Black Lives Matter

Dear Friends,

Our hearts are heavy as we witness centuries of racial injustice continue. The Tow Youth Justice Institute stands in solidarity with protesters and hope this will be the last time there is a need for what unfortunately is ineffectual action. Even when we feel we have made progress in reducing racial and ethnic disparities, we are wrong. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to ensure that Black Lives Matter. We are not a true community until we value every member of it. We recognize there are innumerable ways in which structural racism shapes everyday interactions. This points to a systemic failure to address policy issues. What’s been done is clearly not enough. If the right action is not taken, we as a society, are complicit to the atrocities taking place. We must acknowledge that white privilege exists. How can it be that in 2020, protests are still an essential, but impotent, form of effecting change?

We stand up and say the name George Perry Floyd because, just like us, he has family and friends who relied on him being a part of their lives. He was a 46-year-old black man born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and raised in the Third Ward of Houston, Texas. After high school, where he played basketball and football, he attended South Florida Community College for two years, playing on its basketball team. When he returned home he became an automotive customizer and joined the hip hop group Screwed Up Click. In 2014, he moved to Minnesota. After providing security at a restaurant for five years, he lost his job because of Minnesota’s stay-at-home order during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was the father of two daughters, ages 6 and 22, who remained in Houston, and an adult son in Bryan, Texas. George Floyd’s family is looking for a task force to be developed that will draft legislation to end racial violence and increase police accountability. We applaud their action to ensure this does not happen again.

George Floyd’s murder takes place on the heels of the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician (EMT) Taylor who worked also at two hospitals. She was passionate about her work. “Working in health care is so rewarding! It makes me so happy when I know when I’ve made a difference in someone else’s life!” We stand up and say her name because she left behind her mother, an aunt and uncle and siblings. She graduated from high school in Grand Rapids Michigan and went on to study at the University of Kentucky. Her mother, Tamika Palmer, describes her daughter as “a young woman who adored her family above all else and who had made plans to succeed”. “She had a whole plan on becoming a nurse and buying a house and then starting a family. Breonna had her head on straight, and she was a very decent person,” Palmer said. “She didn’t deserve this. She wasn’t that type of person.”

The senseless killing of Black Americans must STOP.

Standing in solidarity with you,

William H. Carbone
Susan Cusano
Danielle T. Cooper
Devon McCormick
Erika Nowakowski
Kelly Orts
Donna L. Pfrommer