More than 75 LGBT and civil rights
groups have issued a joint statement condemning racial violence.
The letter comes as civil unrest
spreads across the nation following the death of George Floyd in
Minnesota. Floyd, a black man, can be seen in a video gasping to
breathe as a white officer is holding him down with his knee.
The statement was organized by the
Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights
advocate.
“The racial violence that has filled
our television, computer and phone screens this spring is a stark
reminder of how far we still must go to ensure that the promise of
America is not dependent on the color of one’s skin,” said HRC
President Alphonso David. “When we see injustice, we must speak out
as strongly as we can. Otherwise, we are complicit in oppression. And
we have seen a lot of injustice lately. From George Floyd, to Ahmaud
Arbery, to Breonna Taylor, to Christian Cooper, to Nina Pop. The
LGBTQ community is familiar with fighting against systems of power
that are set up to serve the privileged few. And we are united to
fight the systems that target our Black and brown siblings, today and
always.”
The statement, released on Friday,
calls for “explicit commitments to embrace anti-racism and end
white supremacy.”
“The LGBTQ Movement’s work has
earned significant victories in expanding the civil rights of LGBTQ
people. But what good are civil rights without the freedom to enjoy
them?” the groups ask.
“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 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.”
“We, the undersigned, recognize we
cannot remain neutral, nor will awareness substitute for action. The
LGBTQ community knows about the work of resisting police brutality
and violence. 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. We remember it as a breakthrough
moment when we refused to accept humiliation and fear as the price of
living fully, freely, and authentically.”
“We understand what it means to rise
up and push back against a culture that tells us we are less than,
that our lives don't matter. Today, we join together again to say
#BlackLivesMatter and commit ourselves to the action those words
require,” the
statement reads.
Signatures include the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU), the Trevor Project, Centerlink, which
represent LGBT community centers, and state LGBT advocates such as
Equality New York, Equality California, and Equality Florida.