We call on the businesses of Fell’s Point to remove their names from the open letter threatening to withhold their taxes and to stand against calls to give Fell’s Point a disproportionate share of city resources. While there are serious, legitimate concerns about violence happening in Fells Point as well as the financial struggles that our local businesses face, we also need to weigh our response with the needs of other parts of the city, and Baltimore’s history with inequitable resource allocation between neighborhoods. Fell’s Point businesses are right to demand solutions, but it needs to be done in an equity-centered way. We ask that you remove your name from that letter, which only serves to sew more divisions with the demands it makes, and come to the table for a discussion that puts equity first.

Many parts of Baltimore struggle with violent crime, traffic violence, and dumping, so we need to be careful when making calls for additional resources to Fell’s Point. In his book, The Black Butterfly, Dr. Lawrence Brown calls Baltimore a Category 5 hypersegregated city, because practices like redlining, housing restrictions, and racist tax policies have forced many of Baltimore’s Black residents into neighborhoods that are not given the same level of city resources or attention. We see this when we are more likely to spend money in Black neighborhoods on militarized police, before picking up dumped trash or quality of life issues. There is the physical and psychological violence affecting Black communities from hyper-policing, including tactics like widespread stop-and-frisk and the “war on drugs,” all the way to the police instigated violence that lead to the Department of Justice finding that the BPD engaged in an unconstitutional pattern or practice of policing. Violence is a product of oppression. Let's look at the larger issues of oppression here. 

This is not to say that we should accept the level of violence that happened in Fells Point last weekend, or the escalating level of mayhem that has impacted Fell’s Point in the last weeks, and the last years. We all deserve to live, work, and enjoy neighborhoods that feel safe, clean, and welcoming. But we should not label some neighborhoods as ‘Crown Jewels’, because that implies that other neighborhoods are not as worthy of our city resources. Threatening to withhold taxes and fees until certain conditions are met can only serve to exacerbate existing inequities between neighborhoods and threaten the basic services you seek while ensuring even greater inequity in public services throughout the city.

We ask the businesses that signed that letter to remove their names and come to the table for a  dialog about how we can work on these serious issues while maintaining a focus on equity. No matter what goal businesses had in signing this letter, it came off very poorly. This level of outrage is reasonable but should happen whenever there is a murder or violence, otherwise, it implies that Fell’s Point should be protected, while others should be neglected. Because of Baltimore's profound legacy of racist practices, residents experience a high level of violence. This violence impacts all businesses negatively, including those in Fells Point. And yet, we all bear responsibility for the inequitable practices. Let's all come to the table to fix this problem equitably, for all of Baltimore. 

The undersigned will boycott those restaurants until they rescind their support for that letter.