Op-Ed: Bipartisanship Needed To Address Racism, Rep. Farnen Says

The death of George Floyd was horrific and there’s no justification for the brutal use of force that was used by the Minneapolis Police Department. I am heartbroken for George Floyd and his family at his needless murder. Police brutality should never be tolerated and the officers involved in George Floyd's murder should be punished, to the fullest extent of the law, including the officers who sat back and did nothing to stop it.

The murder of George Floyd has shone a bright light on the systemic racism propagated against Black Americans in this country. Bigotry, ignorance and senseless violence in all forms is wrong. Racist and prejudiced attitudes in all communities need to be called out and repudiated as Black Lives Matter.

COVID-19 is also shining a bright light on the economic and health disparities in our country. As we climb out of this public health crisis, we must be focused on the most vulnerable communities, namely Black Americans, who because of a variety of factors — including socioeconomic and employment — have been hit with a double whammy from this pandemic. Black Americans have a greater proportion of jobs that don’t allow them to sit in front of a computer and do telework. As such, we need to keep this in mind as we look to turn our economy around and create good paying jobs in this state and our cities in particular.

I understand that many people are hurting and many more are frustrated that racial injustices, like George Floyd's murder, seem to be ignored, I too, want meaningful reform.

There will be some on both sides of the political aisle that will use this overdue conversation as a way to further divide us and look to use it as a political weapon, especially with elections coming up in November. We should all be wary of politicians and members of the party establishments in both parties speaking the loudest or pointing fingers for political gain. Instead, I ask that we look for common ground and work together as a community and a state.

First, we need to continue the uncomfortable but important conversation about race in society. That is one of the reasons I accepted the invitation to participate in the Fairfield Community Conversation on Racial Injustice, the Candlelight Vigil for George Floyd at the First Congregational Church, as well as the many conversations with constituents, family members and friends. More than ever, this is a time for our elected officials to listen first before speaking.

The state legislature should have a special session this July, so we can begin to address reforms with the police, our education system, and rebuilding our economy in light of the devastation brought about by COVID-19. Specifically, I believe true bipartisan reform is possible for commonsense initiatives like independent review boards of citizen complaints of police misconduct, mandatory use of body cameras for both the protection of the public and the police, banning choke holds and certain other restraints except in life or death situations, strengthening community policing initiatives and training, additional psychological reviews for officers through their employment tenure, making Juneteenth a state holiday as an opportunity to educate and come together as a community, revisiting education reform and how we jump start the economies in our urban centers.

In a time when overdue reform is now a real possibility, we also need to guard against policies that will actually hurt the communities that we are intending to help. Defunding our police, regionalizing our schools with neighboring towns and cities that create bigger bureaucracies and less accountability and removing school resource officers from our schools are examples of policies that will not make any community stronger and would be a step in the wrong direction.

I firmly believe that the vast majority of police officers are hardworking public servants and in many cases heroes. We need reform to root out the bad ones as the consequences are too great for the community, people of color who live in fear of the very organization that is supposed to be protecting them and the good officers that are negatively impacted by the bad ones.

In conclusion my goal is to work to bring our community together and not divide. Let’s use this unprecedented time to actually talk to each other, not at each other to find true common ground. I call upon the leaders in both parties to have a special session this summer, so we can pass bipartisan reform as a first step in healing our community and state.

Brian Farnen

State representative for District 132 in Fairfield

This article originally appeared on the Fairfield Patch