In the weeks since this statement, Pachamama Alliance hosted three webinars to explore Black Lives Matter further with this global community: Black Lives Matter and the Work of Pachamama Alliance, Black Lives Matter Panel: Implications for a Connected Future, and Black Lives Matter Town Hall with Rev. Deborah Johnson.

Pachamama Alliance stands in somber but inspired solidarity with the protests and demonstrations on the streets around the world in response to ongoing, unremitting, deadly police violence toward people of color in the United States.

With grief, outrage, and commitment, we mourn the Black/African-American lives lost to police violence, and the opportunities for justice denied to so many people of color by the systemic racism rampant in so many aspects of our society that has called forth these righteous mass protests. 

Realizing Pachamama Alliance’s vision of an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet is simply not possible without confronting and transforming the impact of racism and white supremacy in ourselves, in our communities, and in the systems and structures of our society.  

For people of color, that impact is playing out very publicly right now through disparate health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and through ongoing violence at the hands of police. The impacts of racism can be harder to see for white people, who are socialized not to see them. Now that veil is lifting and people everywhere are seeing the real, devastating impact of systemic racial oppression—and that there is a vital role for them to play in ending it.

In the 5-minute clip below, political commentator Van Jones, a longstanding ally of Pachamama Alliance, puts an impassioned, powerful call out to white people. "Now we're all in it together. There is not an easy legal answer. There is not an easy political answer. There is a personal and spiritual accounting that all of us are now called to."

What comes up for you as you let in Van’s message?

(If the video below doesn't play for you, you can try to access it here.)