We stand with the protestors

All of us at Starship are outraged by the murder of George Floyd. We stand in solidarity with the protesters marching against the police brutality and systemic racism that has pervaded our country for far too long.

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Tony McDade. Ahmaud Arbery. Sandra Bland. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. 

The fact that we know these names represents a tremendous injustice and that we have a lot of work to do. It’s also why we protest.

We must amplify revolutionary voices in order to fight against the white supremacy and privilege that is deeply woven into the very fabric of the nation.

That said, we are all responsible for effecting change. As a start, we have given every one of our employees time off to join protests in their local communities. We’ve also made donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center (splcenter.org) and Campaign Zero (joincampaignzero.org) and encourage others to do the same. 

We also need to focus on the more meaningful and difficult work of educating ourselves on ways to fight and eradicate injustice. This starts with holding ourselves accountable by hiring for more diversity.

In addition, here are some of the ways we’ve encouraged our employees to take action:

• Donate to a bail megafund for arrested protesters across the country 
• Support the LGBTQ+ black trans community
• Register to vote, support fair and open elections.
• Support black-owned businesses.
• Ask Congress to support H.R. 40.

I hope that what’s going on in the country today means that people are starting to wake up. Things won’t change unless we do.

-Sean Engelking