To our valued community members, partners, boards, and teams,
Playworks is mourning and protesting the unjust killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota last week alongside all of you.
We all know this is only one in an untold number of black men and women who have suffered racist treatment by our nation – in 2020 and going back hundreds of years. And we know systemic racism is not only a daily threat to the people of color in all of our communities, it is devastating for all of us who believe in justice for all and the value of every human being.
We cannot go back and change the actions that led to so many lives lost. But we can stand up, and say that this must stop.
Our work begins with ourselves.
Last year, we created an organization-wide Equity Team, with cross-functional representation. I am a member of that team. Our work over the past year established a strong foundation from which to respond in this moment. Last week, the Equity Team challenged all Playworkers to provoke honest and dynamic discourse on diversity and inclusion as a part of our organization-wide commitment to racial equity.
And we know that conversation alone is not enough.
So, these are the action steps we are taking now.
- We enabled a space for all Playworks staff to process their emotions and discuss how systemic racism impacts us and the communities we partner with. This conversation led to calling upon each and every teammate to stand up and take action.
- We will continue to create space for staff to discuss how racism plagues our society and how we perpetuate it in our place of work.
- We are sharing resources with each other and acknowledging the actions individuals are taking, inside and outside of Playworks.
- We are working to receive feedback about our draft Equity Statement and will be turning this into a social contract between our teams, board members, communities, partners, vendors, and more.
Please join us as we take on this important work. Playworks is still early in our racial equity journey, but we know that this work deserves our long-term commitment.
Here are some of the resources we have found powerful. We’re sharing them with you to inspire your journey with racial equity and the conversations you may be having now in response to the killing of George Floyd, the protests, or the long history of systemic racism in our country.
- Letter from a Birmingham Jail
- Bryan Stevenson Ted Talk “We need to talk about an injustice.”
- Anti-Racism for Kids 101: Starting to Talk About Race
- Podcast Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell, S2E3 “Miss Buchanan’s Period of Adjustment:
- What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy by Robin DiAngelo; Chapter 14 “A Note on White Silence”
- Mindful of Race by Ruth King, Chapters 1-4
- Center for Equity and Inclusion
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Cushing
Playworks President
