SOCIAL JUSTICE
06/03/2020
Portland Community Squash stands in solidarity with black people and organizing efforts happening across the country and our local community. As an organization, we deplore the senseless murders of black people.
Our black and brown kids are heartbroken, outraged, traumatized, and exhausted. During conversations over the past several days, a high schooler spoke out about the fear she experiences for herself and her little siblings. A middle school boy marched the streets of Portland with his family, using his voice for change. Another youth wonders why it took seven years for the Black Lives Matter movement to finally be taken seriously in her school.
PCS has prioritized social justice since our founding in 2013. We use the power of sport to bring together people across racial and socioeconomic lines of difference. Our youth programs provide financial aid, transportation, academic support, and wrap-around services to close the opportunity gap for local youth. Moving forward, we are motivated to do more.
PCS is coming together with constituents and stakeholders to create short term and long term goals for confronting the injustices in our own community. The work includes but is not limited to:
1. We will make space for dialogue among our youth, validating the lived realities and raw emotions they face, and supporting their fervor for a more racially just and equitable world
2. We will increase racial and socioeconomic diversity on the board, committees, membership, and staff until the entire organization is representative of Portland's racial and socioeconomic diversity
3. We will offer training for our community around implicit bias, systemic racism, and cross-cultural understanding
Below, we have included select resources to inform learning, parenting, and allyship.
Resource List:
The Conscious Kid - find them on Instagram and Patreon
https://www.meandwhitesupremacybook.com/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/books/review/antiracist-reading-list-ibram-x-kendi.html
https://time.com/5846072/black-people-protesting-white-people-responsible-what-happens-next/
Book Suggestions:
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Michelle Alexander)
White Fragility (Robin DiAngelo)
The Color of Law (Richard Rothstein)
The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin)
So you want to talk about race (Ijeoma Oluo)
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria (Beverly Danile Tatum)
Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
Savage Inequalities (Jonathan Kozol)
Stamped from the Beginning (Ibram X. Kendi)
Elusive Jannah (Cawo Abdi)
For white folks who teach in the hood (Christopher Emdin)
Maine Books:
Home Now (Cynthia Anderson)
Somalis in Maine: Crossing Cultural Currents (Carol Nordstrom Toner and Kimberly A. Huisman)
Making Refuge (Catherine Besteman)
Call Me American (Abdi Nor Iftin)
One Goal (Amy Bass)
Shadow in Our Bones (Merrill Tamara)