Candidate Mermell On Black Lives Matter In Brookline

Press release from Candidate Jesse Mermell:

June 12, 2020

I asked for the opportunity to join you for public comment tonight in light of the flying of a Black Lives Matter banner from Town Hall. Let me be very clear: I fully support this. I have been so proud and optimistic watching and joining with my Brookline neighbors as they raise their voices these past two weeks, supporting Black Lives and calling for change.

Change is something that has to happen in Brookline. Racism lives in Brookline, as it does in every community in America. We have been wrestling with this for years, and not always successfully. Like too many of us who are white and privileged, we have often been defensive, and have put the wrong goals and responsibilities at the center of our decisions.

Few examples bear this out in clearer terms than the experience of Brookline Firefighter Gerald Alston. Ten years ago, when I sat on the Select Board, I put the wrong goals and responsibilities at the center of my decision making when it came to Mr. Alston. It’s why I stood before Town Meeting 13 months ago and supported the warrant article that issued an apology to him. That night I said:

“for years I thought of winning this case as the town racking up a W or an L in a lawsuit. I no longer see it that way. We must redefine winning, and frame it in terms of justice, in terms of our town - capital T and lowercase t - reconciling the self-satisfied vision we have of Brookline as a progressive beacon with the reality that we have work to do, and in terms of bringing those who have been hurt by our failures to the center of where we go from here. Legal outcomes aren’t everything. Human outcomes ... community outcomes ... are.”

That night, Town Meeting voted to apologize to Mr. Alston. But 13 months later, the situation remains unresolved. I urge anyone who may still be looking at it as racking up a W or an L in a lawsuit to instead frame it in terms of justice.

As Brookline unfurls a Black Lives Matter banner from our most important public building, Gerald Alston’s future continues to hang in the balance. I have to ask: how can our community ever truly live up to the words on the side of the building when the Town still hasn’t prioritized justice for Gerald Alston? When the Town hasn't put his human outcome ahead of its legal one.
Town Meeting did right. Now it needs to come from Town Hall. I urge you to end the fight with Mr. Alston, immediately if possible. End this in a way that results in a good faith and just resolution for Mr. Alston.

Of course, the conversation about race and Black Lives in Brookline is not limited to this matter. We must also look at every policy discussion and decision - the budget (which I know you will begin to take up tonight), zoning, the schools and our educators, policing, commercial growth, parking, affordable housing, and more - through the lens of racial equity.

The steps taken in this movement over just the last few weeks have been profound. Doing the right thing here in Brookline - earning the right to display those words on the side of Town Hall - means we have to take those very steps.

A lot of harm has been done and in the absence of a just resolution for Mr. Alston, the harm continues. I know that Brookline does not want the words Black Lives Matter to ring hollow here.

This press release was produced by Candidate Jesse Mermell. The views expressed here are the author's own.