![]() ![]() We celebrate June as Pride Month, because it commemorates, in part, our resisting police harassment and brutality at Stonewall in New York City, and earlier in California, when such violence was common and expected. The LGBTQ community knows about the work of resisting police brutality and violence. We, the undersigned, recognize we cannot remain neutral, nor will awareness substitute for action. But this moment requires that we go further - that we make explicit commitments to embrace anti-racism and end white supremacy, not as necessary corollaries to our mission, but as integral to the objective of full equality for LGBTQ people. Many of our organizations have made progress in adopting intersectionality as a core value and have committed to be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. But what good are civil rights without the freedom to enjoy them? The LGBTQ Movement’s work has earned significant victories in expanding the civil rights of LGBTQ people. This year alone, we have lost at least 12 members of our community: Dustin Parker, Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, Yampi Méndez Arocho, Monika Diamond, Lexi, Johanna Metzger, Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos, Layla Pelaez Sánchez, Penélope Díaz Ramírez, Nina Pop, Helle Jae O’Regan, and Tony McDade.Īll of these incidents are stark reminders of why we must speak out when hate, violence, and systemic racism claim - too often with impunity - Black Lives. We have heard and read about the killings of transgender people - Black transgender women in particular - with such regularity, it is no exaggeration to describe it as a epidemic of violence. We saw the weaponizing of race by a white woman who pantomimed fear in calling the police on Christian Cooper, a Black gay man bird-watching in Central Park. ![]() We watched the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery by white vigilantes in Brunswick, GA, aware that they evaded the consequence of their actions until the video surfaced and sparked national outrage. We felt the pain of Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend as he called 9-1-1 after plainclothes Louisville police kicked down the door of their home and shot her eight times as she slept in her bed. We listened to the haunting pleas of George Floyd for the most basic of human needs - simply, breath - as a Minneapolis police officer kneeled with cruel indifference on his neck. This spring has been a stark and stinging reminder that racism, and its strategic objective, white supremacy, is as defining a characteristic of the American experience as those ideals upon which we claim to hold our democracy - justice, equality, liberty. And, today, they should serve as a call to action to all of us, and to the Movement for LGBTQ equality. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Those words, written over 30 years ago by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, remind us that indifference can never bridge the divide of hate. ![]() LGBTQ Organizations Unite to Combat Racial Violence ![]()
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