Hi everyone,

At Jeremy's request, I've copied the following message here -

Over the last week, millions of people have protested the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. Citizens of the United States and other countries are demanding justice and equity. We're seeing a movement for change that hasn't been seen in our lifetimes, and it's long overdue.

First, we stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. We stand against racism. We stand against police brutality. We stand against systemic injustice.

That said, what are a bunch of words from our little company going to do in the grand scheme? Not much. Real change doesn't come from making posts on social media and sending newsletters. Real change comes from taking direct action. Real change comes from replacing ineffective and bad leaders and changing harmful laws and procedures.

We recently watched Barack Obama's speech about the George Floyd protests. We're not going to pretend everyone shares his political views, but we feel Mr. Obama made good points that transcend our differences.

His main point was that while the protests highlight problems in our society we need to combine protests with action and create realistic solutions based on research and data shown to effective. We need to make local leaders put evidence-based procedures in place that we know work. If you haven't watched this presentation, here is a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ui923iXlKU

In short, protest if you're willing, and then take other action as well. What action can you take? You can call local and national leadership, sign petitions, and donate to charities and programs. And, of course, you can and should vote out those who act as impediments to change.

Many of us at Iron Realms have been out protesting and making donations to a wide variety of groups related to Black Lives Matter, and we strongly encourage you to do the same. Here are some of the groups we've been giving to, in case you're looking for somewhere to give and aren't sure where:

https://blacklivesmatter.com
https://www.restoringjustice.org/
https://www.knowyourrightscamp.com
https://www.naacpldf.org/
https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
https://action.aclu.org/give/now
https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory
https://www.nlg-npap.org/donate/

We've also found this to be a useful top-level resource for all sorts of info and resources around BLM:

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

We're living in historic times. Let's all work to make sure we come out of this better than we were before.

In solidarity,

Jeremy Saunders, Matt Mihaly, and the Iron Realms team.

Penned by My hand on the 12th of Lupar, in the year 831 AF.