05 Jun Statement from Make the Road NV: #BLACKLIVESMATTER

A message from the executive director Leo Murrieta of Make the Road NV

“As a community built up of Brown and Black people who are continually being demonized, harassed, whose families are ripped apart, and murdered by the same establishment that has failed in its most basic duty to protect and serve. Today, we demand justice for Black lives. The violent murders of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, Jamel Floyd, Sandra Bland, and Nina Pop were completely avoidable and excessive, and that’s just a few occurrences among generations of police brutality and anti-Black violence.

As an organization built by thousands of individual members, all fighting for justice, now is the time to demand justice for all but especially justice for Black lives. Our call for Respect and Dignity doesn’t stop on immigrant issues, but extends so that all people, regardless of skin color, gender identity, or expression have the Freedom to Thrive.

That means we must also work to check the anti-blackness within our own community, we must now all become actively anti-racist and ensure that our community stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. The Latinx community has benefitted from this long and generational fight for racial justice by our Black familia and we must acknowledge it and be thankful for their strength and courage through the centuries. At the end of the day, the man in the white house and every other racist in this country see us all the same. We know injustice when we see it and we should not tolerate it any longer. When our babies were in cages, Black people stood with us. When this president eliminated DACA, Black people marched beside us on Las Vegas Blvd. So now, it’s time for us to stand together against hatred, against anti-Blackness, and fight for a better today so we can all enjoy a prosperous tomorrow.

We need to make sure that the conversation is not about property but about the irreplaceable lives that have been lost due to lack of accountability over law enforcement, weak and complicit politicians who care more about their re-election than our lives, heartless District Attorneys, Public Prosecutors, and judges who thrive on throwing our children in cages, and the corruption and systemic racism within police departments in every community across this nation.

In solidarity, our hearts go out to all of the Black lives lost. We will take a moment of silence as we show some of their names, we know there are many more but here are a few.”