Submitted by Not In Our Town BG
Not In Our Town-BG joins with the nation’s heartache in this week of violence in Minnesota, Louisiana and Texas. In three different “towns,” citizens and police lie dead who began the week alive. The stories are still unfolding, but there is no uncertainty about the pain, anguish, disbelief, and anger in the families and communities involved. We reach out with our deepest sympathy.
No community is immune from violence, but we do have choices we can make about how we aspire to live together in our particular community. NIOT-BG holds up a vision of a Bowling Green community in which law enforcement and community relationships are nurtured in positive ways from school age on up; a community in which all diversity is not only respected but welcomed, and in which no one need live in fear, regardless of religion, color of skin, sexual orientation, or color of uniform.
We believe the horrific events nationally underline the importance of the events that we, and the city’s Human Relations Commission, have brought forward in recent months. From “Coffee With a Cop” to the “Islamophobia” discussions; from the “#Black Lives Matter” conversations to the Interfaith Breakfast; from the Martin Luther King Jr. program to the community vigils for Charleston and Orlando, we have sought to bring real people together for real conversations over complicated, emotional, and even controversial issues.
We are close partners with both the City and BGSU police departments, and we are in process of designing more events that will build police/community relationships and honestly address the core issues that can make those relationships challenging.
As we all enter a weekend of national grief, NIOT-BG continues its commitment to a vision of a Bowling Green in which all work together – hard – to be a town where good relations flourish, and no one need live in fear.
