May 17, 2022

Get Involved, Reproductive Justice

Yesterday we wrestled with whether or not it made sense for us to make a statement about the shooting in Buffalo. We asked ourselves, is our voice needed in this moment?

Ultimately the answer is yes. All of our voices are needed in this moment. We must publicly and vigorously call out white supremacy and its violence wherever we see it. The Buffalo shooter targeted Black people. A young mind warped by a hateful ideology that is all too prevalent in our country and which has been emboldened in recent years by dog whistles and direct appeals to racism and xenophobia.

This same warped thinking is behind anti-abortion violence, anti-LGBTQ hatred, and the push for an antiseptic teaching of history that denies the genocide and slavery that were foundational to the building of this country we call home. The mere theory of white ‘replacement’ is ludicrous when we know that there were millions of indigenous people living in North America who were systematically exterminated by white European colonial settlers.

Roberta Drury. Margus Morrison. Andre Mackniel. Aaron Salter. Geraldine Talley. Celestine Chaney. Heyward Patterson. Katherine Massey. Pearl Young. Ruth Whitfield.

Say their names. And honor their lives by fighting every day to root out racism, xenophobia, and white supremacy whenever and wherever we encounter these evils.