June, 2020
The Latino Leadership Circle stands in solidarity with the Black community over the death of George Floyd, who was suffocated to death by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, as well as the unending injustices due to a system that is racist, anti-black, and elevates white supremacy. We are convicted to speak out against a society that perpetuates the notion that her Black citizens are second-class deserving of exploitation, punishment, and disrespect. We also believe that “to protest violence against black people is a spiritual virtue, moral obligation, and political practice that represents the Spirit of God at work to resisting the evil of white supremacy and murder with impunity.” [1]
Therefore, with God’s help we will:
- Speak out against the oppression of our Black and Brown brothers and sisters and others in need of justice and demand that unjust actions against them cease.
- Bring to light the scope and depth of the injustice of white supremacy that “sheds innocent blood”[2] and dishonors God, God’s word, God’s people and God’s purposes.
- Actively seek the structural changes that are necessary to bring hope, dignity and civil rights to all African Americans, Latinas/os and other persons of color in America.
- Unite as co-laborers[3] with Black Americans in our effort to de-center systems of oppression in our society, institutions and the American Church.
- Invite those who hold racist ideas to reflect, repent and align their theology and their lives to a more biblical view.[4]
- Pray for God’s wisdom to lead our members to take action that moves us toward justice[5] and relational healing[6] for all people of color in America.
- Seek to listen, educate, and stand against anti-blackness and other forms of racism and colorism within our own Latina/o community.
- Support public policies and reform that help combat structural racism and inequities in policing as well as advocate and work towards a more just and equitable society.
[1] Dante Stewart: Black Rage in an Anti-black world is a Spiritual Virtue, Sojourner’s Magazine, 5/29/20.
[2] God hates hands that shed innocent blood (Proverbs 6:17).
[3] For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:9).
[4] Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2).
[5] He has shown you, O mortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).
[6] For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility…For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit (Ephesians 2:14-18).