Latitude’s Formal Response to Black Lives Matter and Policy Brutality
Latitude supports Black Lives Matter and decries racial injustice and police brutality.
Our global community is ailing and divided. In order to be leaders during these turbulent times we must acknowledge our present reality. This reality has been shaped by centuries of oppression and marginalization that has led to social inequality, economic injustice, and ecocide.
Regardless of the color of our skin or the location of our birthplace, we are one with each other and this planet. As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
Restoration begets regeneration, which begets healing: this is the virtuous cycle we must all partake in to create an equitable, inclusive, and just world.
We have the choice to let the world's events pass idly by, choose to fade into the comfort of silence, or lean on the excuse that there is too much insanity going on right now to do the hard inner work that it will take to make a difference.
But I implore you to lean into the discomfort and accept the challenge to accept everyone as our brothers and sisters. Here are just a couple ways that we feel strongly about that we have started to implement into our lives:
Make a 24/7 Black Lives Matter vigil in your yard, preferably in the public right-of-way to foster community engagement. Tend to it daily; it’s healing and cultivates relationship with the BLM movement and yourself.
Plant an edible garden. Your lawn is a connection to the racist, segregated, classist past created by white aristocracy. It is ecologically dead and only furthers to perpetuate a patriarchal relationship with our land. By embracing nature we embrace the beauty and cosmic intelligence of diversity.
Get to know who the black, indigenous, people of color organic (BIPOC) farmers are. We must keep our food production in the bioregion, support regenerative agriculture practices, and use our dollars to steward these invaluable people and their livelihoods. For local PDX folks, our instagram post features these local farmers.
Focus on inner health. Fuel your body with more organic plants and less meat from toxic, inhumane industrial sources. Read black authors, listen to new podcasts, and write some love letters. Connect with your spiritual self.
Every day the earth awakens anew. The birds sing, the water flows, the plants grow; they know how to live their gifts and fulfill their responsibilities daily. It is our responsibility to choose compassion, love, and show up.
“I choose joy over despair. That is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift...Restoration is the powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relationship with the more than human world.”
In solidarity,
Alissa, Neal, and the Latitude members
