Blog

The killings of unarmed Black people by police officers are unjust and unacceptable, and we are appalled by the actions of some leaders in our country who are advancing anti-Black, divisive rhetoric amidst the pain and outcry over these deaths.

New Profit condemns this violence unequivocally. We believe Black lives matter. That means we stand with Black people everywhere who are feeling anger, pain, loss, grief, and exhaustion at injustice, including our New Profit colleagues and members of our community. While these conditions have deep historic roots, the last few months have seen the violence acutely overlap with health, civic, and economic crises that are also disproportionately affecting communities of color. The totality of America’s racial inequity has been on full display.  ­­

We all must play our part in uprooting and rebuilding the systems behind these inequities. For our part, we commit to continuing our work to become an inclusive, anti-racist organization and community. We commit to continuing to invest in the ideas, talent, power, and solutions of leaders of color and communities of color.  We commit to creating spaces that foster love, grace, solidarity, and action. We commit to bringing humility and an eagerness to learn to our partnerships with people and organizations who share our mission of advancing equity and opportunity for all Americans.

We invite you all to learn alongside us, as our team is continuing to advance our own personal and organizational equity practice. This is by no means comprehensive but here are some resources that are giving us guidance, solace, and inspiration as we navigate these challenging times both individually and collectively:

• The 1619 Project, curated by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, on America’s history of systemic racial inequity from the New York Times
• Author and activist Rachel Cargle’s public address on the realities of the revolutionary moment we are in today
• Just Mercy by public interest lawyer and Equal Justice Initiative founder and executive director Bryan Stevenson on the importance of confronting injustice, which was recently turned into a feature film that is being made free to stream in the month of June
• The work of poet Clint Smith, whose book Counting Descent is a stark, challenging, and beautiful coming of age story as a young Black man in America
• National Book Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist that is an essential read for people wanting to go beyond awareness to action
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander
• Historian Jill Lepore’s book These Truths: A History of the United States
• James Loewen’s book The Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, which offers an eye-opening critique of how we are taught history in America