July 28, 2016

Catalyst Miami is committed to developing and supporting individual leaders and strong organizations that work together to improve health, education, and economic opportunity in all our communities. In order to achieve our goals, we provide our community residents with direct services and leadership development opportunities, as well as opportunities to become civically engaged through events and activities organized in coalition with our many partners. A very important aspect of our work is to support the empowerment of our community members as they add their voices to address structural injustice. Catalyst Miami stands in full support and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement as they raise their voice to condemn the structural racism that drives the shooting of unarmed Black men by law enforcement officers throughout our nation.

The Catalyst Miami family mourns all lives that are lost to gun violence, including the lives of law enforcement officers who have been recently targeted, and we remain wholeheartedly committed to finding peaceful solutions to the many social issues affecting our community. However, we also recognize the need to separate the recent violence against police officers from the consistent, institutional, and structural racial profiling and violence directed at the African American community and, in particular, against unarmed Black men. We recognize that the safety and well-being of all people should always be an immediate priority, and we assign no less urgency to the need to address the root cause of the disproportionate killing of Black and Brown people. We believe that we, as a community and as a nation, stand at a crossroads at which we must address the many injustices behind the discrimination and dis-empowerment of marginalized communities. We must deal with violence collectively and as a unified community, and set our sights not only on gun violence, but also on the violence of hunger, homelessness, and all the other ills of socio-economic and political destitution.

Finally, Catalyst Miami remains committed to the creation of democratic spaces and processes that allow our residents equal voice and vote in finding the appropriate solutions to police violence. We can no longer afford to follow the same punitive, violence-driven paths that lead to more injustice, hatred, and intolerance. We offer ourselves as partners in the effort to build a unified society, driven by love, tolerance, equal opportunity, and justice for all.

In solidarity,

The Catalyst Miami family