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services facilities for unaccompanied children that were holding around 1,000 children in early June.
“I’m passionate about the cause,” said Brian Jenkins, who wore a black “Abolish ICE” T-shirt. “ICE seems to me a mechanism to instill fear in the people they’re going after.” He participated with his wife, a nurse who was part of a group ready to provide emergency medical care if needed, and their three children, ages 11, 7 and 4.
The issue of immigrant children held in custody, some of whom are separated from their parents, has been around since before the current presidential administration, he said. It’s blatantly wrong, he added, and people need to call attention to it.
“Even because I’m White and don’t have to deal with it every day, it’s important to come here and support the people that do,” said his oldest son, Sully Jenkins. “Kids in my class have these things happen to them.”
San Diego’s skateboarding community, which has held several Black Lives Matter rolling protests in recent weeks, also held another session Saturday afternoon, with a 6-mile skate to Mission Beach.