The Murder of George Floyd

Hello everyone.

This message is one written as a mother, a white mother, who does not have to worry abut her white son the way I know black mothers do. This message is written from a place of love and fury, from a place of anger and sadness.

I know I speak for all of us when I say that food justice is at the core of this work—a belief that our government needs to stop feeding inequity, that our government must stop serving low-income families unhealthy school food that continue the cycle of systemic racism, that our government must make healthy fresh food affordable and available—because in not doing so, it is feeding a health crisis that profoundly and disproportionately hurts families of color.

While the heart of what we do is food justice work, the bigger picture is about equity and working to end systemic racism. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer is yet another example of the cancerous racism that continues to thrive in our country; it's pervasiveness is overwhelming and infuriating. Race affects everything—how seriously your doctor evaluates your symptoms, your quality of education, your job and housing prospects, what food you have access to and can afford, and your life expectancy. And, of course, your likelihood of being harassed, arrested or killed by police, who, in the vast majority of cases, walk away with impunity.

All of this is to say that we all stand with the family of George Floyd and everyone who condemns his murder and outrageous and unjustified violence against black lives. Our work is just one part of the movement and the work critical to ending racism and rebuilding an equitable world.

After the bombing of the church that killed four little black girls in a bombing at a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, MLK said: "They lived meaningful lives, and they died nobly. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely with who murdered them but about the system, the way of life, philosophy which produced the murders. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American Dream."