White Pine’s Statement, June 4, 2020
“The institutional racism and state-sanctioned violence against Black people in America is unacceptable and must stop. We support the Black Lives Matter movement and stand in solidarity with the fight to protect black life.
The systemic underpinnings of racism, violence, and inherent biases about Black people must be dismantled. Confronting racism requires that WPP do more. We commit to facing our own racist complicity, to evaluating and transforming our organization’s practices, and to taking immediate and long-term actions to combat racism within our community.
Nature is not for all people when racism exists.
Black Lives Matter. With this movement, we accept the call to action and to be accountable for building equity in all that we do for our staff, programs, and communities.”
As a white-led and predominantly white serving organization, we know we have work to do. Equity is about all of the populations who have, over time, been marginalized and who continue to be affected by our white biases. White Pine was founded on the principles of empowering others and addressing equity must be done more deliberately within all of our practices: hiring, training, curriculum development, funding, scholarships…the list goes on.
We are committed to changing our practices and will share that progress on this page so that we are held accountable by our community and our supporters.