Boulder County Commissioners Issue Letter Amid Protests

BOULDER COUNTY, CO — Out of all Colorado cities, Denver has drawn the most media attention amid the George Floyd death protests due to the sheer number of protesters and the violence that's ensued; however, many Coloradans, including Boulderites, have held peaceful protests that haven't left their city damaged.

County health officials are asking anyone who's attended a protest to monitor themselves for coronavirus symptoms for seven days after the event.

The Board of County Commissioners has released the following statement in response to the nationwide protests:

These are extraordinarily unsettling and challenging times. The global pandemic that is wreaking havoc on human lives and economies around the planet is the backdrop for yet another spate of murders highlighted in the media of unarmed Black people at the hands of some policemen and vigilantes. These were not isolated incidents but a chillingly familiar and frequent pattern of racial violence that has fueled a boiling point of outrage and frustration in cities across the country already frayed and polarized by the coronavirus.

As white local elected leaders, we believe it is our obligation and duty to explicitly affirm that Black Lives Matter, here in Boulder County — and everywhere. We add our voices to the chorus calling for justice in the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, as well as countless other Black Americans before them.

As white people, we will never know what it feels like to be Black in America. We can't fully understand the struggles that Black men and Black women face in our country, or the fear and danger People of Color experience just walking down the street. But we do know silence would mean complicity, and that in addition to voicing our opposition to racial violence, we must also use our white privilege and political platform to help disrupt and dismantle the institutional racism that fuels this violence and that is embedded in our society and government systems, a by-product of the enslavement and dehumanization of Black people upon which our country was built.

The cancer of racism in America is everyone’s problem and we must all do our part to create needed and lasting change. It is not enough to merely oppose racism; we must be actively anti-racist in both word and deed. So we join with others across the country in peacefully protesting* racial violence and affirmatively supporting and advocating for our Black community members.

In recent years, Boulder County has identified equity and justice as a top organizational priority, and we re-dedicate ourselves to this work, as individuals and within our county organization, to be better co-accomplices to all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and to collectively create an anti-racist, inclusive workplace and community that is welcoming and safe for all.

Sincerely,
Deb Gardner, Elise Jones, Matt Jones
Boulder County Commissioners