We Must All Work Together

A message from Cindy Booth
June 1, 2020

Last week, I shared a message in response to the tragic racial injustices that made news headlines earlier in the week. Over the weekend, events escalated locally and throughout the entire country as protests for racial equality began and violence followed. This was a clear tipping point and natural progression, but I want to be clear that it wasn’t just the events of the week that caused this to happen—it was the culmination of a history of oppression and inequity for people of color.

At Child Advocates, we began our efforts in leading anti-racism workshops more than a decade ago. Initially, we did this to address the racial disparities within the child welfare system, but the reality is, all systems are connected and in order for progress to be made, these systems must work together with a racial equity lens. That is why we invited teachers, law enforcement officials, politicians, community funders, mental health professionals and local business leaders to the table to join in this essential dialogue. If one system fails to address racial biases, all systems, and, specifically, people of color suffer.

I can tell you that we will not stop this fight on behalf of our children. We stand with people of color and we commit to continuing to lead these efforts. We will not stop because our children are counting on us and we cannot afford to let them down and see yet another generation suffer. We will resume our Interrupting Racism for Children workshops when it is safe for us to convene in person in the upcoming months. We hope you will join us and dig deeper to learn more about what you can do to understand and address racism. There is no question, we are all responsible when it comes to making progress in the fight to end systemic racism.