Defend the UCL Five: Statement initiated by BARAC UK & NUS Black Students Campaign

Defend the 

UCL Five 

Statement

Universities in the UK should be a safe space that provide for free expression and positive learning, but instead, University College London has embarked on a campaign to silence radical student voices challenging oppressive practice. 

In recent months, the university has embarked upon a targeted campaign of silencing student dissent and protests on campus through management intimidation, scare tactics and the threat of disciplinary action. 

On 27th October 2016, a group of UCL students came together to protest an intended talk by Hen Mazzig who was invited by UCL Friends of Israel to speak at an event on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Hen Mazzig is a reservist in the Israeli military and was speaking about his activities enforcing the illegal military occupation of Palestine and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, considered a war crime under international law.  

The UCL students’ non-violent protest was made up of students from a range of diverse backgrounds and included chants calling for an end to violence against Palestinians and the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the waving of flags and traditional Dabke dancing.  

Protesting students persisted despite being verbally harassed by groups and individuals from outside the university such as Sussex Friends of Israel and individuals such as UCL alumnus Elliot Miller who was caught on video pushing a student. 

Individuals from this group shouted racist slurs against black students on the protest, such as "the Home Office should follow you up”, “get out of our country" and called announcing that "Islam is a violent religion".  

In the days following the meeting Mazzig repeatedly tried to depict our opposition to his event as the protest of “an angry Arab mob”. This amounts to the racial profiling of resident British UCL based students.  

They were then subjected to a malicious, politically motivated complaint. The response from UCL was to racially profile five students and serve them with notice of impending disciplinary action.  

All five are active in student politics, and all are either Muslim, Arab, Asian or Black. The five students together, have contributed to the fundraising of thousands of pounds going towards humanitarian aid in Africa and the Middle-East. They have helped to launch various campaigns such as Israel Apartheid week, Black Lives Matter and leadership and management programmes. 

These Black and minority ethnic students are currently being targeted and harassed by UCL management as a consequence. These actions by UCL management, we believe, constitute an intolerable restriction of the human rights of students seeking to express political opinions on issues of concern.  

Alarmingly the university has so far failed to investigate the racist slurs that UCL students were subjected too. This injustice is now further compounded by UCL racially profiling and adding and abetting the malicious smearing of students of colour, who were simply exercising their rights to free expression and lawful protest.  

Groups external to the university made malicious and vindictive accusations which were backed up by inaccurate depictions of the protest and had no objective supporting evidence.  

This raises serious concerns about the veracity of the original complaint and the subsequent impartiality of the investigation conducted by UCL management. 

This seems to be part of a wider campaign of suppressing student activism and protest on UCL campuses, and is echoed in "crackdowns" on other UCL student and staff protests.  

For example, a number of UCL students active in the Fossil Free campaign have also been issued a notice of disciplinary action. Fossil Free is a student led branch of the international campaign on campus to pressure the university into divesting from fossil fuel companies.  

This unnecessary, aggressive and authoritarian behaviour by UCL management is counterproductive, unfair and only serves to intimidate students who are already feeling intimidated and restricted in their ability to freely engage in democratic debate and political protest. 

The actions of UCL management flies in the face of the founding principles and academic philosophy on which UCL is based, a secular institution of free thinking, political and academic debate. 

We demand that UCL drops all the disciplinary procedures against the five students concerned, and enter into dialogue with a view to examining the culture of political persecution of Black and minority ethnic students on campus at UCL. 

We the undersigned urge you to:

Join our campaign to challenge UCL management's racial profiling and political intimidation of students it disagrees with.  

Support the five UCL students who were part of a peaceful protest against a meeting being addressed by Hen Mazzig, an Israeli military reservist, who have been subjected to a malicious complaint, resulting in UCL instigating disciplinary action after receiving a malicious complaint from Sussex Friends of Israel. 

We ask that you write to UCL Vice Provost of Operations; Rex Knight and the UCL Provost; Michael Arthur, UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, expressing your concern about UCL management's actions and subsequent racial profiling and targeting of students on religious grounds.   

We ask that you join the Defend the UCL5 campaign by adding your name / organisation to this statement initiated by Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK and the NUS Black Students Campaign,  that you use the #DefendUCL5 hashtag to publicise.  Email barac.info@gmail.com to add your name to the statement and send messages of support.

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UKNUS Black Students Campaign

Sean Wallis, Vice President UCL UCU, UCU NEC member 


Zita Holbourne, PCS Union Acting Vice President & Co-Chair BARAC UK

Neil Rogall, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, UCL Graduate (1972)

Anne Cooper, Writer, Unite Community

Hassina Malik, Assistant Branch Secretary, Lambeth UNISON

Adie Mormech, Student at Manchester Met University GDL

Rob Ahmed. 1st Year Chemical Engineering Student at UCL.

Kate Byrne 

Abdel Mahmoud, UCL student

Donna Guthrie, Unite Branch LE127 Co-Equalities Officer (pc) & BARAC Women's Officer

 Faris Tamimi

Dr. Louis Bayman, University of Southampton

Tahmidur Rahman, 3rd Year Student of English at UCL 

Maria Gutierrez

Simone Webb

Jen Izaakson, Unison

Fatima Mahmoud

Elahe Amraie

Laila al-Khatib

Amanda Dilley

Lorraine Harding.

Felicity Premru

Simmi Dullay, Black Cultural Producer 

Margaret Kabasinde, retired 

Ayan Shegow

Diane Langford, Writer 

Annette Rochester

Nana Asante, Chairperson - Africans for Momentum / Africans for Jeremy Corbyn Values, Secretary - IDPAD Coalition UK

Mohammed Shafiq

Zaharan Sofi

Rhiannon Lockley, West Midlands Chair UCU (PC)

Nat Raha, University of Sussex and Edinburgh College of Art

Lee Jasper, Blaksox 

Statement by BARAC UK & Sarah Reed Campaign for Justice representatives on withdrawal from the Women of the World (WOW) festival

Statement by Zita Holbourne, Co-Chair:  Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK & Donna McKoy, Chair: Sarah Reed Campaign for Justice (SRCfJ).

 

During this week commencing 6 March, we have been in dialogue with Jude Kelly, Artistic Director at the Southbank Centre regarding the decision to host a rapist at the Women of the World (WOW) Festival this weekend, in ‘South of Forgiveness’. 

 

Whilst we respect the right of Thordis Elva to deal with being raped in the way she feels is right for her, we do not accept the imposition of her rapist's presence on other women, some of whom may also be survivors of rape and at risk of being further traumatised by his presence. That WOW could ever have considered it acceptable to schedule a male rapist to address a woman's festival with no apparent concern for the impact of his presence, or the response, is astonishing. We also take issue with some of the implied messages in the presentation of their story. For example…

 

Elva’s rapist, Tom Stranger, has never been prosecuted for his crime, yet he is being provided a public platform that literally and figuratively elevates him, and appears to glorify rape.  

 

Elva and Stranger speak of meeting in South Africa to discuss the rape referencing the inspiration received from Truth and Reconciliation, the restorative justice that followed the abolition of apartheid, as one reason for this being an appropriate meeting place. We find this entirely inappropriate given that what we see today are the lingering and oppressive political and economic legacies of apartheid continuing to haunt South Africa.  

 

Elva speaks of a "normal" person who is raped "drinking a bottle of vodka and going to therapy". This is concerning on several levels. What constitutes "normal"? Isn’t the implication that the alternative is to be "abnormal"? The suggestion that all women drink alcohol ignores millions of women who for many and varied reasons (including personal, religious and/or cultural reasons) do not drink alcohol. It also disregards women who are displaced, living in poverty, or deprivation, who have no access to healthcare or therapy, women who because of stigma, shame or fear cannot or will not be in a position to tell anyone that they were raped, women who may be raped at knife point during conflict and war.

 

Jude Kelly has said that we need to change the focus of the discourse on rape from the victims to the perpetrators, but there will always need to be a focus on women who are victims of rape, because they are the ones impacted.

 

Whilst discourse on men as perpetrators needs to take place, we feel the decision made by the organisers of the WOW Festival to host a man who has never been prosecuted or sentenced for his crime, who has a book deal and tours the world promoting the book like a celebrity, is misguided.

 

We were pleased to learn that Jude Kelly had listened, not just to our voices, but to the voices of countless other women raising concerns about the presentation, and was removing the session from the Festival. However, we are concerned that the statement issued by WOW refers not to the importance of the women who raised concerns, many of whom are survivors and members of support groups, but rather to the importance of the event.

 

The fact that it will still take place at the same venue a couple of days later is deeply disappointing. The event has now been opened to the public and it has also been confirmed that WOW ticket holders will be invited to the talk at no additional cost. In this way, as stated by Jude Kelly, it will "enable as many people as possible to contribute outside a festival context". It is still, therefore, a WOW event. It is broadening the potential audience and further elevating the talk and disregarding or marginalising the voices of those who raised concerns. The statement reads as if the conversations she had, including with the two of us, were calling for the talk to have more prominence rather than what we were actually doing, calling for it to be removed from the Women of the World, an event designed to celebrate and honour women.

 

Sarah Reed was the victim of sexual violence whilst in hospital. When she defended herself, it was Sarah not the perpetrator who was arrested. Despite suffering a diagnosed mental health condition, she was imprisoned in Holloway, denied her medication and died in her cell under suspicious circumstances. An inquest into her death commences in April. Why is a rapist's voice elevated above Sarah's and the voices of other women like her?

 

We work in the trade union movement and communities to campaign for equality and justice. We see no equality or justice in providing a platform to a rapist who has never been punished on which to promote himself.

 

We have been invited to a "replacement" session on Saturday but feel unable in all good conscience to participate. We also do not feel it appropriate to participate in the sessions for which we were originally scheduled. Additionally, will we not be participating in the talk rescheduled to take place next week at Southbank. We have withdrawn from participating in this year’s WOW Festival for all the reasons stated above.

 

We will continue to support and work with WOW. However, in this instance, it is vital that we hold our allies to account and challenge their oppressive and inappropriate practices however difficult it may be.

Brixton Moves Against Trump - community feeder march to the Lobby of Parliament - 20th February 4.30pm

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK has organised a feeder march from Kennington Park to Parliament  on 20th February, where we will join the main lobby of Parliament to demonstrate our complete opposition to Trump being granted a State visit to the UK. 

We will be assembling in Kennington Park at 4.30pm with speeches from grassroots community campaigns, departing at 5.30pm and marching to Parliament.
We have called this march to bring together Black (BME) and migrant communities and grassroots orgs campaigning against racism and xenophobia, to oppose Trump and to mark an One Day Without Us. 

1 Day Without Us is a National Day of Action on 20th Feb 2017 to celebrate the contribution of migrants to the UK, to coincide with UN World Day of Social Justice.For 24 hours, we are inviting migrants from inside and outside the European Union, and everyone who supports them, to celebrate the contribution that migrants make.

We will have a sound system leading the march and we are grateful to Lush for sponsoring this.

We invite you to join us. Please bring your home made placards, vuvuzelas and whistles to make some noise.

https://www.facebook.com/events/269899020099334/

http://www.1daywithoutus.org/

https://www.facebook.com/events/1799412480383866/

 

BARAC / United Black Labour Parliamentary Launch; A vision for Race Equality

Hosted by Rt Hon John McDonnell MP. 

17th January 2016

6.15 to 8.45pm,  Wilson Room, Houses of Parliament


Speakers: 

Dawn Butler MP,
Kate Osamor MP,
Michael Nicholas, Secretary B&EMM FBU,
Hector Wesley, PCS NEC member 
Kingsley Abrams, General Secretary, Momentum Black ConneXions, 
Zita Holbourne, BARAC UK National Co-Chair,
Lee Jasper, BARAC UK National Co-Chair 

(More speakers to be confirmed)
Invited speakers include: 

David Isaac CBE (Chair)
Clive Lewis MP
Diane Abbott MP
Gloria Mills, Senior National Official Unison
Patricia Lamour, Blaksox

We would like to invite you to attend the ‘BARAC UK/ United Black Labour ‘Race Equality Round Table’ meeting on 17 January 2017. 

This date has been chosen to coincide with Martin Luther King Day.

This meeting will be a parliamentary launch of BARAC’s vision paper – 2025: A Vision for Race Equality in Britain. Speakers will include black activists and speakers from community organisations, race equality organisations, the Labour Party and the trade unions.

2025: A Vision for Race Equality in Britain - a strategy paper, setting out a strategic framework focused on the goal of substantive reduction of racial disproportionality and inequality in the United Kingdom. - Authors: Mr Lee Jasper and Ms Zita Holbourne, National Co-Chairs Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK 

This vision paper can be found here: http://blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/2025-vision-for-race-equality-in.html?m=1

To book please email your name and contact details to: baracwomens@gmail.com

OPEN LETTER SENT TO DAVID LAMMY ON DISCRIMINATION IN THE CRIMINATION JUSTICE SYSTEM SIGNED BY BARAC UK

Activists send open letter to David Lammy

Submitted 28 Apr 2016 10:42am

in 

• News

Press Release: Embargo -Thursday, April 28th 2016 00.01 am

An Open Letter to the Rt. Honourable David Lammy MP concerning the Parliamentary Review of racial bias and BAME representation in Criminal Justice system

On 31st January 2016, The Prime Minister, David Cameron asked David Lammy MP to lead a Review to investigate evidence of possible bias and disproportionate sentencing of African, Caribbean and Asian defendants in the Criminal Justice System. As part of the Equality and Criminal Justice reform. David Lammy MP is to report back in spring of 2017.

The Prime Minister said:

We need to ask the difficult questions about whether the system treats people differently based on race. Charges, courts, prisons and rehabilitation to be scrutinised."

The Rt Hon David Lammy, MP, said:

I've been working in this area for almost 2 decades and am very pleased to accept the Prime Minister's invitation to lead this comprehensive, independent review across our criminal justice system. With over a quarter of the prison population coming from BAME background the urgency is clear. I look forward to leading a team that will evaluate what works in the UK, draw on lessons from abroad and listen to a broad range of voices from the justice system and our BAME communities."

Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, said:

An effective justice system depends on procedural fairness. Equality of treatment at every stage in the criminal justice process is essential. I am very pleased that David, a politician whose intellectual honesty I have long admired, and who is not afraid to confront uncomfortable truths, is pursuing this important work."

There is a need for such a review, as a report entitled Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2012, produced by the Ministry of Justice found that almost 20% per cent of black and Asian defendants were more likely to be jailed than white defendants for similar offences. The average sentence given to an African Caribbean defendant is seven times longer than that for an average white defendant.

Stop and search figures revealed a similar pattern of over representation, a black person aged ten or older in 2011/ 2012, was 6 times more likely than a white person to be stopped and searched and nearly three times more likely to be arrested.

The same report found that only 26 per cent of white defendants were handed immediate custodial sentences compared to 31 per cent for black defendants and 32 per cent for Asian defendants. Again this differential treatment can be seen in the average custodial sentence for black prisoners was 23.4 months compared to 15.9 months for white prisoners.

Speaking as the Chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers, the former Vice Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, and part time Judge, D Peter Herbert OBE said:

the figures showed 'institutional racism' within the system."

We understand that there will be separate but simultaneous meetings of BAME Judges and magistrates to discuss judicial racism and bias.

We as BAME legal groups and the wider BAME organisations and all our various communities would like to collectively express a view and put forward written and oral evidence of anecdotal cases that we know of, and a joint position on solutions, as a way forward. To this end we will be holding a series of meetings to discuss racism and bias in the Criminal Justice System and within our judicial system generally.

We know that there is significant overrepresentation of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people in the criminal justice system.

Please see the attached letter to David Lammy MP. Please confirm whether you would be willing to attend such meetings by contacting the numbers shown below.

Note to editors and other interested parties:

For further information please contact:
Info@societyofblacklawyers.co.uk
Info@blaksox.com
ashlee.bpa@outlook.com

D Peter Herbert OBE - Society of Black Lawyers: 07973 794 946
Viv Ahmun - Blaksox: 07985 395 166
Ashlee Gomes - NBPA: 07887 635 375
Earl Smith - ABPO: 07810 854 258

Climate migration discussion incl Zita Holbourne, Richard Black + others

Image by Zita; Poet~Artist~Activist 

BARAC UK was a co-sponsor of a film launch and panel discussion organised by creative director Kooj Chuhan on climate change and migration. 

Climate migration discussion incl Zita Holbourne, Richard Black + others

  By metaceptive | March 14, 2016 | environment, race

Video of panel presentations from ‘Linking Climate Change with Migration’ public event 7th March 2016 at Kings College, which began with a screening of the film ‘Crossing Footprints’ by Kooj Chuhan.  The climate migration discussion also included Andrew Baldwin and Alex Randall.  The ‘Crossing Footprints’ film will be available to watch online soon, once it has been fully signed off after final proofing.  This video of the panel presentations is approx 40 mins long:

Watch here

The leading  climate migration discussion panel included speakers:

Richard Black, leading scholar at SOAS on migration in the context of climate change
Zita Holbourne, community, union and human rights activist, writer, artist and curator; co-founder of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts
Andrew Baldwin, chair of international Climate Change and Migration research network based at Durham University
Alex Randall, UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition
Kooj Chuhan, artist, filmmaker and curator of the ‘Footprint Modulation’ exhibition exploring climate migration and justice

+ Public launch and screening of the film ‘Crossing Footprints: Human Migration and the Environment’ by Kooj Chuhan / Metaceptive Media, about both the Human Migration and The Environment Conference and the Footprint Modulation art exhibitionwww.metaceptive.net/footprint-modulation

Video of Sarah Reed fringe meeting at TUC Women's Conference and Black Lives Matter Bloc M19 Demo

Last week at the TUC Women's Conference, BARAC UK  organised a fringe meeting on the Sarah Reed Campaign for Justice, which was sponsored by the GMB union.  The meeting was addressed by Marilyn Reed, mother of Sarah Reed,  Patricia Lamour, Blak Sox and was chaired by National Co-Chair of BARAC and member of the TUC Race Relations Committee Zita Holbourne.

You can watch a video of the meeting in three parts below.

PART 1


PART2


PART 3


Thanks go to Sharon Edwards of the PCS Union for recording the meeting.


BARAC together with Blak Sox and the NUS Black Students Campaign have organised a #BlackLivesMatter bloc on the UN Anti Racism Day National Demo on Saturday 19th of March.

Marilyn Reed, together with Co-Chairs of BARAC, Zita Holbourne and Lee Jasper, plus a speaker from Blak Sox are speakers at the demo.

Survey for Young Black Workers on your experience with Trade Unions

BARAC is regularly contacted by young black workers seeking advise, support and representation due to workplace issues because their unions have not supported them or because there is no union presence at their workplace  and they don't know how to access union support.

Young black people are most likely to be in temporary and casual jobs on low pay due to cuts and austerity and face instititutional racism in the labour market as well as age discrimination with employers increasingly taking advantage of them, imposing changes to terms and conditions and irregular working hours and patterns with the increased use of zero hours contracts.

The young black people coming to us have experienced a range of issues from unfair disciplinary action, unfair dismissals, harassment and bullying, direct and indirect race discrimination and institutional racism in workplaces.  They experience detrimental treatment when compared to white colleagues and older colleagues.

They have had to find out about trade unions themselves with no union presence in their workplace and no trade union session in their induction  / training prograamme and experienced difficulties in getting representation and advice when needed.

As a result of this BARAC has decided to conduct a survey of the experiences of young black people and trade unions.

We plan to present the results to the TUC and Trade Unions.

The survey is completely anonymous and if you share your contact details with us in order to join the BARAC mailing list and keep in touch with us we will not share your contact details with anyone else.

It is aimed at those aged 16 to 28 years of age who identify as being black or BME.

Please use the link below to start the survey and share  with other young black people you know.

Survey: Trade Unions & Young Black Workers

Sarah Reed; She Needed Care, Not Punishment; written by Zita Holbourne for The Justice Gap

Sarah Reed; she needed care, not punishment

Written for and first published in The Justice Gap; Read original article here

By Zita Holbourne, National Co-Chair BARAC UK

Tribute to Sarah Reed by Zita; Poet~Artist~Activist 

Sarah Reed was a black woman who died last month in Holloway Prison in suspicious circumstances. She was just 31 years of age and in her short life she experienced terrible tragedy, instead of receiving support and understanding, she was failed repeatedly by the authorities that ought to have demonstrated a duty of care for Sarah and protected her from harm and danger.

In 2003 Sarah’s baby died, following an illness, she and her partner had to transport their deceased baby from the hospital to the undertakers in a taxi.

The loss and the events after caused Sarah to suffer with depression and impacted on her mental health over the coming years. During this period she was detained under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act and while in the Maudsley Hospital reported to her family that she had been the victim of sexual assault and attempted rape.

When she defended herself from her attacker the hospital staff called the police, not on her attacker but on Sarah and she was arrested. Instead of her being in a safe place where she could heal and get better, the assault on her exacerbated her existing mental health, resulting in her being placed in the hands of an institutionally racist institution, the Met Police.

Sarah’s family believe that she was deliberately targeted by the police because she had previously challenged a racist police officer who violently and physically assaulted and abused her, leading to that police officer losing his job.

Questions must also be asked as to why the hospital who knew her history and how mentally unwell she was called the police, knowing that she would be traumatised, given her past experience with them.

Sarah was accused of shoplifting and police were called. PC Kiddie can be seen in video footage here, pulling Sarah’s hair, dragging her to ground and punching her repeatedly before placing handcuffs on her (here). PC Kiddie was subsequently sacked in 2014.

But this was no consolation for Sarah.

Magistrates remanded Sarah to prison, still very ill, fragile and suffering with her mental health. As if a mentally ill woman going to prison was not bad enough, Sarah was not given any medication which would have made things much worse for her. Given that the vast majority of women who are incarcerated during remand, subsequently do not receive a custodial sentence, there was no reason for magistrates to place her in prison and she should not have been given her mental health.

Duty of care
On January 11, Sarah’s family received a phone call informing them that Sarah, whilst lying on her bed, had strangled herself to death, which should be physically impossible to do. The family were told to come to the prison immediately but when they arrived the prison refused to allow them to see Sarah’s body.

There are many questions that must be answered from the hospitals, to the police, the courts and the prison. The inquest into Sarah’s death will need to uncover the truth.Sarah Reed was the victim of British institutions that failed in their duty of care towards her, she was failed by hospitals, by the Met Police, by the judicial system, the mental health system, by the courts and by the prison. She was a young woman who had been served a sad and tragic blow in losing her new born baby – what she needed was nurturing, support, care, understanding and healing, instead she was subjected to a catalogue of failures and neglect by institutions that had a duty of care towards her, who should have protected her from further harm, pain and suffering, but instead they subjected her to torture and made her mental health worse, ultimately leading to her death.

Sarah was a vulnerable woman, she needed care not punishment. Sadly, her story is not an isolated one.

Black women are treated like second class citizens, experience double discrimination, are negatively stereotyped as aggressive and threatening when they stand up for their rights or speak out about injustice, they are the group hardest hit by job cuts, more likely to work in part time, casual and temporary jobs, experience a double pay gap and austerity is amplifying race and sex discrimination. This leads to deepening poverty and as vital and specialist services cease to exist due to cuts, there is less or no support when they need it. It’s no wonder that they would suffer with depression and mental health issues.

The media play a part in negatively stereotyping black women. In Sarah’s case there was no media coverage or public outcry following her death. It took my co-chair, Lee Jasper to make sure people heard about Sarah’s story through social media effectively shaming the mainstream media into covering and then only week’s later. http://leejasper.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/sarah-reid-black-woman-victim-of.html

On Monday night a vigil took place outside Holloway Prison to coincide with the day that Sarah was laid to rest by her family, with the funeral service taking place in the church her grandfather founded in London. There was a large presence by black women who spoke about their own encounters with the police, mental health service and judicial system, echoing the experiences Sarah had in her short life.

At the vigil, the national press were noticeably absent. One more sign that the lives of Black women are considered cheap.

Sarah’s life mattered.  She was a black woman, a mother (she leaves a daughter behind), a daughter, she was a human being. What happened to the humanity of those who failed her? We need to know.

A community campaign has been set up on Facebook to give solidarity and support to the family going forward (here). On Twitter we are using the hashtags #SarahReed #SayHerName #BlackLivesMatter