New York, NY, July 20, 2015 – Students from The Opportunity Network will join First Lady Michelle Obama and leaders in college access and success to teach career skills to college-bound high school graduates at a Beating the Odds Summit at the White House on Thursday, July 23rd. Founder and CEO Jessica Pliska and her team will lead two dynamic workshop sessions at the Summit focusing on career development and securing internships.

The event, part of the First Lady’s Reach Higher initiative, will focus on sharing tools and strategies students can use to successfully transition to college and the resources they will need to persist and complete the next level of their education.

Mrs. Obama, who is a first generation college student herself, will hear suggestions from the students about ways to help low-income students succeed in college and career.

More than 130 students will attend the Summit, representing a mix of urban, rural, foster, homeless, special needs, and under-represented youth who have overcome substantial obstacles to persist through high school and make it to college.

Two Opportunity Network students will attend the event with the First Lady. Isaac Guerrero, a first generation student from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, decided to pursue a computer degree after meeting a Facebook engineer. He will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the fall. Emir Brown, a first generation student from Harlem, is an aspiring spoken word poet. He will attend Emory University in the fall.

“It is especially important for low-income students to make plans not only for college but also for their careers. I’m thrilled to be able to help the First Lady use her personal experiences to spread this message to students across the county,” said Ms. Pliska.

The Opportunity Network equals the playing field for low-income high school and college students through a robust curriculum that combines college counseling with career exposure, professional etiquette, and skills to build networks. One hundred percent of Opportunity Network students graduate from college, and eighty-five percent start career-track jobs or gain graduate school admission within six months of college completion.

Here we are – a nation reeling yet again from acts of domestic terrorism taking place this past week in Gilroy, California ; El Paso, Texas ; and Dayton, Ohio .

All of these were heinous crimes. Military-grade weapons easily obtained by White male perpetrators that harbor hate and disdain for those of us that don’t look or think like them – those of us recasting the American Dream to better serve the needs of our beautifully diverse nation. 

Make no mistake, this is what domestic terrorism looks like. In El Paso, the crime was explicitly motivated by nationalistic ideals and racism, targeting the Mexican and Mexican American communities. 

We recognize that this isn’t a new form of terror in our country. We live in a nation that continues to fail to come to terms with its shameful history of genocide of the indigenous people on their land, and its repugnant acts of institutionalized slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, police brutality, and other forms of structural racism. We speak truth in acknowledging that the hate and violence a part of this nation’s history continues to be nurtured by a form of White supremacy born out of our country’s unique past. 

As you watch the news, pay close attention to how the media is covering these crimes and how some politicians are explaining them away. The hypocrisy is in plain sight. When unarmed and nonviolent black and brown people are confronted, more often than not, their lives are in grave danger at the hands of police and the criminal justice system because their guilt and criminality were decided the moment the color of their skin became visible. 

We must remain committed to speaking truth to power and resisting these false narratives plagued by racial hate. There is hope when we do.

We can dismantle the myth of White supremacy and racial fear together. We can do it through truth-telling and choosing to live openly and proudly with love, joy, and healing – exactly as Audre Lorde compels us all to do when she said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Let us remember the beautiful lives that were lost, and honor the black and brown lives that were targeted – because every single one of them mattered.

Onward, together.

Dear OppNet Community,

We have been trying to be thoughtful about when to reach out to you in response to events that impact the safety and identities of those in our communities. In truth, you would be hearing from us daily if we chose to highlight every injustice that affects you in some way – our grossly unacceptable reality. But our goal is not to be a news outlet, but to emphasize our awareness of how key current events impact those serving on the frontlines of activism, and show our solidarity with them.

In this community statement, I would like to bring your attention to a series of tragedies that took place just over the past week. These events show the complexity of the systems that affect our lives, and how these systems perpetuate a double-standard where black and brown lives are not valued in this country. So departing from the format of previous community statements, I invite us to deepen our understanding of these injustices and honor the lives lost, as a result:

The Hesitation to Name “Terrorist” When the Perpetrator is White

Since the beginning of March, a serial bomber targeted  black individuals and families throughout the City of Austin. Five individuals were killed and authorities fear there might still be active bombs even after the suspected terrorist  committed suicide. Three of five victims’ identities were released as: Anthony Stephan House, 39, Draylen Mason, 17, and Esperanza Herrera, 75.

Authorities hesitated using the word “terrorist” to describe the suspect. News outlets used terms like “challenged” or “troubled” young man. Recent acts of domestic terrorism show us this is nothing new. White perpetrators are characterized as a “lone wolf,” “quiet,” or “distraught,” where any acts of violence by people of color are quickly magnified to the levels of terrorism or extremism, and framed as the result of inherent criminality.

This not only perpetuates the inane assumption that black and brown lives matter less, but that white perpetrators are more human, less guilty, and their crimes less egregious.

Police Brutality Against Black Communities in America

On March 18, Stephon Clark, 22, was shot and killed in his own backyard  in Sacramento. The police officers responsible claim to have mistaken the cell phone in his hand for a gun. After firing 20 shots at Clark, police officers waited several minutes before calling for medical attention for Clark.

When innocent black lives are lost at the hands of police force, we typically see the criminal justice system band together to protect the police over the victims. How do we know this to be factual? The data tells us so: Black individuals are killed by the police at a  higher rate than any other racial identity group in the United States. Furthermore, police officers are  rarely prosecuted or convicted of the shootings.

However, there is still a double-standard for police killings when the victim is white  (and the cop is not). On March 20, a Minneapolis cop, Mohamed Noor , was convicted of the killing of an Australian woman, Justine Damond, last summer. Mohamed Noor is a member of the Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis. For all of us paying attention, we must ask this critical question: When there is already a low prosecution and conviction rate of police shootings, how does the justice system explain the conviction of Mohamed Noor and the acquittal of Philando Castile’s shooter in Minnesota?

These are unfair instances and the way they are covered by mainstream media feed into false narratives of white morality and identity and violent predispositions of communities of color.

As we react to daily injustices, let’s also commit to critically seeing how racial oppression manifests itself in the systems and institutions that we live with. Once we name them, we can resist and take control of our own narrative.

If you are interested in discussing these issues with OppNet, please let me know and I will work with the team to create a safe space for us to process together.

AiLun