Statement on the Need for Urgent Action on Racial Justice

Voices for Vermont’s Children stands with Black activists calling for justice in Vermont and across the United States. We condemn state violence, which disproportionately claims Black lives, and demand accountability; both for individual police officers and for the institutions that foment and foster racism.
 

When horrific events like the murder of George Floyd (and Breonna Tayler, and Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others) take place, many try to make sense of it by drawing a bright line between the actions of a few bad actors and the rest of us. But the conditions that support racism are all around us, in the institutions that govern our lives: capitalism, law enforcement, education, health care, and government as a whole. Institutions are built by and for the dominant white, male culture and are hardwired to resist change. The fundamental charge of racial justice work, then, is to transform these institutions to center around justice and equity and to hold them accountable when they fail. 

Sometimes they fail in overt and highly visible ways, as with the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. Other times the violence is more insidious, as with our tolerance for massive wealth inequality and persistent child poverty. Both reflect broad acceptance of a highly sophisticated system designed to marginalize and exclude certain members of society, while encouraging others to work against their own best interest. We see these stories play out time and again. What will it take for us to commit to taking these systems apart?

In his pastoral letter to the nation yesterday, the Rev. Dr. William Barber II reflected on the compounding trauma in this moment of police brutality, pandemic, and poverty. He pointed to disparate health outcomes in the Black community as “but a reflection of the fissures of inequality that run through every institution in our public life, where the black wealth gap, education gap, and healthcare gap have persisted despite the civil rights movement, legal desegregation, and symbolic affirmative action. We understand that the same mentality that will accept and defend the violence of armed officers against unarmed Black people will also send Black, brown and poor people into harm’s way during a pandemic in the name of “liberty” and “the economy.””

We cannot allow George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths at the hands of the state to be treated as anomalies when they are the predictable outcome of an unjust system.  We cannot let elected officials claim to be committed to protecting the “most vulnerable” while they withhold basic rights like housing and food which are within their power to provide. As an organization devoted to improving the lives of children and youth, Voices cannot achieve our mission without addressing racism head-on. We are committed to standing with the Black community in demanding - and fighting for - justice for all. 



Michelle Fay, Executive Director