ChildVoice’s mission is to restore hope. To give voice back to the voiceless. As an organization that advocates for the marginalized and dispossessed, we have a duty to speak out against injustice rooted in systemic racism. We have a duty to walk beside those who call out injustice and inequality and seek to create change. 

In Robert McAfee Brown’s book Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes, Desmond Tutu is quoted as saying: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Amid the protests that have erupted across the nation, we cannot stand on the sidelines. Silence amid such injustice is unacceptable. George Floyd’s death was not just unnecessary—like that of David McAtee, Breonna Taylor and so many other Black Americans, his killing was one more inevitable outcome of a deeply flawed culture that has stood unchallenged for far too long.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, while advocating for peaceful solutions to the cancer of racism, once stated that for minorities frustrated beyond all hope for an end to the social injustice of racism, “a riot is the language of the unheard.” Even though he unequivocally shunned violent actions, Dr. King otherwise advocated for the right to vigorous protest. We likewise denounce violence and stand in union with the thousands of peaceful protestors now filling our cities’ streets. Let’s not allow acts of violence and destruction by a handful of instigators distract from the positive, peaceful actions and goals of so many. As George Floyd’s brother Terrence put it with simple eloquence: “let’s find another way.”

Let’s do that. Let’s find another way. A way that demands truth, and creates a foundation of honest dialogue we must have as individuals and as a people if we are ever to give full voice to the oppressed, restore their hope and dignity, and move forward in reconciliation. A way that builds sustainable solutions to end racial injustice, increase accountability, and achieve systemic parity of opportunity. A peaceful way that once and for all puts an end to the ugly tapestry of racism that has been woven into the very fabric of our nation from its very beginning – a tapestry that continues to marginalize, to oppress, to silence.

Today and always, we stand with those who stand against racism and oppression in all forms.

Conrad Mandsager
President and CEO of ChildVoice