Solidarity Statement
A CALL FOR JUSTICE
Friendship Home is outraged by the violent assaults on Black life in America and condemns the horrific acts of violence across the country. Friendship Home joins global demands for peace and justice. We add our voices to the cry that Black Lives Matter. Black Women’s Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter.
We mourn the senseless loss of life and call for justice in response to the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, James Scurlock, and countless others. As anti-violence advocates, we will not turn a blind eye to the murders in the Black community or the anti-Asian, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant violence and bias happening right now. We grieve with the nation, and our deepest condolences go out to the families, friends, and communities who are mourning these and other losses.
Friendship Home advocates for all survivors to have the right to a safe home. But when that home, the streets, playgrounds, public parks, schools, institutions, and places of worship are also not safe for survivors of color due in part to the systemic and structural racism that exists, we know that survivors and communities cannot feel safe relying on these systems. It’s essential that survivors and their families across this country be able to have full access to a criminal justice system that supports and respects their rights as equal members of society.
Friendship Home’s work focuses on ending gender-based violence by eliminating oppression and creating equity in the world. Our work to end gender-based violence is inextricably linked to ending both male supremacy and white supremacy at individual, institutional, and community levels. All forms of violence and oppression are interconnected–we cannot end one without ending them all.
We condemn the systemic racism, white supremacy, state-sponsored violence, and police brutality enacted by institutions in the United States. Friendship Home stands with Black communities and all those working to hold institutions accountable while dismantling systems of oppression.
We join our national, statewide, tribal, territorial, and local partners in calling for an end to the discrimination and structural racism that underlie police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. Friendship Home commits to addressing hate, uniting in solidarity, and working for an equitable world.
We will continue to reflect and to learn. One of our values as an agency is Listening. We will hold space for the lived experiences of survivors of color, centering their voices in our continuing anti-violence work. We will challenge ourselves as advocates, as an agency, and as part of this community to dismantle the systems of oppression that enable all forms of violence wherever they occur.