We, as an organization that seeks to uplift the voices of the marginalized and brutalized are issuing a call for solidarity within the Latinx/Chicanx community with Black Lives Matter here in Utah and the movement it has created in defense of Black folx nationwide against the current of police brutality.

As Venceremos we are in support of BLM and hope that more of our community will seek
to educate themselves on the issues that Black folx are currently facing and have been facing in this country, if you already recognize these issues then good, but that shouldn’t be it.

Venceremos, as an organization would like to encourage Latinx/Chicanx gente and people in Utah in general to consider thinking of helping the BLM movement in these ways:

• To begin to eradicate anti-blackness that may be present in our communities or wherever we see it.
• To help monetarily, if possible by going to: http://blacklivesmatter.com/ to donate as our brothers and sisters are on the front-lines and will be arrested at times and will need help with bail money.
• By organizing ourselves in SLC in solidarity at every moment whenever possible.
• To White Allies, as you participate and organize, please be conscious of the voices that must be centered in the discussion.

These four things can be done. Of course, there are surely more things that could be done but here are just some actions you can consider some individually and others as a collective. Let’s pursue actions that will help in the movement of BLM and move forward. Lastly, it also should be understood and clearly that there is police brutality in our own communities that we should raise our voices to because it is our own inaction and our own silence that will kill us and what keeps the rest of our nation blind to our presence and suffering; by showing Unity, it will mean more than just hashtags we need to stand together and organize as well. We can’t expect anything to change. This should be an issue that Latinx/Chicanx people can and should be more vocal about! We must put in the effort and Con Juntos de BlackLivesMatter raise our own voices about police brutality in our own community as well as in support of our Black brothers and sister!

From BlackLivesMatter.Com:
#BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime, and dead 17-year old Trayvon was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder. Rooted in the experiences of Black people in this country who actively resist our dehumanization, #BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society. Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes.
It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within Black communities, which merely call on

Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all.

Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements. It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement.

To learn more about the Black Lives Matter movement visit their website: http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/