The American Humanist Association Board of Directors issued the following statement:
In communities across our land, Americans have been expressing their anger and frustration at the systemic racism that pervades our society and manifests itself in police brutality against African Americans, brutality that all too frequently has fatal consequences.
Leaders of both the Left and the Right are quick to invoke the rule of law to condemn violence on the streets. But a nation where the president is allowed to flout the rule of law without consequence while the most marginalized are held disproportionately to account is a nation that is on its way to being a democracy in name only. Widely documented physical attacks by police during the last few days on journalists covering the protests are yet another sign of the dangers that our democracy faces when leaders prioritize dividing Americans and consolidating their grip on power over safeguarding human rights.
As Martin Luther King said in his Other America speech at Stanford in 1967: “…[A] riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? …it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. …Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”
Humanism and social justice go hand in hand. We call on all humanists and all Americans to do everything in their power to stand and fight the systemic racism in American society and the police brutality that is engendered by that systemic racism.
Robert Boston
AHA Board Member
Rebecca Hale
AHA Board Member
John Hooper, Ph.D.
AHA Board Treasurer
Jennifer Kalmanson
AHA Board Vice President
Howard Katz
AHA Board Member
Dr. Monica Miller
AHA Board Member
Dr. Juhem Navarro-Rivera
AHA Board Member
Sunil Panikkath
AHA Board President
Christine Shellska
AHA Board Secretary
Ellen Sutliff
AHA Board Member
Mandisa Thomas
AHA Board Member
Dr. Sharon Welch
AHA Board Member