Black Lives Matter at Mainspring
Dear Mainspring Community,
We’re going through an unsettling, uncharted time. The long history of targeted violence and injustice towards black communities and communities of color are condemnable, reprehensible, and unconscionable. As a result, we are a community in pain, with these specific communities bearing the disquieting and unbearable load. Change is long overdue. We at Mainspring Schools acknowledge that, stand for it, support it and will fight for it within our walls and out in our communities, as well.
To our black children, families, and team members, we see you, we hear you, we are committed to being active allies here for you. We admit, we don’t know exactly what to say in this situation and in the all-too-common series of situations like this, and we say this from a relative position of privilege in our own community.
The history of the United States, as it is lived and taught, is a white supremacist history. We have been a nation that held slaves, that segregated our communities (and still does), that disproportionately incarcerates black people and people of color, and disproportionately targets them in policing and extrajudicial violence, as well as in a wide array of other injustices.
On our end, we are taking a good, hard and long overdue look at ourselves and our own practices to unpack the levels at which we may be complicit, and will move forward to make adjustments that will aid in being part of the solutions required for a more equitable, compassionate future -- in the early childhood and family services space, in our community, in our country, and right here at Mainspring. We must work to end these practices, admit our faults and our continued failings, own up to the darkness in our history, and work to make amends and inroads both in our own backyard, and at the national level.
We need to be a community that stands for equality, justice, liberty and dignity for everyone. We must dismantle the racist hierarchy at every turn, in every way, to exactly the extent that we are individually and collectively capable to do so. We need to be compassionate, unbiased, unprejudiced and unflinching in our commitment to rectify past and current wrongs, and unwavering in our efforts to prevent wrongs in the future.
White Americans, in particular, must roundly reject their own privilege and the system that upholds it, and declare in one unified voice that this is morally repugnant. There can be no true functioning multiracial civil society or social construct without first doing this work, and that work starts from within. We must critically examine how we present information to our young, to our masses, to our leaders. Only then can we see American history and the human fabric for what it was, is, and has been to date: A history of violence.
We can create a nation based on natural rights, equitable access to funding and services, compassionate justice under the law, truth in information and institutions. We can create a true common good. We can be egalitarian and not exceptionalist. We need to look ourselves in the eye so we can look our brethren in the eye not in fear, or in hate, or in shame … but in a communion so desperately deserved and so rarely, fleetingly achieved. There is so much work that still needs to be done.
Enclosed are links to help you find support as we collectively grieve and reflect, as well as resources to further educate you to hold constructive and vital conversations with your families, friends, coworkers and communities … along with ways to get involved and lend support to those closest to this struggle.
Locally, here’s a list of links for those looking to help:
A GoFundMe for Black Owned Businesses hit by Protests and COVID-19
Here’s a list of five Austin orgs working to promote racial justice.
Here is a comprehensive list of Black Owned Businesses in Austin to support.
For those feeling especially in pain, looking for necessary support, here is a list of services here for mental health, community healing.
This is a time to come together, to listen, and humble ourselves while ramping up our curiosity and abilities to take action. We will do that ourselves, lead by example, and provide any help that we can, creating an actionable plan to implement in our school, and working in partnership with other education entities as they do the same.
