Extremists for Love

Below is a letter I wrote earlier this week and shared internally at Amicus with our employees worldwide.

Reflections on George Floyd, Protests and Being "Extremists for Love"...

 “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.-- Letter from A Birmingham City Jail.

Team Amicus:

Like each of you and your families, our family and I have watched the events stemming from the heinous murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis unfold over the past week. We have sat quietly, in some ways reverently, and watched many times the video of his life slip away. We were stunned- saddened, and angry. As the voices grew louder and louder across this nation in the days since his murder, and in other parts of the world, we have seen communities echo the hurt and pain of the underlying racism and societal injustices that continue broadly to deny African Americans of life, opportunity and dignity.  

For the past few nights I have struggled with exactly how to express my feelings to our family, our friends and importantly to each of you. I feared that whatever I may write would be too small, too filled with platitudes to be of any significance or comfort. Knowing that nothing I write can ease the fears, anxieties or heavy hearts of our Amicus family at this time, I nonetheless feel compelled this evening to share these few reflections.  

First, to our African American teammates and teammates of color around the world, please know that we are here for you in any way possible. We are here to support, to defend, to partner and, maybe most importantly for now, to listen. Just listen. We are here to hear you. Over the past week, and at other times and settings in my life, I have spoken with many of my closest friends of color to ask questions and to just listen on topics of racism and social injustice. To listen to their thoughts, their experiences and their perspectives. What strikes me is that in every single one of these conversations, whether it is with a man or a woman, a young person or very old, conservative or liberal, the same words let me know that no matter how much we try to discern, we can actually never truly understand what it is to be black in America. 

A few years ago after the murder of Trayvon Martin, I had a lengthy discussion with one of my dearest friends who explained to me the fear and pain every time her then ten year old son left the house that he could be abused or worse for the sole crime of having what she described as “his beautiful brown skin.” The parent in me shuddered at that thought. I felt one small part of her emotion. But I could never truly know her lifelong fear. And so while listening will help us to empathize, listening without action is meaningless. This is not a black problem. This is our problem. 

The rallies and protests we have seen are a call to action. A call to acknowledge the insidious effects of racism and prejudice, both overt and subconscious- and to vow to do something about it. And not something subtle. And not something later. As Dr. King described a “fierce urgency of now” we are witnessing the voices of the unheard, of the suffering, today. Indeed, Dr. King’s words are as instructive today as they were more than 50 years ago.

Back in 2010, I had the honor to deliver the commencement address at Penn State University’s Lehigh Valley campus. I advised the graduates that they should continue to read. Read everything they can, whenever they can. And I strongly advised them to read two documents in particular. The Declaration of Independence. And Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham City Jail.” And today I’d ask each of you to read this Letter as well. The Letter was Dr. King’s response to a public statement directed to him from eight Alabama clergymen. His fellow clergy had advised Dr. King to withdraw from engaging in and supporting public demonstrations as “an appeal for law and order and common sense.” The clergy, as you’ll read, noted that even peaceful demonstrations are “unwise and untimely” and may incite “hatred and violence.” Dr. King’s response is one of the most heartfelt, well-reasoned, and morally correct writings ever penned by man. Please read it here.

https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2020/06/King_Letter-from-Birmingham-Jail.pdf

As Dr. King expressed, “You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being.” Substitute Minneapolis last week for Birmingham. And now countless cities and communities. And let us commit ourselves at Amicus and everywhere we can have influence to address those conditions.  

Amicus is about healing. About cures. About empathy and compassion. We have unique positions of power and influence. And we have opportunities to change the hearts and minds of others by our words and by our examples “…to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

God Bless George Floyd- and all who have struggled and suffered. And may God bless and protect each of you and your families. Try, whenever you can, to be as Dr. King called “Extremists for Love.”

Thanks for indulging me these thoughts…. 

john