We feel sickened, angered, and deeply saddened by the murder of George Floyd

“We feel sickened, angered, and deeply saddened by the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man at the hands of a police officer in Minnesota. Over the past few months our community has been reeling from COVID-19, a public health pandemic that has magnified the structural inequities in our country. This gruesome event shines a light on the endemic racism that presents a daily threat to the health and well being of black people in this country, this compels us to say – no more, no mas!

By any measure, racism is a public health problem and a public health emergency, responsible for incalculable damage and loss of life. As an organization founded on the principles of human rights by a community fleeing state violence, an organization serving a community assaulted daily by policies of exclusion, we cannot stand by without denouncing the ongoing violence inflicted on Black communities and calling out the structures and systems that uphold it. Over the coming days we will be raising our voices to express our solidarity and condemnation.

As an organization we have a lot of work to do to contain COVID-19 and its killing of brown and black members of our community, but this moment also calls for us to look at racism and privilege right in the eye. Some of us are safe due to the color of our skin, while some of us are not. This is unacceptable. We must honor all those who have lost their lives to racism, to do the work we need to do to fight it together. We condemn the acts of police brutality that most recently occurred in Minneapolis and have been rippling through our greatest Metropolitan areas, where we see the explicit militarization of public spaces. We condemn the everyday violence that strikes through our communities affecting the most marginalized. Change must happen at the systemic level, and La Clínica will continue to fight and stand with organizations and communities who are resisting.”

Catalina Sol, Executive Director