APRIL 2021
Photo by Kayla West; no copyright infringement intended
Here we are again, as a community, grappling with yet another senseless police killing of an unarmed Black man with the tragic death of Duante Wright. Meanwhile, our justice system argues the extreme violence we all witnessed Derek Chauvin commit against George Floyd – debating if it was even criminal, and to what extent. This month we also saw Caron Nazario, a Brown man and army officer in service uniform, pulled over by police in Virginia and pepper sprayed with his hands up. He was stopped for not having a license plate on his new SUV, only for officers to later find it affixed to his rear window. And all of this directly follows the acquittal of the officer who shot Jacob Blake, and the mass murder of 6 Asian women in Georgia.
We march, we peacefully protest, we vote, we pray, sing songs and hymns, and somehow always end up right. back. here. We watch jarring juxtapositions of racial inequity play and re-play in split-screen with the same ending. Eric Garner dies in the hands of law enforcement over loose cigarette sales. Dylan Roof is gently guided into the entryway of an airplane by detectives and fed Burger King after massacring nine innocent Black people at Emmanuel AME Church. These storied injustices exist in abundance. Yes, they tire us, but we are not defeated. Yes, we are traumatized, but we are not paralyzed. Yes, we are hurting. Yet we are hopeful: for the healing of our city, its young people, and all of the life and love they have to offer.
Their joy and resilience is an act of resistance that must be supported at all cost. That is why Trinity Boston Connects is resolute in our healing response to the traumatic affects of systemic racism on youth, and the adults who serve them. This has always been our DNA, and work. And it is now officially our mission. Racial animus and harm may win a moment, or even several of them, but healing wins the day.
Thank you for your enduring commitment to TBC. Please consider a gift to help carry our healing mission forward this year and beyond.
THANK YOU!