Letter: Stop Killing Black People

Charlotte, NC. 5/30/20. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash.

Dear friends and colleagues,

With you and with our fellow citizens, we have watched in horror the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and the incident concerning Christian Cooper in Central Park. Words are inadequate to express the visceral response to the violence perpetrated against Black people by those sworn with upholding the peace and justice of our communities. Those who protest are voicing centuries of justifiable anger. 

I recognize my own complicity in the systems and structures that perpetuate the violence and marginalization the protestors decry. As a white man from South Carolina, I know that I am the beneficiary of a system that habitually destroys the lives of my fellow citizens; reparation and metanoia are required.

In the face of such horrors, it is difficult to conjure adequate words of response. Silence is not always a willing complicity in the structures of racist violence that led to this moment in our national life. Sometimes silence is the required posture for those, like myself, who have always been heard. Sometimes silence permits those who have been privileged by the color of our skin, our class, our education, and our neighborhoods to hear the cries of the repressed. These are the cries that I have been formed by custom and taught by systems to ignore or actively silence. From the voices of those who protested this weekend, I hope that I am becoming more attuned to the justified rage of generations. 

Nonetheless, I want my friends and colleagues to hear directly from me that Black lives matter, that we must stop killing Black people, and that Capita’s work will become even more focused in the weeks and months ahead on creating a future in which all Black children can flourish safely and peacefully in ways that are in harmony with their fundamental dignity as human persons.

Joe Waters

Co-Founder + CEO

May 31, 2020