To our Emerge California community,
Yesterday’s long-awaited verdict brought forth a deep and complex range of emotions – relief, sadness, anger, grief – and we want to affirm the weight and import of this moment.
Our hearts go out to the family of George Floyd, and the families of the many other Black women and men who have lost their lives to state-sanctioned violence. We see you and we are here for you.
This moment – when we finally see accountability – is significant. Our hope is that this verdict is the first step of many on a journey to end white supremacy, one that includes dismantling the systems that for far too long have tolerated, enabled, and encouraged violence against Black women and men. Black Lives Matter, and our institutions must reflect that fact.
We must acknowledge that this verdict is not justice, and it is not the result of a just system. If the system were just, Ma’Khia Bryant – a 16 year old girl – would not have been killed by the police at nearly the same moment this verdict was being read.
True justice is…
A traffic stop being a traffic stop.
Protection by those sworn to keep the peace.
Safety at home, at school, at work, going for a run, taking a walk.
A criminal justice system that has rooted out racial and wealth disparities. This includes not needing video footage of a murder and a national uprising to actually hold a murderer accountable.
Our systems – health care, housing, banking, education, legal, criminal justice – founded in equity.
George Floyd, Ma’Khia Bryant, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Nia Wilson, Daunte Wright – and the thousands of other Black women and men who have been murdered – alive, at home with their families.
True justice is dignity, in every moment of our lives.
We recruit and train Democratic women to run for office because we believe leaders with lived experience navigating systems of injustice will be the very leaders to dismantle those systems and replace them with real solutions that serve our communities and create a better world. We change the face of elected power so that leaders who look like us and have lived our stories will take the bold steps needed for real change.
Here at Emerge California, we stand with you in this fight, and we will continue to push forward towards true justice together.
In love and solidarity,
Melanie V. Ramil
Executive Director
Emerge California