COMMUNITY LEADERS COME TOGETHER AGAINST RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION PROTESTING SENATE BILL 793
Los Angeles – Community leaders gathered today with hundreds of marchers to protest the discriminatory Senate Bill 793. The goal of SB793 is to ban the sale of flavored tobacco, prohibiting e-cigarettes and vaping; however, menthol cigarettes are also included in the band while excluding hookah. A clearly racist and discriminatory exclusion.
Many would ask, why is this discriminatory? The fact is, studies show that eighty eight percent of African Americans who smoke, smoke menthol cigarettes. If the simple act of a consensual adult purchasing a menthol cigarette becomes a criminal act, then that makes the SB793 a direct hit towards African Americans.
The community leaders’ concern is the unintended consequences of this bill will be over-policing and enforcement in communities of color, which already suffer from systematic racism and police brutality. With the Black Lives Matter movement in full effect, bringing attention to the injustices that are already happening, SB793 gives law enforcement another reason to stop and harass people of color.
Hundreds of people marched in front of the home of California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, letting their voices be heard. Alongside faith leaders and other activists, the protest was peaceful while wearing masks and practicing social distancing.
“We must defeat this bill; it is another reason for African Americans to be at the mercy of law enforcement. So many already have the anxiety of being stopped, beaten and or killed at the hands of aggressive police officers, we do not another neighborhood to prison pipeline. We don’t send people to Sacramento to make laws that will give law enforcement a reason pulls us out of a car, beat us or to jail us…” states Pastor K.W. Tulloss president of Baptist Ministers Conference. “Today we served notice to California Speaker of the House that SB 793 is a bad bill that’s not good for California. The unintended consequences are real. Bills like this take us backwards and not forwards.”
Just last week Mayor Aja Brown of Compton shared with us about her being stopped and harassed by law enforcement for a no apparent reason. If this is the kind of treatment that a black Mayor in her city gets from rogue officers, we certainly do not want to give more reasons for them to stop or harass the great people of California.
Nearly 200 people of color marched against separatism, racism and discrimination today, all coming together to stop SB793.
About
Senate Bill 793 was authored by San Mateo Senator Jerry Hill and supported by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. The bill is to ban the sale of flavored tobacco, including vaping and e-cigarettes, which would also include menthol cigarettes.
We should focus on tobacco cigarettes not flavors, we should ban all tobacco cigarettes that are 100% proven to harm and kill. This bill affects vape flavors. And Designed to lure?? Its illegal for a child or teenagers to uses or possess any nicotine product, so anyone willing to break the law is just making bad choices in general. Flavored vape is a great alternative for tobacco cigarette users to quit but i wouldn’t recommend it in any other circumstance. I personally use this flavored vape method since I’ve had children so i won’t affect there health since second hand smoke can be just as dangerous for the people around you. Tobacco flavors are Disgusting and i would rather use regular cigarettes and would have never been able to quit.
“The great people of California”
There’s the tell, right there.
Trumpist language.
If the capitalists in power can make a buck off people, or in this case, especially target African America children using flavored tobacco with its lifelong addictive nicotine, they will not hesitate. People I dearly loved were killed by cancers brought about by using nicotine, by smoking tobacco. I fought with myself for years to quit my own addiction to it. If our next generation never need face this struggle it would be a wonderful thing.
Were you forced to smoke or was that a personal choice?
Personal choice. Unarguably the worst decision I ever made.
Addictions shackle people, erode their ability to make good, healthy, behavioral choices. Money and time spent on alcohol, tobacco, porn, things that offer temporary relief or satisfaction subtract from things that build people up long term. Why would anyone support the offer of choices such as these, especially when designed by monster companies to lure and hook young users into a lifetime of struggle? Would you, 2Urbangirls, offer flavored cigarettes to your child?
Were you able to stop smoking on your own accord?
As you know teens use flavor tobacco to roll their weed in.
You didn’t answer my question. Would you give a child or a teenager, yours or anyone else’s, an adulterated cigarette? In the name of freedom, would you offer a young, vulnerable person a proven addictive substance?
this isn’t about “offering” to anyone. it is about ADULTS having the RIGHT to CHOOSE. adults are the ones hanging in front of liquor stores and tobacco shops buying on behalf of children. that should be a criminal offense.
The above makes no sense if you live in a “free society”. So by your premise, we should have the right to choose to do whatever we want as long as what we are choosing to do fits YOUR personal definition of morality/good choices and does not, in your eyes, cause any “struggle”. To equate free choice to “offering” a child a cigarette is the kind of baseless argument that underlies the problems with these types of bills. As a parent, how about you go talk to all the other parents that apparently are NOT as vested enough in their children to talk to them about vaping, the dangers of their “choices” and why they should not experiment with vape.
I love the “helicopter parents” that want to blame everyone else when their parenting fails. Kids can get hurt in a car as well, so do we mandate that all kids be wrapped in buble wrap to ride in a car or do we teach them to ride with safe drivers, wear thier seatbelts, an make good chices while driving/riding in a car? SMH….
Question; How can you want to create a bill telling grown black folk what they can and cannot do.
In case you miss the 1836 memo BLACK people are free!
How about you all focus on the job you were elected to!
This is the DUMBEST protest yet.
Senate Bill 793 is NOT discriminatory or racist.
Flavored tobacco, e-cigarettes, vaping and menthol cigarettes are BAD for your health!
CASE CLOSED!!!
Calling everything racist takes away from REAL RACISM. It’s like crying wolf.
The people out protesting SB793 look like FOOLS!!!