Black Lives Matter Statement from Latinx Arts

NALAC Statement: Black Lives Matter

06/04/2020

We bear witness and mourn for the continued violence against yet another Black life at the hands of police, and we speak from the deepest impulses of our hearts to uplift Black Lives. We are enraged by the blatant hatred and inhumane disregard by police for George Floyd’s life as he pleaded for breath.

We remember Breonna Taylor (Louisville, KY), Tony McDade (Tallahassee, FL), Atatiana Jefferson (Fort Worth, TX), Tamir Rice (Cleveland, OH), Eric Gardner (Staten Island, NY), Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO), Pamela Turner (Baytown, TX), Marquise Jones (San Antonio, TX) and countless others whose lives have been taken due to police brutality and white supremacy.

Because we are guided by values including equality and ethics, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures voices our repudiation of systems of racism and white supremacy that deny life to Black people.

We ask everyone to support the demands organized by the Black organizations who lead the Movement for Black Lives. Join in the defense of Black life by taking action. View resources, policy platforms, and actions here.

We acknowledge that the continued calls for justice and solidarity made by Black voices both within and outside the Latinx community have often gone ignored.

It is particularly urgent that non-Black Latinx people engage in anti-racist work, and we include ourselves in this responsibility. In practice, that means engaging in difficult conversations with friends and family about anti-blackness and advocating for and alongside the movement for Black lives. This work involves recognizing that Latinx people do not all share the same privileges as shaped by the color of their skin. This movement is about the particular violence that terrorizes all Black people and is sanctioned by the state.

In our work serving artists and cultural workers, we recognize that our mission demands that we  do more to address anti-blackness and amplify the work of Afro-Latinx artists, arts administrators and cultural workers in our communities. Anti-blackness in our communities facilitates this erasure of culture and history, and it is necessary to dismantle its many manifestations.

We call on artists and culture bearers to use the power of creativity to reveal the truths that haunt this nation and point toward new paths of collective liberation.

In Solidarity,

Charles Rice-González, Chairperson (Bronx, NY)

Evonne Gallardo, Vice Chairperson (Los Angeles, CA)

Ernest Bromley, Treasurer (San Antonio, TX)

Maria López de León, President & CEO (San Antonio, TX)

Sandra Aponte, Board Member (Chicago, IL)

Anthony Garcia, Board Member (Denver, CO)

Eliud Hernández, Board Member (Chicago, IL)

Abel Lopéz, Board Member (Washington, D.C.)

Adán M. Medrano, Board Member (Houston, TX)

Lucas Rivera, Board Member (Los Angeles, CA)

Ramón Rivera-Servera, Board Member (Evanston, IL)

Rosalba Rolón, Board Member (Bronx, NY)

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I serve on the board of The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, and this statement is also a call to action.