This document was co-created by AZ Organizations and Youth Minds

By signing this petition, you believe Joe Biden should take further policy action - in climate catastrophe, decolonization & systemic racism, and accessible, equitable education - to create transformative societal, environmental, and economic (i.e. sustainable) change: 

The Bigger Than Biden Group will bring this petition directly to the Biden Campaign with hopes of making comprehensive strides in each focus area to reach a mutual understanding of the necessary, foundational change that needs to occur. B>B is proposing to create a semi-independent Youth Advisory Council to the Biden Campaign that serves as a pathway to power via policy development, implementation, and evaluation.

To begin the process of foundational, systemic change, there must be a reorientation towards 1) inclusive and intersectional environmentalism, where one recognizes how the injustices of the planet directly relate to the suffering of frontline communities, 2) cultural humility, or a lifelong process of questioning one’s own biases to equitably distribute power, 3) targeted universalism, referring to policies that target underrepresented groups while universally benefiting everyone, and 4) empathy, by putting aside our own preconceived notions to understand and respect the bounded rationality of another. 

According to Steve Phillips’ analysis in “Brown is the New White”, people of color and young people are the most decisive voting bloc when it comes to victorious Democratic elections. Learning from 2016, policy must reflect the needs and aspirations of forward-thinking youth and BIPOC voters in Arizona, and across the country, in order for the Democratic nominee to win.

These are the following policy resets (meaning ‘resetting’ our democratic processes to not be built on colonialism) that we believe are necessary to create an equitable, sustainable, and resilient society. This group is Bigger Than Biden because we recognize that systemic change is an ongoing process that will take decades of dedicated work to transform how we act as individuals, how we interact with each other, and how institutions collaborate with us. But, we must begin with the Biden administration. 

For a complete outline of the B>B Platform we will bring to the Biden campaign, refer to this document here.

This list is incomplete and constantly evolving. If you have specific suggestions or recommendations, please email us: betterbidenbloc@gmail.com or DM our instagram: @itsbiggerthanbiden. We are only as strong as the connections we make.

Climate Catastrophe

• Green New Deal 
• Urban Forestry/Green Infrastructure
• Community-based Emergency Management 
• Ban Fracking
  Etc.

 

Decolonization & Systemic Racism
 With specific attention to these eight subsets:

1. Prison Industrial Complex 

• Allocate police resources in municipal budgets towards community building programs
• End Use of Prison Labor
• End Police Immunity 
• End Mandatory Minimum Sentences
• End Broken Windows Policing
• End Police Presence at Schools
• End the War on Drugs
• Demilitarize Police  
• End For-Profit Prison System    

2. Immigration

• Disband ICE
• Create Humane Path to Citizenship
• Remaking the Green Card/Visa program
• Health and Legal Protections for Unauthorized Immigrants
  Etc.

3. Military Industrial Complex & Imperialism 

• End Military Industrial Complex (profit based on exploitation and suffering)
• Troops out of Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan 
• End Sanctions against Venezuela 
• End Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia 
• Drop Charges Against:
  Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner, Edward Snowden
  Etc.

4. Local Neocolonialism 

• Eliminate the incentives that lead to gentrification 
  • Rent control
  • Redlining 
  • City and State Land Holding of Undeveloped Vacant Land
• Reparations for Black and Indigenous Communities 
  • Land, financial, and inheritance 
  • Immediate passage of H.R.40, the “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act”
  • Land reparations for Dine and Hopi communities
  • Local place keeping and place building 
    Etc. 

5. Socio-Economic Stability 

• Universal Basic Income 
• Federal Homes Guarantee 
• Federal Jobs Guarantee
• Local Food Economy 
  • Local/Regional Production/Distribution
• Dignified Living Wage 
  • Subsidies for small businesses
  • Workers rights/Unions
• Universal Healthcare
• Remove Tax Write-Offs 
• Flat Tax on Graded Tax System
  Etc.

7. Mass Electoral Reform

• Ranked Choice Voting 
• Removing two party dichotomy 
• Removing Electoral College 
• Automatic Voter Registration
• One Person is One Voter
• Felon Voting Rights
• Election Day Becomes a Federal Holiday
  Etc.

8. Reproductive Rights 

• Protect Survivors of Sexual Assault
• Protect Reproductive Rights 
• Abortion Rights
• Birth Control Rights
  Etc.

9. LGBT+ Rights 

• Trans Healthcare Rights
• Jude’s Law made into federal law
• Trans inclusive education
• LGBT+ Protection
• Protecting Title IX
  Etc.

Education 

• Guaranteed tuition and debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions and trade-schools
• Removing the ability for school districts to be funded based on property values
• “Decolonizing your mind” through education (gender, sexual, and race education training)
• Sexual assault prevention on college campuses
• Empathy and Arts-based Education
• eARTh education
• Jazz for Innovators
• Historical Equity Training
  Etc.

Glossary of Terms

Allyship: a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency, and accountability with marginalized individuals and/or groups of people. Not self-defined—work and efforts must be recognized by those you are seeking to ally with 

Bounded Rationality: people have a limit to the rational decisions they can make because of their personal mind map, directly opposing the idea that humans are rational beings that have sufficient information to make decisions; humans are constantly picking the most satisfying option from what they know, and never have all the information to make the truly rational decision

Disparity: lack of similarity or equality; inequality; difference

Equity: true equity implies that an individual may need to experience or receive something different (not equal) in order to maintain fairness and access

Frontline Communities: people that feel climate change consequences “first and worst”; marginalized populations that are especially vulnerable to climate emergencies 

Hegemony: The ability of a dominant or ruling group to impose its own values and ideas about what is natural or normal on a subordinated group, often defining the parameters of what is even considered an acceptable topic within the dominant discourse

Intersectionality: the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage

Living Wage: a wage that is high enough to maintain a normal standard of living

Oppression: prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control. 

Oppressor: one who uses her/his power to dominate another, or who refuses to use her/his power to challenge that domination

Performative/Optical Allyship: a form of allyship, when an individual or group of power/majority/privilege (e.g., white, male, abled, unqueer, etc) creates a public display in the name of 'allyship,' serving only themselves and not the group they claim to support, often to receive praise and attention, without taking critical action to dismantle the systems of harm

Prison-Industrial Complex: the network of companies that currently profit from the US prison and detention system either through the prison’s construction/operation or through prison labor

Police Brutality: Police brutality in the United States, the unwarranted or excessive and often illegal use of force against civilians by U.S. police officers. Forms of police brutality have ranged from assault and battery (e.g., beatings) to mayhem, torture, and murder

Reparation: the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged.

Resilience: the ability of a system to thrive after something disrupts it

Structural Racism: the normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics – historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal – that routinely advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color

Sustainability: the balance of the environmental, social, and economic needs of today without compromising those needs for tomorrow; not just a set of topics, like water conservation or recycling, but a set of practices for a way of being

Systemic Oppression: when the laws of a place create unequal treatment of a specific social identity group or groups

White Supremacy: White supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege

Violence: behavior, action, or emotion where one is forcefully pushing their will and expectations onto another; when one dehumanizes another; the last manifestation of is physical violence (the kind most commonly associated with violence), but there are dozens of different types, including, not not limited to: economic violence, philosophical violence, spatial violence, historical violence, gender/sexual violence, institutional violence, racial violence, linguistic violence, violence embedded-in-place, educational violence, religious violence, political/legal violence, beauty as violence, cultural violence