LIIF joins the millions of Americans and people across the world who are speaking out and standing up to say: Black lives matter.
To all Black people, we see your pain and recognize the burdens of systemic racism that you bear, not just in this moment, but every day. We hear the call for each of us to do more.
The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are only the most widely publicized recent public examples of the compounded impact of systemic and interpersonal racism on Black people in America. This system has led to the repeated murders of Black people by police, harassment and policing of Black people by their neighbors, and the re-traumatization by ongoing police brutality and militarized responses to rightful protests and demonstrations. In addition, Black people are disproportionately dying from the coronavirus pandemic and devastated by the economic fallout because of our nation’s long-standing social and economic inequities.
These injustices must end. LIIF is committed to listening, learning and acting to become a better ally to Black people, other people of color and marginalized communities. We are working to define what it means to become an explicitly anti-racist organization and community development financial institution. In the near term, LIIF will be donating to organizations run by, and on the front lines of, supporting Black people. In the longer term, we will be pushing ourselves to change our institutional practices and policies to respond more directly to racial inequities. And, we will drive toward designing our programs and deploying our capital in a way that addresses systemic racism and invests in business and organizations led by people of color.
The community development sector was born out of a response to racist policies and practices in housing and lending. And the capital system we operate in still carries a racist legacy. We believe that together, we can reclaim the sector’s original ideals of structural and systemic change, but be led by a new vision and new urgency for change that centers race in our work. We ask those of you in our broader community to engage, collaborate and act with us.
LIIF’s Equity Work in Action
Give
Learn
- How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi
- Anti-Racist Resource Guide for becoming a better ally. (Victoria Alexander, PhD candidate in Anti-Racist Education at UMD)
- Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture (Showing Up for Racial Justice)
- Anti-Racism Project Resources
Vote
Register to vote, review your registration, sign up for election alerts and more at Vote.org