OAKLAND, CA — Urban Peace Movement’s Executive Director spoke out this week in response to recent remarks from President Trump that negatively portrayed Oakland.

In an Associated Press article published Sunday, Nicole Lee defended her hometown alongside mayors from several Black-led cities across the nation, some of which Trump characterized as being “overtaken by violent gangs and blood thirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth” and other exaggerated assertions. Oakland, he claimed, was “so far gone,” adding “we don’t even mention that anymore.”

In comments to AP national reporter Terry Tang, Lee defended Oakland, and identified UPM’s work in the city as part of a broad, community-driven effort to work on community safety holistically, with an emphasis on addressing the underlying conditions that lead to sustainable community safety.

“We really want to acknowledge all of the hard work that our network of community partners and community organizations have been doing over the past couple of years coming out of the pandemic to really create real community safety,” Lee said in the report. “The things we are doing are working.”

Lee also spoke out against youth curfews as an ineffective tool that criminalize youth without increasing community safety.

“If you’re a young person, basically you can be cited, criminalized, simply for being outside after certain hours,” Lee said. “Not only does that not solve anything in regard to violence and crime, it puts young people in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system.”

Read the full article here.