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An Apology and Correction from JDI to Breonna Taylor, her legacy and to Black women.

Statements

On May 29th JDI shared a public call to action for Black Lives, and unfortunately in our statement, we misspelled Breonna Taylor’s name. This action was insensitive and compounds the erasure of Black women. We need to do better, and we promise to do better. A special thank you to Charence Higgins for catching our error and holding us accountable.  It should not fall on Black women to correct our errors, and we apologize to Charence Higgins and other folks in our community that we have hurt with our actions. You will find our corrected call to action for #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackTransLivesMatter below.

 

JDI’s Call to Action for Black Lives

George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Tony McDade. So. Many. More. Say their names. Remember their lives. But please don’t stop there. JDI calls upon each of our member programs, our systems partners, our supporters, and ourselves to take action to resist the tide of state violence that destroys Black lives in this country. Our commitment to ending sexual and domestic violence must be indistinguishable from the work we must do to confront white supremacy in our communities and unequivocally demand that #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackTransLivesMatter .
 
We can witness. We can mourn. We can stand with our Black colleagues in this grief. But most of all, we must act. We direct this call to action in particular to our white colleagues, families, and friends.

Actions to Support Black Lives at the Organizational Level:
• Acknowledge that your black colleagues are hurting deeply. Black lives matter in the workplace, in our relationships, and in our survivorship of violence. Check out this article.
• Speak: Has your organization made a public statement acknowledging the violence against black lives in our communities? Have you engaged in conversations and action steps with your Board, staff, and supporters on how you can support black communities right now?
• Share resources: Who are your community partners? How can you share your access and resources with black community organizers? Let’s take this moment to ask ourselves how we can use our access to power, wealth, and systems resources to make our communities safer for communities of color.

Actions to support Black lives on an interpersonal/familial level:
Do you talk to your children about race? Studies show that children are never too young to talk about race, racism, and our community values and responses. Here is a link with some helpful resources. Join us this Sunday for Wee Chalk the Walk: A Family Day of Action for Black Lives by Wee The People.

Resources for Black communities
Direct resources to Black communities working to end white supremacy and police violence in Minnesota and beyond. For suggestions on places to donate, see www.reclaimtheblock.org ; www.voicesforracialjustice.org ; and www.blackvisionsmn.org Minneapolis MN, Brunswick, GA, Louisville, KY, Tallahassee, FL, New York, NY. And in so many more cities and towns across the US. We are living amidst another pandemic – one of racism and white supremacy. What can we all commit to doing today to address this public health crisis that claims so many lives each year? As advocates to end sexual and domestic violence –especially those of us who are white aspiring allies– we must do more.
If you have any questions, please reach out. Thank you!

Working for justice,
JDI