Dear Manzanita Community,

The staff of Manzanita School has spent the last week processing our outrage and horror at George Floyd's murder at the hands of police and the violent and inflammatory police response to protests for racial justice. These events lay bare the long history of systemic racism and white supremacy culture ingrained in our country.

We hold deep sorrow and sympathy for the families and communities of George Floyd,

Breona Taylor, Manuel Ellis, Ahmaud Arbery, and the countless other victims of racialized police violence. We offer our voice of support for the broad movement of Americans of all backgrounds who are putting their bodies on the line to act for racial justice and to end police violence.

These events motivate us to deepen our commitment to leveraging our privilege and power to dismantle the culture of white supremacy in ourselves, in our school, our community, and our country. We welcome our school community to join us in this vital conversation. These conversations may be uncomfortable for many of us. This discomfort is a necessary part of transforming racism, and a small burden when compared to the everyday trauma and threat of violence that racism brings to Black communities. To truly support racial justice we will need to lean into this conversation, and the discomfort it may bring for many of us, as we move into the future.

We will put this commitment into action in the following ways:

● This summer, members of our administrative team will undergo training in dismantling white supremacy in schools, and commit resources over the coming summer break to generate action steps for our school to center anti-racism in our curriculum and school culture.

● This summer our entire staff will read Robin DiAngelo’s book "White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism," to strengthen our ability to identify and challenge racism and white supremacy culture within our organization.

● Our 8th grade social studies curriculum entails an exploration of the origins of racial conflict in America, and our high school curriculum includes a semester focused on gender and race studies. We commit to reviewing our curriculum across all grade levels to ensure that a strong anti-racist education is present for our entire student body.

● As an immediate action, we will begin donating organic vegetables from our school garden to local Black communities with little access to fresh foods.

● Manzanita Institute, under the direction of Jennifer Carey, will lead our racial justice education and activism initiatives for the larger school community and the public.

We acknowledge that Black Americans are forced to learn about racism through lived experience in their everyday lives, while members of white communities can move through life without needing to acknowledge racism. Thus, white people must take it upon themselves to learn about the history and impact of racism in our country, and how to take action towards racial justice. If you feel called to do this, you can follow this link to a powerful resource to get started.

These are sensitive topics to discuss with children, but they must be discussed. We encourage you to refer to the resources in this link for support with age-appropriate approaches to discussing race, violence, and the current protests with children.

We will keep you updated on Manzanita’s commitments as we move forward. In the meantime, we wish you all safety and good health through these tumultuous times.

With gratitude,

You can download a pdf version of this Anti-Racism Statement here.