U.N.I.T.Y. President’s Letter Affecting Today’s Youth
It has been with deep sorrow that the events of 2020 have left all of us with a great number of emotions from the effects of COVID-19 pandemic to the social injustice against Black and Brown people. There is no way to escape feeling isolated, saddened or angry as our civic and elected leaders treat human life so insignificantly. It has been hard to look at the news or internet without feeling a sense of helplessness from all the maliciousness in effect today. However, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ring true in these moments. He said, “our lives begin to end, the day we become silent about things that matter.”
As a youth development organization, it is heartbreaking when any young person is lost to unexplainable and unjustified violence. The Black Lives Matter movement began after a Black teenager, Trayvon Martin, was gunned down by a White man who was later acquitted of Trayvon’s murder. Since then, more Black lives have been lost in a similar fashion and at the hands of police brutality. In this tragically unique time, we grapple with all the lives lost by the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are also faced with the global pandemic of racial injustice. These beautiful lives are not just a number or just something that happens in America. Every person lost is a son or daughter, parent or grandparent, a sibling, coworker, neighbor, classmate or friend to somebody. All lives are important and special, but all lives can’t matter if Black lives don’t matter.
UNITY will not remain silent. We will not “shut up and dribble” as a journalist told Lebron James to do. This letter serves as a message of hope and promise to our children, our families and our communities. U.N.I.T.Y. stands for Understanding Needs In Today’s Youth and we have a call to act in this social climate to empower our youth. Our young people have a voice and we must do all we can to educate, liberate and empower the next generation of leaders. We are pledging as an organization to do more. We will lead by example and fight for our future as our ancestors did for ours. UNITY will continue to offer sports and mentorship programs as we have for over 15 years, but we must do more. UNITY is committed to providing resources to Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics opportunities; pledging to partner with other community organizations to feed the hungry; and, focus on community service activities that build character and civic knowledge.
Our youth have a right to live in a world that sees them as an equal and not less than that because of race, religion, gender or economic status. We will say the names of those lost and respect their lives by holding our leaders, our communities and ourselves accountable for protecting each other from these deadly human viruses – Racial Injustice and COVID-19. And we will not stop using our individual talent and tenacity to push forward to a diverse, inclusive and unified tomorrow.
WE ARE UNITY!
