Ben Clark, Enroot’s Executive Director, wrote an open letter to the white community of Cambridge featured in the Cambridge Chronicle.
“For a city that has long championed civil rights and discourse on equity and inclusion, it is alarming how Cambridge’s ongoing struggles with racism remain a daily part of life for so many residents of color. Sadly, most white people like me remain passive in a situation that demands active resistance.
In recent months there have been countless incidents of racism and hatred around greater Boston -- from graffiti in schools to death threats made to Muslim students. Here in Cambridge, the two racist incidents at our high school in the last week were just the latest to put the issue on full display.
These disturbing occurrences point to a much broader and unfortunate trend across the country, as captured in November’s FBI report, which highlighted a 17 percent spike in hate crimes nationwide in the last year. It’s important to measure and condemn such overt acts of oppression, yet many more subtle moments go unrecorded and unnoticed every day by those who are not victims.
Everyone is susceptible to implicit bias in thought and action. But those of us who are white and benefit each day from our white privilege must be especially honest with ourselves about our ugliest biases and all the ways they manifest themselves in discriminatory actions.
To my fellow white community members, I urge you -- take time to look yourself humbly in the mirror and consider the biases you hold that cause you to view people of color in an inferior light. Search your memory for moments in recent months and years when you acted in a way that diminished the dignity and well-being of people of color in your life.”