For the past several months the United States has been galvanized by the COVID-19 crisis before us. But there is a far more pervasive crisis we are facing that has been in our midst since our nation’s founding – the insidious and soul-crushing crisis of racism and racial inequity. This crisis has exploded in the zeitgeist of the moment in the past several weeks with the tragic killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the tens of thousands of black, indigenous, people of color who have died disproportionately as victims of COVID-19.

While our hearts have been traumatized by this recent and incomprehensible violence, we can permit no denial that these events are only the latest link in a four-hundred-year chain of ever-present racism and physical violence repeatedly perpetuated against black people in America.

We at Chartis and Greeley have not been, and never will be, silent or still amidst the scourge of structural, institutionalized or behavioral racism. We hear, and we are activated by, the pain directly felt by those within our Chartis community who have been most affected by these searing incidents and the underlying systemic oppression they reflect. We stand together as Chartisans in support. Please click here to read our full statement.