The following statement was issued today by the Executive Committee of the Indiana University Queer Philanthropy Circle (QPC):

“I have a duty,” Audre Lorde wrote, “to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain.” The month of June is traditionally celebrated as Pride month by the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. But these modern-day celebrations trace their roots to a series of spontaneous uprisings and demonstrations by queer people – Black and Brown queer people prominent among them – in resistance to the pain of harassment, brutality, and dehumanization.

This June, the same expressions of pain, the same demands for civil rights and justice, have come in response to the killings of George Floyd and too many others. The QPC joins with these voices. We affirm that Black Lives Matter. We value the diverse identities that make us stronger. We affirm that legal and social equality are constitutional rights as well as human rights. We know that movements for social justice achieve the greatest good when we stand together in unity.

We remember the words of Bayard Rustin, a Black gay man who was one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s closest collaborators, who said that when people are protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge their dignity as human beings, their very act of protest confers dignity upon them.

Learn more about the QPC at queerphilanthropycircle.iu.edu.