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Open Letter to the CommunityOffice of the Mayor and City Council City Hall 50 West 13th Street Dubuque, Iowa 52001-4864 August 30, 2007 Open Letter to the Community: THE CITY OF :'l T?~BV+Q E On August 25, 2007, a murder took place in our city. We would like to express our sympathy to the family of the victim, Mr. Nicholas Blackburn. This young man should not have lost his life. And there is nothing that we can say that will take away this family's pain. As a community, however, we need to extend our most sincere thoughts and prayers to the family in their time of sorrow. We also would like to encourage the community to cooperate with police efforts to ensure that justice is served in this case. We take our obligations to ensure the safety of our community members very seriously. We recognize the tension and uncertainties that many individuals, black and white, are feeling in our community, and we call on our community to take the following steps. First, no violence. One person has died and another is awaiting trial. This alone is tragedy enough in our community. Second, no racist rhetoric and behavior. Third, no retaliation, whether in response to the murder or in response to the use of racist language or behavior. We must work through this without further injury or loss of life. Fourth, if you hear or witness racial slurs, tell the individual using such language to stop. If you fear you are in a situation that may escalate to violence, immediately report it to the police. Let your neighbors and friends know that you will not tolerate the use of this language. We cannot discuss this incident without also addressing the recent news report indicating that someone responded to the stabbing by publicly posting a photo of the lynching of a black man on the Telegraph Herald website. We strongly condemn this act because it carries a horrifying message of hate and bigotry to ourAfrican-American residents as a whole in this community. When coupled with other comments suggesting that the behavior of this one African-American male suspect is representative of the behavior of an entire group of African-Americans in our community, we cannot remain silent. We understand that the vast majority of our community members are open and accepting of people from all backgrounds. We understand that reasonable people can become fearful following a violent incident. Our response is to ask people to take a moment to consider what - if not race - is driving the discussions surrounding this Service People Integrity Responsibility Innovation Teamwork Open Letter to the Community August 30, 2007 Page 2 incident. We ask community members to consider that when an African-American man commits a crime, people who share his skin color should not have to find themselves defending their presence in our community. And we ask people to consider whether that is a burden we wish to place on the African-American children who call our community home and whom we are trying to raise with the belief that they can stand on their own merits. Most of the people in our city are hard-working people raising families and helping to build our community. We also recognize that there will be some who wilt not be contributing members and who will bring violence in their wake. We will not tolerate violence, and when any person commits a crime, our officers will prosecute the case equally. Condemning other people is easy. Refusing to take the time to distinguish fact from fiction is easy. Making broad, sweeping statements to avoid working through the messy details of each interaction between people is easy. We are challenging this community to try harder and do better. Do not fall prey to the all too easy trap of lumping people into a category and giving up on them. We know that, as a community, we are better than that. Our community is capable of standing together with a collective voice of support and continuing efforts to create a welcoming and equitable community that judges each person on the content of his or her individual character. We know that the vast majority of people in our community are law abiding people, black and white, who are here to live their lives and raise their families in peace. Now is the time for that majority to band together and strongly send the message: no hate, no violenc . m G ~ ~~f~~~ Mayor oy D. Buol Karla Braig, Council M ber at Cline, ouncil Member Jo cE C Ric Jones, Council Member Kevin C~ G'h~ Ann Michalski, Council Member ,Council Member uncil'Member