About #BLM B-town
#BLM B-town is a black lead space
Black Lives Matter B-town announced its reformation and reboot in 2019 with new core council members, this included an amended organizational structure to allow for growth and greater focus on goals. Those goal are anti-racism education, policy, racial food justice and collective liberation through intersectional actions. Since February of 2019 BLM B-town has consisted of many progressive black activist leaders supported by progressive activist non-black identifying people of color and white members. The local chapter of #BLM is committed to bringing the group in line with the Guiding Principles outlined by the national Black Lives Matter organization. To that end, we are creating new working agreements, projects, committees, and ways of looking at local issues that concern BLM and the BIPOC and BIPOC centered progressive communities. BLM B-town is was and always will be a Black led space, but we are specifically a Black progressive afro-futurist space as well.
Here in 2024 we seek to develop more partnerships with organizations focused on food justice, intersectional anti-racism education & those working in BIPOC job and housing concerns. See our work with People's Co-op Market .
www.peoplesmarketbtown.org
To see more about BLM B-town's 2019 reboot view our press release click here
Here in 2024 we seek to develop more partnerships with organizations focused on food justice, intersectional anti-racism education & those working in BIPOC job and housing concerns. See our work with People's Co-op Market .
www.peoplesmarketbtown.org
To see more about BLM B-town's 2019 reboot view our press release click here
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Core Council
The Core Council consist of local black community leaders, many of whom work intimately, academically and socially with issues of social justice and race. Our council has expanded recently and we are not currently taking on new members, but welcome as may at large BLM B-towns members as possible.
Guiding Principles of #BLM B-town
The 13 Guiding Principles taken from BLM National Guiding Principles
- Black Families -Supporting, nurturing, and helping to redefine what is a modern black family
- Black Villages -Supporting, promoting, and fostering growth and renewal for our villages
- Black Women - Bringing women the front, asking them to lead, providing support and recognition as the core of our community
- Collective Value - Individual identities are valued, loved, accepted, and seen as essential to the group
- Diversity - Celebrating, acknowledging, respecting differences and commonalities
- Empathy - A committed practice based in the intent to learn and connect
- Globalism - Building a Global Black family beyond Pan-Africanism and looking instead toward Afro-Futurism
- Intergenerational - Fostering an environment free of ageism where everyone is encouraged to serve
- Loving Engagement - Honoring our working agreements with each other
- Queer Affirming - Moving away from Hetero/Cis-normative thinking and valuing all queer siblings
- Restorative Justice - Commitment to move toward restorative justice for ourselves and the world
- Transgender Affirming - Dismantling Cis-gender privilege, uplifting black trans individuals
- Unapologetically Black - In our positioning with no need to qualify or explain
#BLM B-town's Mission Statement
Thank you for joining #BlackLivesMatter in solidarity and allyship. Allow us this moment to elaborate on the strategy, and mission of #BlackLivesMatter, both internationally and locally.
The decentralization of leadership in the BLM movement by its nature allows for a myriad of tailored approaches to be used; encompassed by a single focused slogan, #Black Lives Matter. Public disruption, engaging in both public and private discourse with elected/appointed officials, meeting with candidates, and local organizing are essential elements of the BLM national strategy; we have opted to utilize them locally. Our tactics will continuously evolve to attain our objectives and counter the challenges of opposition.
The overarching goals of our direct-action tactics are to disrupt the routine, perforate complacency, upend the status quo; evoke the uncomfortablity necessary to elicit fruitful confrontation of our community's issues. Though, often perceived as radical or controversial, these are the same tried and true tactics employed by previous peoples’ liberation struggles. We can look to leaders such as King, Malcolm, and our founders and contemporaries as proofs for the effectiveness of direct-action techniques.
The Bloomington BLM chapter is devoted to dismantling the untenable systemic oppression of black and other marginalized people; confronting the institutional racism that allows such conditions to persist and indeed flourish, and to create a more equitable society.
BLM is a black space, lead predominantly by people of color, and we ask that our allies be mindful of the scrutiny black movements encounter from all aspects of society. If we are going to build political power, we have to build connections rooted in the goal of creating positive intersectional outcomes for our entire community. It is our adamant intention to honor the spirit of our mission, while exercising respect for values and tenets of our individual coalition members and the groups they collectively represent.
The decentralization of leadership in the BLM movement by its nature allows for a myriad of tailored approaches to be used; encompassed by a single focused slogan, #Black Lives Matter. Public disruption, engaging in both public and private discourse with elected/appointed officials, meeting with candidates, and local organizing are essential elements of the BLM national strategy; we have opted to utilize them locally. Our tactics will continuously evolve to attain our objectives and counter the challenges of opposition.
The overarching goals of our direct-action tactics are to disrupt the routine, perforate complacency, upend the status quo; evoke the uncomfortablity necessary to elicit fruitful confrontation of our community's issues. Though, often perceived as radical or controversial, these are the same tried and true tactics employed by previous peoples’ liberation struggles. We can look to leaders such as King, Malcolm, and our founders and contemporaries as proofs for the effectiveness of direct-action techniques.
The Bloomington BLM chapter is devoted to dismantling the untenable systemic oppression of black and other marginalized people; confronting the institutional racism that allows such conditions to persist and indeed flourish, and to create a more equitable society.
BLM is a black space, lead predominantly by people of color, and we ask that our allies be mindful of the scrutiny black movements encounter from all aspects of society. If we are going to build political power, we have to build connections rooted in the goal of creating positive intersectional outcomes for our entire community. It is our adamant intention to honor the spirit of our mission, while exercising respect for values and tenets of our individual coalition members and the groups they collectively represent.
