The events that have unfolded in the past two days have taken our collective breath away. As an organization that places absolute and equal value on the life of each individual, our grief comes quickly for our sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers who have lost their loved ones. We had barely recovered from losing people in the Orlando massacre when these events demanded equal attention and careful thought.
We are compelled to speak out and not just through words. Our programs exhibit the best of our efforts by reaching out to people who may otherwise be ignored. Many of our participants are black teens and black women whose daily lives are challenging on many levels. We are devastated by the needless deaths of two black men who died in their own communities and the five police officers who died in the line of duty in Dallas.
There are plenty of things we can do to move our community, our state and our nation to better solutions. We have been talking about those solutions for 113 years at the YWCA Greensboro. We have no intention of stopping now. We will not allow the angry, misguided and violent people of our country dictate how this dialogue will continue or how it will end.
We offer the following links to discussions that are addressing the most recent events. If they make you feel uncomfortable or angry, then read them again in an hour when your emotions are settled. Read them as though your children’s lives depended on you having appropriate responses. Read them to discover how, with a mind determined to remain open and a heart heavy with grief, can make a difference. We will move past the grief eventually. We can never move past the opportunity to grow in our understanding of why racism, sexism, and all the isms are burdens to our society. If we stop talking, how then shall we eliminate racism and empower women? And how in the world can we ask others to pursue this mission if we are not pursuing it ourselves?
It takes courage. It takes commitment. It takes us. It takes YOU.
http://billmoyers.com/story/alton-sterling-philando-castile-dead/
https://www.thenation.com/article/black-lives-still-must-matter-even-after-dallas/
