Dear friend, our nation (and indeed the world) is at a critical juncture, one that requires meaningful and determined actions. At San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, these are not just words. We intend to take action.
We – staff, board and our clients – recognize that the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is, tragically, only one in a long history of murders of black men and women in a country that purports ‘equal treatment under law’ but has not lived up to that ideal. We are in pain; we are angry; we feel the rage.
The institutional racism that has existed in our country for more than 400 years takes many forms today. It is in the denial of housing, quality education, and decent jobs and wages. It exists in the brutality of judgment, treatment, and dehumanization of black, indigenous and people of color by too many police departments throughout the U.S. It is in the suspicious look of someone when a black person or Hispanic person, whom they don’t even know, walks by them on the street.
We believe in the Black Lives Matter movement. Read more…
