QUEST ANTI-RACIST STATEMENT
Quest Center Staff and Board of Directors stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and proclaim in anguish, "enough is enough!"
Dear Quest Center Community,
Quest Center for Integrative Health acknowledges the acute trauma and pain experienced by African/Black and Brown people over the past week, months, years and throughout our history as a country. We raise our voices in peace that we too are, “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” And in concert with the thousands of peaceful protesters across Oregon, proclaim in anguish “enough is enough!”
We are an organization born from the HIV/AIDS crisis at a time when the federal government then, as it has now, failed to act based on institutional hatred and bias. Communities only found a path forward through civil disobedience and with the cooperation of local governments. We are combatants of inequality and have been since the onset.
Currently, we are witnessing on the streets of Portland and across the nation a reckoning that cannot be ignored. The awe-inspiring power of millions of people mobilizing to stand up against the systemic oppression of communities that have been devastated by police violence, is visceral and historic. We address you today not only in a time of uncertainty, anger, and grief, but at a time of necessary and immediate action. There is no place for hesitation, for blurring lines, or second-guessing the magnitude of this moment in history which demands change.
Today, we further acknowledge that institutional racism and inequity of services exists. White supremacy is steeped within the everyday institutions of America, which includes the halls of government, commercial entities, and community-based organizations throughout society. On behalf of our volunteers and staff, we commit ourselves to action, and to upholding the message of the Black Lives Matter movement.
We see in no uncertain circumstances that our collective failure to address the cycle of violence against communities of color and Native people continues to fail those most in need during the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2020. COVID-19 has once again laid bare how disproportionately Native communities and people of color have long suffered at the hands of inadequate systems and languished at the bottom of our health care delivery structures.
We cannot afford to be silent. Not for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Mike Brown, and Philando Castile. Their lives mattered, as do the many more whose death, without the testimony of video, became invisible. Their families’ cries for justice, unheard. We need each other more than ever, and most importantly, we need to listen, and act. We must do our part to dismantle these oppressive systems and demand justice for the black lives lost at the hands of police brutality. There is no peace without justice, and there is no justice without our voices ringing out alongside the voices of communities of color. We see you. We hear you. We stand by you.
In solidarity,
Quest Center for Integrative Health
