George Floyd is no longer on our earth. He can no longer live his dreams. He can no longer laugh, he can no longer cry, he can no longer watch the sunrise, or a full moon appear. He can no longer hug his mama, the person who he last remembered.
George Floyd's right to live his life was taken away from him for absolutely no reason. He is the most recent of the thousands of Black Americans who die from overt and covert heinous crimes every year in this country.
The victim of systemic racism that permeates every sector and layer of society.
For those of us who work for social justice, he symbolizes a system that is not working. For centuries, the Black community has had to overcome racism in order to access quality education, healthcare, and housing, as well as equal opportunities in the workforce and in what they are paid.
George Floyd is a symbol of the millions of black and indigenous people of color around the world who experience the same.
Afro-descendants living in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, Black-indigenous communities in the Amazon-Andes region, Black and melanated communities in Central and Eastern Europe -- exploited and beaten.
The social contract that each of us has with society -- if we are lawful, hardworking, pay our taxes, respect the law, then our leaders will ensure that we are safe and our human rights equally upheld -- has not been upheld for Black communities globally. The contract is broken and few leaders have tried to truly rebuild it.
As sad and angry as we all are feeling right now, we need to break this inhumane cycle of hatred and poverty. Breaking this cycle requires a conscious commitment to make changes, individually and institutionally.
We can start addressing it by reflecting on the implicit biases that we uphold in our homes, the entertainment we pursue, who we hire in our workplaces, and the businesses we support.
NESsT will continue to work every waking minute to break it.
We will continue to invest in the creation of quality jobs to empower excluded and disenfranchised people, including the Black members of the communities where we work. We will support our entrepreneurs to become even more diverse and inclusive; and we will examine our own practices to do the same.
We stand by the true majority who are incensed by what our world has become, and are committed to creating a new one.
We feel great hope from our entrepreneurs who work day in and day out to do so. We feel great hope for the youth who are no longer willing to sweep our racism under the rug. We know that more can always be done and we will strive to achieve it.
We owe this to George Floyd; the generations before him and the generations to come.
Nicole Etchart & Loïc Comolli
NESsT Co-CEOs