June 4, 2020 – Children’s Health Fund is outraged by the racist, anti-Black violence this last week and in recent months. The brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are compounded by the disproportionate deaths of Black Americans from COVID-19. These past months have thrown our country into mass mourning for the loss of so much life. We also understand that this trauma is not new for communities of color, and is rooted in the countless other Black lives lost to police violence and 400 years of systemic oppression.
This moment reveals that there is no place for neutrality, and that to protect the health of all children, we all must explicitly confront racism, white supremacy and anti-Blackness. We must take a stand and be part of the solution.
We stand with Black communities, especially the Black children and youth who are experiencing and witnessing these painful injustices. We acknowledge the harmful impact this has on their growing minds, their mental health, their understanding of themselves, and their sense of safety.
As an organization dedicated to improving the wellbeing of all children and families in our country, we know that racism does not only exist in physical violence, but in systems and policies that impact all areas of life, health, and wellbeing.
Children’s Health Fund is on our own journey to embody anti-racism and promote racial equity in our work at all levels, internally and externally. This moment underscores for us the urgency to reach further in the work we do to help dismantle systems of oppression. Addressing these historical upstream issues is the only way to fully ensure that all children are given the opportunity to be healthy and to thrive. We are committed to prioritizing this work and being an ally for change that will have generational impacts.
