Standing in solidarity

CHER’s statement on anti-racism

Our hearts break for the millions of families who have experienced the everyday violence, trauma, and terror that reverberates from institutionalized racism, white supremacy and forces of settler colonialism.

We condemn the relentless racial profiling, surveillance, harassment, degradation and excessive use of force performed by law enforcement on Black, Indigenous, Latino, and other people of color, and the complete and utter failure of our justice system and other institutions to provide retribution and solace to these victims of state sponsored violence.

We wholly reject such forms of violence with every sense of our being and recognize that we are complicit if we remain silent and inactive.

We mourn the loss of life of the hundreds of thousands of people of color who for hundreds of years have lived in states of terror and stress each and every day. We say the names of five recent deaths — George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Carlos Ingram-Lopez, Loreal Tsinigine — to remind ourselves that their deaths and their families’ pain must be remembered and used to mobilize us all to re-image and create a better world upheld by common principles of respect, relationality, reciprocity and balance.

We also recognize the physical and mental toll it takes to resist systems of oppression — a burden disproportionately carried by communities of color. We commit our efforts toward carrying a part of that burden, and most importantly, working to extinguish this burden for future generations and communities.

As a Center for Health Equity Research (CHER), many of us use our power and our privilege to systematically document and dismantle structural racism that drives social determinants of health, racial injustice, and health inequity. We do it in our homes, with our families and relatives, in our classrooms, with our peers, and through our research and advocacy. Through this work, we reflect on our Center’s purpose and convictions.

At CHER, we are learning and working with others to collectively respond and to focus our efforts to these issues in meaningful and coordinated ways. It is not enough to say “it is wrong.” We must act.

We do not need to ask people if they think structural racism or racism exists—we know that it does—and it has become even more apparent as we witness the devastating health inequities experienced by people of color in the COVID-19 crisis.

CHER’s commitment to racial equity

Please join us on our path toward building meaningful dialogue and everyday collective actions to dismantle structural racism and create a racially, economically, and socially just society.

 Anti-racism, anti-discrimination resources

Following is a list of anti-racism resources that we have found helpful. This is an evolving compilation and is not a complete list of resources. We encourage you to reach out to us in a spirit of collaboration at CHER@nau.edu if you have any resources you would like to include.