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Statements from the community: |
June 2, 2020
Dear Friends of
ACDC,
Over the past week,
protests swept across America calling for justice for George Floyd and
the many other Black and Brown people who had senselessly and needlessly
died at the hands of the police. It was powerful and beautiful to see so
many people come together with signs and chants of “I Can’t Breathe” and
“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.”
Yet many news
images focus on the subsequent violence and looting. While these images
are painful to see, it is all too easy to get distracted by the damages
from the core message – namely that there must be change to this system
under which Black and Brown lives are discarded so callously, repeatedly.
Several stores
in Chinatown suffered damages and loss on Sunday night, on top of the
devastating economic loss and rise in anti-Asian sentiment from the
pandemic. Across the country, many of the stores targeted were owned by
people of color, many of them immigrants who have now lost their
livelihood, built from scratch and with sacrifice. It is impossible to
know how many of these small businesses will survive.
There will be
temptations to blame the protesters. There will be comparisons to the
L.A. riots. Except this time, it is happening concurrently with a global
health pandemic. All this pain, anxiety and unknowns are compounding into
an increasingly divisive society as injustices come to light.
This country has
long pitted communities of color against one another, including Asian and
Black communities. Asian Americans have often been used as a wedge to
split apart people of color, such as the “Model Minority” myth, which
puts us on an insidious pedestal while blaming Black and Brown people for
their own sufferings. Divisiveness keeps the white supremacy system
intact.
But we in the
Asian American community must stand together with the Black, Brown and
Indigenous communities. How can we ask others to stand in solidarity
against anti-Asian xenophobia, if we cannot join the call now for justice
for George Floyd and others like him?
We have a long
road ahead of us. While we take care of one another during this pandemic,
we must examine and address anti-Blackness within our own community,
stand with our sisters and brothers in the Black and Brown communities,
and work together to demand justice and dismantle racism. This time, we
will not stand by silently.
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Angie Liou
Executive
Director
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Dear BCNC Community,
Monday was my first day as
CEO of BCNC and I was excited to join this important and impactful
organization.
However, Monday was not how
I envisioned starting my new role – during a world-wide health crisis
or national protests around racial injustices against Black Americans.
Since our founding, BCNC
exists to build thriving families, and equitable and stronger
communities. COVID-19 has fueled anti-Asian racism, xenophobia, and
harassment. The families we serve as well as staff have felt fear and
anger as a result. Racist and White supremacist sentiments do not
contribute to a thriving community or healthy families. BCNC and I
unequivocally condemn these racial injustices.
I believe our country has a
lot of critical work to undo that source of fear and anger. Anti-racism
work is important to our community, but also especially for our Black
neighbors, friends, and colleagues, so they can live their lives safely
and without fear. Unfortunately, it is tragically too late for George
Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. I believe
any nonprofit agency serving immigrants or people of color is a social
justice organization, and our approach to the work should be with an
equity lens.
Therefore, just as we
combat anti-Asian racism, we must seek to be allies and advocates with
the Black community against racism and White supremacy. Without change
and justice for Blacks there will be no change and justice for Asians,
Latinx, Muslims, or many others. To be true allies to the Black
community, we believe the Asian community must also be self-reflective
and work to address our own biases and racism. These are difficult and
painful conversations, but the work is important, and solidarity will
result in change.
Our values will be
important as we pursue this work. My professional background working as
a counselor for adjudicated teens, at the Boston Children’s Chorus, and
the Boston Public Library has provided me a set of diverse experiences
grounded in values of love, resilience, creativity, respect, risk-taking,
and justice to name a few. These values will undergird our work helping
our community be safe and thrive.
My personal story includes
these values. Like many of the families we serve, my story begins with
parents making tough decisions. It starts with parents making a
difficult decision to leave me at the steps of an orphanage in Seoul,
South Korea with the hope of a better life and at the same time, an
American couple in Southern New Jersey deciding to adopt a baby boy
from Asia. Both stories start from a place of love, risk, anxiety,
hope, and a little chance. Both couples made a personal sacrifice to
"create a pathway to a brighter future" for me. It isn’t
without reflection that I’m truly fortunate to be where I am today. In
addition to a little luck, I am who I am due to many doors being opened
to me by the love, care, and support of others. So, ingrained in me is
the desire to give back, serve and help others achieve their potential.
Sometimes that means teaching, inspiring confidence in someone, giving
someone a first, second or even third opportunity, or just a kind word.
It is what our staff does every single day.
Though we are living
through challenging times, we need to raise our voices up for a just
America. Raise our voices for equity, justice, and inclusion. Raise our
voices for a better future.
That future is in our
hands. That future is created by our coming together, intentionally
planning, and moving the reality we want forward. I’m proud to see an
organization that is resilient and adaptable, has incredible community
knowledge, a deep desire to respond to our community’s needs, and most
important of all a willingness to learn so the future is not foretold
and is ours to write. I look forward to connecting with you and doing
this work together.
With a heart full,
Ben Hires
Chief Executive Officer
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885 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111
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ACE NextGen, a non-profit organization with a mission to connect, elevate, and give back to the Asian American Pacific Islander entrepreneur community, and its five chapters in Boston, Houston, Southern California, New York, and Washington, DC, stand in unity and solidarity with the black community in light of recent events. We strongly condemn racism of any kind.
We are calling upon our community to stand up and support the fight against racial injustice and inequality that persist in our country. Now is the time to stand up for each other by joining or contributing resources to organizations that advocate for the black community, people of color, anti-racism, and an equitable society, and by promoting open dialogue within our own circles about racism, biases, and activism.
And as always, we are here for our small business community especially during these challenging times as we navigate an ever changing environment. Please reach out if you need any help.
ACE NextGen will be reaching out to business leaders of the black community within our parent organization, National ACE, and our extended network to come up with a plan of action to best support the black community. If you’d like to be informed or get involved with this initiative, please contact one of your ACE NextGen national or chapter leaders.
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ATASK Stands with Black
Lives
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We stand with the Black communities of
America. The pain, sadness and anger expressed across the nation is
undeniable. Systemic racism, white supremacy, police brutality and the
historic oppression of the Black community are not new. The deaths of
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Aubrey are only recent reminders.
We are a nation that "Can't Breathe."
Remaining silent perpetuates racism and
systemic injustice. We can no longer stay silent and must use our collective
voices to demand change. ATASK is committed to joining Black communities
and allies to dismantle the structural inequities that oppress Black,
indigenous and people of color and divide our nation. There are many
ways to raise your voice against racism and create a more equitable and
inclusive society.
- Educate yourself about
Black history, anti-racism, anti-blackness, white supremacy, and
systemic oppression. And do this work without asking your Black
peers to educate you.
- Reach out and listen
without judgement.
- Learn how to be a better
ally.
- Support Black businesses.
- Protest safely and
peacefully.
- Donate to a charity that
supports the Black community and social justice.
- Vote for change.
- Support government policies
aimed at reforming unjust systems on the state and local levels.
In solidarity,
ATASK
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P.O. Box 120108
Boston, MA 02112
Hotline: 617.338.2355
Office: 617.338.2350
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Statement from AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins on
Racial Injustice and Disparities
“As
we witness the protests over racial injustice and face the ongoing coronavirus
pandemic, we believe our nation desperately needs healing. The incidents of
racial violence and COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on people of color are
not random, but instead are the result of inequality due to a lack of social,
economic, and political opportunities. Discrimination of any kind corrodes our
communities and our society from the inside out.
“AARP
today continues to be guided by the promise that our founder, Dr. Ethel Percy
Andrus, made over 60 years ago: ‘What we do, we do for all.’ Through our advocacy,
programs, and services, we fight against discrimination, advocate for access to
health care, and work to improve the lives of all people, especially those most
vulnerable. As we consider this moment in time, it’s clear this work is more
important than ever. During these difficult days, AARP will use its voice,
resources, and trust in our brand to continue our fight for what is right so
all people can live a life of dignity regardless of race, age, or income.
Letter to the Emerson Community from Dr. Lee Pelton, May 31,
2020
Today, I write to you as a Black man and as President of Emerson
College.
There is no other way to write to you, given recent
events.
I didn’t sleep Friday night.
Instead, I spent the night, like a moth drawn to a flame, looking again and
again at the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis white
police officer. It was a legalized lynching. I was struck by the callousness
and the casual dehumanization of Mr. Floyd. To that officer, he was invisible –
the Invisible Man that Ralph Ellison described in his novel by the same name.
Black Americans are invisible to
most of white America. We live in the shadows – even those of us, who like me,
sit at the table of bounty. At the same time, we are hyper-visible in
classrooms, work places, social settings, and as we go about our daily lives.
On Saturday, I was very angry.
The persistent structural racism that undergirds American society and permits
the police and others to kill black people is pernicious and ubiquitous.
We mourn George Floyd. But let’s
not forget the other George Floyds of which he is but one:
Ahmaud Arbery was jogging when
white vigilantes pursued him in their pick-up trucks, shot and killed him. A
Harvard educated black birder, Christian Cooper, was bird watching when a white
woman walking her dog weaponized the lynching trope in an attempt to summon
police.
Do you remember Trayvon Martin or
twelve-year old Tamir Rice or Sandra Bland or Philando Castile or Eric Garner
or Freddie Gray or Botham Jean or Breonna Taylor?
Say their names. This is not new.
All of them dead. Each of them
invisible.
I’m still angry. As President, I
didn’t want to write in anger. But I also didn’t want to write the kind of
platitudinous letters that ordinarily appear after these kinds of killings. I
consulted my children on Saturday. One said, “Dad, I don’t think you need to
say anything if you don’t want to. Who even knows what to say right now. And as
you said, it’s more up to white people to say something now.”
I consulted friends and one of
the wisest among them said, “Let [the world] know how you feel. Everyone who
gets it will be better for it; the others, who cares. In some contexts anger is
not an emotion; instead, it’s a moral.”
And so, I write today.
I watched the video over and over
again well into the morning hours because I was mesmerized by the casualness
with which the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.
Chauvin dug his knee into his neck for almost eight minutes, even as Floyd
repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” As he called on his Mama
before he took his last breath, Chauvin continued to talk, he looked as if he
didn’t have a care in the world. He didn’t stop until Floyd was unresponsive.
George Floyd was invisible. And
it was his invisibility, a brutal white power structure and Chauvin’s
dehumanization of him that killed him.
Floyd has a history. And so do I.
I was born in a house that had no
indoor plumbing until I was six years old. Until they died, my mother and both
of my grandmothers cleaned houses for middle class and rich white folks. My
father was a laborer until he got a good paying job working at the City of
Wichita, Kansas, where I was born and raised. When I was in high school, I
didn’t know anything about private colleges or universities and even if I had,
I would not have been able to afford one of them. So, I enrolled at my local
public university, which was essentially a commuter school.
In my lifetime, I have been
called the n-word by white people in every state and every city that I have
ever lived in.
I have been pulled over driving
while black more times than I can remember. I have been spit on by a white
parking lot attendant. I was stopped 20 feet from my house by two white police
officers in their cruiser, the searing heat of their spot light on my neck,
guns drawn on either side of my car because I looked like a black man who was
alleged to have stolen something from a convenience store. When I was living on
the West Coast, I was pulled over twice in a single night by police officers
because, according to each, I didn’t turn on my turn signal the proper feet
before a stop sign. As president of the University before Emerson, two teenage
boys drove up on the sidewalk to block my path home because I looked like
someone who was suspected of stealing from neighborhood homes. When I asked
what that person looked like they described someone more than twenty years
younger than me. While visiting my cousins in Conway, Arkansas in the 70’s, I suffered
the deep humiliation of having to go to the back alley of a local restaurant to
order food. I was twenty years old. I was angry at the overt racism and at my
cousins for enduring such indignities almost a decade after the passages of the
two Civil Rights Acts of the mid-60’s.
That’s my history. And I have
dedicated my life’s work to social justice in just about every aspect of
American life, but especially for young people who grew up like me.
I also write to you today on the
anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma riots in which Greenwood, then the
wealthiest black neighborhood in America (called the Black Wall Street), was
attacked by mobs of white residents because a 19-year old black shoeshiner
allegedly bumped into a 17-year old white elevator operator. More than 800
black people were admitted to the hospital, and 6,000 Greenwood families were
displaced as white vigilantes deputized by law enforcement killed more than 300
hundred black people and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of Greenwood,
some of it carried out by private aircraft. It is the worst single incident of
racial violence in American history, and I suspect not one in ten Americans
have ever heard of it.
What happened to George Floyd is
not new. It as old as 250 years of slavery and the Jim Crow laws that sought to
marginalize and shut out black Americans from American society.
As my wise friend reminded me,
quoting James Baldwin, “Any real change implies the breaking of the world as
one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of
safety.”
So, I have no words of comfort
today because they would be inauthentic. They would absolve so many from coming
to terms with their own silent complicity in the world in which we live.
As I wrote to someone today, “This
is not a black problem, but a structural issue built on white supremacy and
centuries of racism. It’s your problem. And until you understand that, we are
doomed to relive this week’s tragic events over and over again. What changes
will you make in your own life? Begin with answering that question and maybe,
just maybe we will get somewhere.”
The most important question is:
What are you going to do?
At an appropriate time, I will
gather the community to talk about what I have written and what we might be able
to do together to address racism in America, beginning first of all with an
honest appraisal of ourselves.
Lee
