Black Lives Matter

July 6, 2020 Sonya Radetsky

Dear friends,

We are sharing anti-racist resources, petitions to sign, Black-owned businesses to shop from, as well as campaigns and organizations to support. This is not an exhaustive list but rather a starting point, so that we continue to educate ourselves and support Black people across the world. We are dedicating time to learning, acting, donating and doing whatever we can today and into the future.

This work is constant and must continue once other news stories take center stage.

Aula was founded by two white women, and we work alongside Indigenous communities here in Peru. This requires us to continuously evaluate ourselves and the way we collaborate with our partners and wider community, recognizing which of our behaviors contribute to the continuation of a racist system and doing the work to change. But racist systems do not end at national borders, so it also requires us to denounce the racist acts of police brutality in the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others. We are committed to speaking out against injustice now and always, and we are committed to continuing this process of unlearning and doing better, integrating it fully into our workplace and daily lives.

To paraphrase Dr. Adrienne Keene, we “consent to learn in public.” We’ve all been brought up in a racist system, and it takes a lot of unlearning to undo our biases and rewire our brains. There’s not a moment when we finish, when we “achieve” anti-racism. It is a lifelong process, one that is as social as it is personal. We will be learning, and unlearning, in public, and we ask all of you to join us.