We cannot proceed with our regularly scheduled program without addressing the topic that’s been on our minds and in our conversations these last few days: the death of George Floyd. Thankfully, it has lead to a resurgence of conversations regarding racism and how what we can do to learn more and unlearn what the system that has put it into place.

Publicly, Lars maintains a policy of not presenting controversial topics–we like to stand as a refuge for peace and creativity. I was going to maintain that mindset with these current events until I did a lot of reading and learning this weekend and realized that racism should not be a controversial topic and we can do more good by speaking up. I wrote this post on Instagram to explain some thoughts from this weekend. Though I don’t understand everything and am still learning myself, we would like to offer a place of support and encouragement to our community.

What can we do to support?

As I mentioned in the post, “Racism exists because we let it exist and racism won’t end until we we all decide it’s a problem and do something about it.” In that spirit, I provided a number of resources on our stories (saved in highlights) that I’ve been using to educate myself further and offer them to our readers.

It is ok to hurt and not understand and not know where you fit into everything quite yet. I think it will be a life long journey. We all learn at our own rates. That said, I encourage you to spend some time reading from people of color and points of views you wouldn’t normally read as that’s how we will attain more understanding as well as provide a non-judgmental space to do so. I believe that the moment we judge, we limit our ability to grow.

On that note, we’d love to highlight some resources with with the intent to celebrate provide voices you may not be familiar with. ****Please note, this is not a final list, please leave a comment if you’d like to share additional resources.