We mourn the unconscionable and senseless killing of George Floyd, and so many other Black lives this year, and every year, at the hands of those professing to protect and serve. We acknowledge the brutality and racism that too many of our brothers, sisters, and siblings have had to endure all our lives. We all grieve the loss and feel the pain, anger, frustration, and worry as our country faces a crossroads of despair and determination, of darkness and light. We must join together now to address and defeat systemic and institutional racism.

I can’t breathe is a literal and figurative cry of suffering that so many unheard, unseen American people and communities of color have had to swallow – their needs, their dignity, their very breath ­– in order to survive in a world that devalues their minds and souls, and their very lives.

In this era of COVID-19, which had already laid bare the systemic racial inequality in the U.S. and around the world, we felt we were almost at the breaking point. Then we realized that the pandemic, as horrendous as it continues to be, is only another tangible manifestation of the injustices that Black and Brown Americans are forced to endure.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

So we at PBI join with you as you rededicate yourselves to intensify the fight for justice for George Floyd, for breath for underserved and marginalized people everywhere, and for access to justice and equality for all.