B.L.A.C.K. OUTREACH

B.L.A.C.K. OUTREACH SAN JOSE

, established in 2020 during the summer of protests for Black lives, may be one of the youngest organizations of many in the South Bay working to provide mutual aid and self-support to unhoused and marginalized people. It is also—in the landscape of social activists—informed by the most systemimpacted experience.

As president and vice president of B.L.A.C.K. Outreach, Lou Dimes and Pamela Emanuel have navigated the foster care and carceral systems that further punish those in unsteady living conditions. It’s these personal experiences that push them to invest deeply in the improvement of these systems and the healing of the families affected by them.

By the time Pamela was a sophomore in high school, she had already seen two of her brothers get locked up. One was placed in juvenile detention for running away from his foster home. The other was incarcerated for a murder committed by someone who had borrowed his phone. As she sat in the trial, watching the judge sentence her brother to 25 years to life for a crime he didn’t commit, she committed herself to learning the judicial system from the inside out. At first, justice seemed in reach. Talking to her brother’s lawyer, Pamela met a public defender working specifically to charge police for violent acts. She learned about the passing of SB 1437, a bill that changed the terminology of who is considered a murderer, posing the possibility that her brother could face a different charge and be released sooner. “But then I learned how much power the judge holds,” she shares. “Even with this bill, a judge can [rule] that this is not constitutional.”

Later, Pamela’s mother was also incarcerated. At 19, Pamela became head of her household, raising her brother and managing her mother’s belongings while fighting for her release.

The day that George Floyd was killed, Pamela was at a protest in Sacramento, advocating on behalf of her mom and brothers for better living conditions in the Sacramento County jails. Better living conditions meant providing her mom, who was immunocompromised, with a mask during the pandemic. It meant serving her mom food that was not infested by maggots. “When you see it done to your family, it puts something inside of you. No one can try to convince me that I should not be talking about this.” At the same time, “I can’t do anything that’s going to incriminate myself.”

Fully cognizant of her own freedom and safety allowing her to keep fighting for her family, Pamela is mindful of the experiences that new members

Written by Esther Young

Photography by Avni Nijhawan blackoutreachsj.org Instagram black.outreach.sj feed.the.block.sj

of B.L.A.C.K. Outreach carry with them. The organization grew out of a group of protesters, but as they were voted into their official roles, both Lou and Pamela agreed that becoming a Black Lives Matter chapter wasn’t the direction they needed to go to effectively serve their community in San Jose.

Like all of B.L.A.C.K. Outreach’s programs, the first one they developed was driven by intent, cultivated by lived experience. For Lou, it was essential that the organization did more than protest. “We wanted to mold it into something distinctly for San Jose that addresses these things on a multi-prong level,” he explains. One need he wanted to address immediately was food insecurity. “We’re in a super-wealthy city and county, and homeless people in Detroit eat way better than when I was homeless out here,” Lou says.

Feed the Block, their flagship program, stands apart from most food distribution programs in its unique brunch menu—pancakes with eggs and sausages, cooked with kale, tomato, and onion. “We used to always eat brunch growing up, and that was a little pleasure we would still try to give ourselves, even when we were going through rough times,” Lou explains. “We aim to give that to people who traditionally can’t get it.”

The memory and the insistence of joy carried him through the disruptions of his young adult years. Prompted to share his story, Lou begins and ends talking about his mother, a retired historian who specialized in politics and voting rights of ancient peoples on the Italian peninsula. “Growing up around her and in her classroom, I was always learning about revolution and social movements,” he shares. “I would watch her. If something was wrong, my mom always said something.” Lou grew up knowing what kind of person his mom was trying to raise and who he wanted to be.

Originally from Detroit, he followed his mom to different universities around the country where she taught. They lived in Italy for four years. Upon their return to the states, Lou’s grandmother suffered a stroke, and he and his mother took care of her together. The year was 2008, during the economic crash. “It was really difficult for my mom to find another teaching job here, stateside,” Lou remembers. “She wasn’t able to work. Her health deteriorated as well.”

By the time Lou turned 14, he and his mom were transient. They squatted in different family members’ homes, stayed in their car and at different hotels. He remembers his lung collapsed that year. But most vividly, he recalls the day child protective services came to his school and declared him a ward of the state. “That’s when I had my first serious personal interaction with the system.”

They took him to the police station and kept him in a holding room. The CPS agent failed to place him in a foster home, so she placed him in a juvenile center—what was supposed to be a couple of days lasted months. “That was the first time I realized, it doesn’t matter. Even if you don’t do anything, haven’t committed a crime, you can still end up in jail. I hadn’t done anything,” Lou observes, “I was just homeless.”

Looking back, Lou sees how decisions were made for him by a system and notes the points where certain resources and access to an aware community could have helped him advocate for himself. When CPS moved him into “supervised independent living,” a program meant to transition foster kids who had aged out, he successfully graduated from high school and applied to the Art Institute of Chicago. Lou was accepted with a $50,000 merit scholarship, but the total tuition deterred him from enrolling. “I was scared to take on debt at that point,” he says, looking back.

“Now I’m older, I understand I could have got more support.” But there was little reinforcement in his life to show him how.

One of B.L.A.C.K. Outreach’s programs promotes the value of Black students finding one another and accessing support. The organization partners with schools to implement an app called Blackbook. “Even if there’s a kid at a high school where they may be the only Black student, instead of putting the pressure on them to create and maintain a BSU (Black Student Union) by themselves, they could just join a network,” Pamela explains. An online version of the app not only connects Black students and teachers but informs them of community events—whether that be organizing or what parties are happening.

Despite the breadth of projects and reliance on volunteers for this young organization, Pamela and Lou remain discerning about its membership. “We have people who may be with us hardcore six months, and then they go off to school somewhere,” Lou explains. As president, he encourages it, but that means the turnover of membership is great. To make an impact, they choose members who are impacted. People who mean well but haven’t shared these experiences don’t realize how it affects everyone in the family.

“I don’t think anyone will ever be fully healed from the things that happen in this society,” Pamela admits. “But by giving them those different types of outlets, they’re actually being heard and loved.” C