Partners for Dignity & Rights joins community voices collectively condemning the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Michael Ramos, Modesto Reyes, and so many more Black lives lost to white racial violence, police militarism, and structural racism in the United States. We stand with our Minnesota partners at Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), and our Dignity in Schools Campaign members Midwest Center for School Transformation and Minnesota Parent Union. We stand with the Black-led movement organizations across the country who have been leading this fight. We stand with the people. We stand with their righteous frustrations and anger brought about by enduring centuries of literal terror. We hear the voices rendered silent by a corporate media that consistently ignores or obscures Black suffering. In this moment and all moments, we are sending love and strength to those on the front lines who have again taken to the streets to demand true justice, systemic change, and collective liberation.

We join with the call from grassroots organizations in Minneapolis, including Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block, for the Minneapolis City Council to Defund the Police. We condemn all state violence, including the police and military repression currently directed against the protestors. We stand against  white supremacist threats, including incitements to violence coming from the White House. We stand with those building alternatives to the prison industrial complex, including models of transformative justice.

This situation calls for more than law enforcement accountability. We must divest from the prison industrial complex, invest in alternatives to incarceration, and build a future that relies on an economy of care versus an economy of punishment. It’s time for a new social contract that meets the health and economic needs of Black people and all people through universal programs that specifically repair racist harms.

We know that the current conditions are unacceptable; they always have been. We hope that this tragic moment sparks an opportunity to walk down a different path. In the words of Assata Shakur:

It is our duty to fight for our freedom

It is our duty to win

We must love and protect one another

We have nothing to lose but our chains.