Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Eric Garner. Freddie Gray. Philando Castile. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Daniel Prude. I chant their names like a mantra, etching them into memory, sending peace to their spirits, adding breath to the Movement. There are countless other names I’m leaving out, not deliberately, but my heart can bear only a few at a time as the meaning of their deaths sink in to my soul.
As an Indian immigrant, privileged in so many ways, I don’t feel I have a right to this pain. I will never know what it is like to be Black in America, and it is wrong to say that I can imagine. I cry in shame, feeling I am usurping a prerogative that is not mine, wanting to share this burden but feeling inadequate in my attempts.
Many of you have attended BLM rallies, raised your voice in unity, or expressed yourself through your vote. For the past six months, I have not only been struggling with what I can do as an individual, but what we can do as the NY Crime Victims Legal Network to stand in solidarity with Black and Brown communities who have disproportionately lost lives at the hands of the police. Our work to help crime victims know their rights and obtain legal assistance is social justice work. However, there are realistic limitations to what we can do and what our funders allow; we cannot, due to funding, address police violence directly nor assist in civil lawsuits for damages (tort actions).
But I know we can do this: In 2021, we will expand the content of our website, NY Crime Victims Help, to reflect the needs of secondary victims – people who have lost family due to criminal wrongdoing – and those impacted by gun violence. Currently, our research partner, the Center for Human Services Research at the University at Albany (CHSR), is assessing the needs of secondary victims and their providers with the goal of determining what information would be the most useful to include on our site. With CHSR’s help, we will also be adding content specifically for LGBTQ+ crime victims and victims of hate crimes. Finally, we will devote a section of our site to explain the criminal court system, so all victims have a better understanding of the legal process of prosecuting a case.
All the content on our site has been and will continue to be reviewed and user-tested. This time, we will also test to ensure that principles of diversity and inclusion are reflected in the content in an authentic way. By understanding intersectionality and embodying it in our work, we are continuing to walk on the path towards social justice.
This may not be much and it will not happen overnight, but it is what I, on behalf of the CVLN, can promise to do. Please reach out if you have any questions, thoughts, or suggestions. In peace ~ Remla