Statement from Kierán Suckling, executive director, Center for Biological Diversity:

“The murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by Minneapolis police officers is horrific. It’s also utterly predictable. Thousands of African Americans have been killed by police due to institutional racism.

The violence doesn’t begin or end with the police. Our culture of white supremacy causes African Americans to be murdered by racists while jogging and reported to police for bird watching. It causes African Americans, Latinx and Native Americans to die of COVID-19 at much higher rates than whites. It causes them to have poorer health care, less access to education, more polluted neighborhoods, lower pay rates and suffer a thousand other oppressions hardly visible to those of us with white privilege.

The Minneapolis protests and riots, and their spread across the country, are a call for justice and an end to racism. They call on everyone to acknowledge the terrible, every-day danger of simply being black. They call on political leaders to bring the nation together to better understand the oppression and end it. Trump has not only failed to show any leadership in this crisis, he has fanned the flames of racism by calling the protesters “thugs” and threatening to shoot them. This too is predictable.

The Center for Biological Diversity hears the call to end racism. We stand with the protesters demanding an immediate end to racial police violence, to racial violence of all kinds. We stand with protesters demanding a recognition of white supremacy and an end to racism. We stand with everyone who cannot breathe.”