A Statement from Georgia Against Racism
5th Street East joins the many deeply saddened, troubled, frightened and appalled millions in our country who mourn, protest and reject any and all acts of terrorism, brutality, discrimination and hate against black and brown people.
Not more than twenty miles from where I write, Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man from Brunswick, Georgia, was shot and killed by three members of our community for simply running on a Sunday.
A de facto hate crime in my home state – one of four states in the US without a hate crime law.
Our and without
Last week, my family and I watched in horror the testimony during the preliminary hearing for Mr. Arbery’s case, held at the Glynn County Courthouse (image above). That morning, we had heard rumors that the Clan would protest in our community. That afternoon, without hesitation, my husband and I joined the local NAACP Chapter and other members of the community to stand up for justice and protest the inhumanity committed against Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and so many others with names we do not even know.
Ours without
Without life, without justice, without human rights
We must change. We must examine every aspect of thought, education, faith, philosophy and protocol, business and personal, for seeds of injustice, hate, apathy, ignorance and intolerance within ourselves and our community.
We can no longer turn away ours without
We must acknowledge privilege. We must speak out. We must become involved at the local, state and federal level on issues such as healthcare, climate change, education, mental health, addiction, the penal system and policing that adversely affect the health, welfare and very life of ours without. We must become informed.
We must learn history accurately and without bias
We must do this individually, as a community and in terms of 5th Street East, as an agency, to ensure that today’s demand for justice truly is the sea change to end systemic racism for all times.
Glynn County Courthouse, Brunswick, Georgia. Thursday, June 4, 2020.
Resources:
- NAACP – Become a Member
- Interview Larry Hobbs, Brunswick News reporter on the Ahmaud Arbery death before the video and the rest of the world caught on.
- Reconstruction: America After the Civil War – Four hour documentary series on PBS by Henry Louis Gates on the transformative years following the American Civil War and how idealism can go tragically wrong.
- Reviving Reconstruction – Confronting a history of oppression by Radio Open Source with Eric Foner, Historian at Columbia University and author of The Fiery Trial – Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery and Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Law Professor at UCLA and Columbia School of Law.
