Our hearts are tender. Our hearts are full of grief. We are with you in our shared outrage and our shared determination that the world will not accept nor watch one more Black person murdered callously and needlessly by an agent of the state.
At this time, we honor all the ways people are responding to this moment... Some of us are processing overwhelming feelings at home alone or with loved ones. Some watching media, others not. The resistors, who are out on the streets. The reformers, who are pushing institutions to defund the police. The re-imaginers, who are envisioning true community-safety models. The re-creators, who are providing peer-to-peer mental health services & activating spiritual health networks. All of us who are calling on our spiritual community--material and ancestral--to hold us and support us in this moment.
We know that the way we heal ourselves and heal the world is through fierce compassion--which literally means the willingness and ability to suffer with. To allow our hearts to break over and over, to be present with our own suffering in order to be present to the suffering of others and to take action to end it. We know that by ending violence against Black people we will end the violence against the Earth, and that our work to end violence against the Earth must also consciously and deliberately end the genocidal violence against Black people, and all those who suffer systemic oppression.
To echo what many people of color are saying at this moment: find the life-honoring work that you do best and do it. Stay focused. Stay resourced. Stay in community. Stay connected.
We are here for and with you. #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd
In solidarity,
the NC Climate Justice Collective Leadership Team
Elijah Brunson
Donna Chavis
Alecia Gaines
Liz Kazal
Gregg Lasseter
Jodi Lasseter
Connie Leeper
Mark Ortiz
Bevelyn Ukah
Ayo Wilson
Omari Wilson