By Dan Murphy
Yonkers City Councilwoman Shanae Williams recently spoke at a Rally for Justice to a crowd of 1500 in Bedford, to share her experiences and thoughts on racism, defunding the police and how young people will change America.
“I was surprised at first that they reached out to me, but I have met a lot of Young Democrats and they invited me to come and speak. I didn’t know how large the crowd would be, all standing in solidarity,” said Williams, who was re-elected last year—who joined the council in 2018 and was elected to a four-year term in 2019
“As a young black woman, I have experienced racism to my face in school,” Williams told the crowd. “As a Jamaican, I didn’t think about race until I came to this country. Only then did I realize that the odds were against me.”
Williams said that even in Yonkers, and even in Yonkers City Hall, systemic prejudices and racism exists. “When I worked in the mayor’s office as a black woman I was making significantly less than my white counterpart doing the exact same job with exact same title. I dealt with racism and sexism. He was making $75,000 and I was making $45,000. Why is that? There is systemic racism and systemic sexism in our society. It’s a problem and I want to focus on these issues and how we can break them down and change them.”
Williams, who spoke at the rally with Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins and County Legislator Christopher Johnson, both from Yonkers, told the crowd, “You are privilleged as white people. But that’s ok because you can use your privilege to help those not so privilleged.
“If you work with a black person that not getting the same pay, its your job as a white person to advocate for the black person. Make sure it doesn’t go unnoticed or without recognition. Speak up
“If you sit on a board in a black community that is predominately white, that’s a problem that needs to change. We have a growing Hispanic population in Yonkers, but the majority of the workforce is white. These are the challenges that we need to start talking about and addressing.
“Young people are waking up and getting consciousness. They don’t want the future to look like today and are very motivated for change, equality and acceptance. We need to build that type of world and give people that platform and the tools to support them.
“I don’t believe you are born with racism, it is something that is learned, and you can unlearn it. We are learning how to unlearn ceterain bias and prejudices, and with the help of young people, we will continue to bring about change and shake things up,” said Williams, who does not support another call frequently made at recent rallies: Defund the Police.
“I don’t think in Yonkers we need to defund the police. We need to bring in new police officers that reflect the comm of Yonkers. In Yonkers, we have 35 black officers out of 600. That is not reflective of our city. We have 5% black officer, it should be 18%.
“We need to bring in more people from the community so that community policing is real and works. Defunding the police is not an option,” said Williams who is hosting a virtual forum on Friday June 19, or Juneteenth, a historic day in African American history.
Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated on 19 June to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the US. The holiday was first celebrated in Texas, where on that date in 1865, in the aftermath of the Civil War, slaves were declared free under the terms of the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation.
“I am hosting a forum on the history of law enforcement and race, and why black people look at police officers today the way they do and what we can do to change the system,” said Williams.
The forum can be broadcast at 5pm on June 19, on the Yonkers Voice-Facebook Live.
