Our responsibility to speak up
As a community of faith, we are outraged at the racist verbal abuse and physical ill-treatment of a Latino man by two Seattle police officers responding to a recent robbery in the Eastlake area. Compounding our anger is the choice made by KCPQ (Channel 13), a local FOX news affiliate, to hold back the release of the video recording of this incident. [“TV news director quits over videotape,” NWFriday, May 14.]
These are acts of injustice from institutions pledged to serve the public good. Committed to work against racism, we call attention not only to this particular incident, but also to the acts of daily racism that degrade and dehumanize us all.
Institutionalized racism continues because those in power remain apathetic and ignorant because we let them do so. It is our moral responsibility as witnesses to call for accountability and change in systems that perpetuate unconscious and conscious hatred. The silence of racism must be broken.
— Reverends Diane Schmitz and Brooke Rolston, Sacred Action for Racial Justice; an outreach ministry of University Baptist Church, Seattle