Solidarity Statement

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Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. ~ Author Unknown

June 19, 2020

We at SoulCollage® stand together as fierce advocates for all Black lives. We are haunted by the deliberate and heinous murder of George Floyd at the hands of white police officers. We are outraged and saddened for those who have been devastated by racism in the United States. We are heartbroken for all those experiencing irreparable loss and grief right now.

George Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe!”, are indelibly emblazoned into the collective conscience of the world. His legacy is breathing life into the modern cries of Black souls still struggling to find freedom and fully belong to this country that claims to prize liberty and justice for all. The Black voices of physical, educational, economic, and socio-political alienation and oppression are flooding our streets. For too long, white privilege has allowed many of us to turn a “blind eye.” But what is done to one is done to all.

On this 155th anniversary of Juneteenth (June 19th), our nation still struggles with the root issues of systemic racism and injustice.We at SoulCollage Inc. join the Black community in remembering the millions of Black lives lost to over 400 years of anti-Black violence on this continent.

The SoulCollage® community, both within the USA and internationally, wants to do more – to call out racist people, organizations, and systems, and to step up to end all expressions of insidious, institutionalized racism, whether connected with ethnicity, religion or country of origin.

We recognize the weight of what has been unspoken and left unexamined by white people for so long and the impact this has on people of color. We commit to doing our part to change the complicity of white privilege.

SoulCollage® at its essence, offers us a practice to help fulfill this promise, and we commit to showing up for this transformative work in ourselves as accountable individuals, as well as allies and change agents.

We challenge ourselves and others to be provoked, inspired, awakened, and confronted by the voices of people of color.

We Are Ones Who choose to examine what equality and respect for all lives really looks like in practice in 2020 and beyond.

We Are Ones Who will use SoulCollage® as a mechanism for dialogue and a catalyst for change, in ourselves and across our diverse communities around the world.

We Are Ones Who accept the responsibility of co-creating radical, personal actions that serve racial justice.

We Are Ones Who acknowledge that our country and global community will only become as fair and equitable as we make it.

We will do this, in part, by living the answers to the following questions:

  • How can we increase the diversity of our administrative team, our Trainers, and our Facilitators?
  • How can we ensure that SoulCollage® Trainings are accessible and relevant to communities of color?
  • How can we use our platform to amplify the voices of those who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)?

In the midst of the pandemic, SoulCollage Inc has put herculean efforts into creating a new website as well as an exciting platform for engaging and sustaining our community through the World of SoulCollage®. We have taken some time to look deeply within our organization to target the right questions as we consider how we can add to deep and lasting change.

We want to evolve SoulCollage® in partnership with each of you. You are the heartbeat of our community. We invite you to co-create our explicit response to insidious and unexamined racism in ourselves, and in others. We are also open to discovering when we are doing it wrong.

Additional resources

Article: “For Our White Friends Desiring to be Allies” by Courtney Ariel. August 16, 2017.

Article: “Nine Reflective Writing Prompts to Explore White Fragility, Spiritual Bypassing or White Privilege” by Leesa Renee Hall. www.leesareneehall.com

Book: Waking Up White, by Debby Irving, Elephant Room Press, 2014.

Article: “White Debt” by Eula Biss. New York Times, 2015.

Podcast: On Being with Krista Tippett: Eula Biss, “Talking About Whiteness”. 2017.

The SoulCollage® Scholarship Fund for Facilitator Training

The SoulCollage® Scholarship Fund is a small fund started in 2008 to encourage inclusiveness and access to SoulCollage® for under-served populations.  In addition to financial need, applicants who want assistance with their SoulCollage® Facilitator Training tuition must be working for or volunteering currently and directly with an organization or community that would not otherwise be likely to encounter SoulCollage®.

Examples of populations that people were working with in order to qualify to apply for this scholarship help have been prisoners, battered women, refugees, people with AIDS, immigrants, Native Americans on reservations, military families, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and people in substance abuse recovery centers. Contact us for more information at Training@soulcollage.com.

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