“Take time to care for yourself. Pause, listen, and catch your breath. Then make sure everyone around you can breathe, too,” says Dean Gladis Kersaint.

Black lives matter. We share the grief, sadness, and anger at the loss of George Floyd, whose murder follows so closely on that of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others. Each of their lives, like each and every Black life in our community and around the world, is unique, beautiful, and irreplaceable, and deserving of respect and dignity. The great and abiding shame of our nation is our inability to acknowledge, confront, and redress the legacy of white supremacy and the failure of our institutions, particularly our law enforcement institutions, to respect the human rights of black and brown people.

“I urge white Americans to reflect on their intentions for allying with #BlackLivesMatter. I hope that we all understand that supporting black Americans is the right intention. That means doing a lot more than posting on social media,” writes Jack Kitching, a Neag School alumnus and high school social studies teacher in Hartford.