Dear Friends and Colleagues in the PTI Community,
We at PTI wish to add our voice to the many who are speaking out against the tragic murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and the countless unnamed others who have suffered and died as a result of our current system.
May we all be illuminated.
It is our hope that our society will continue to be illuminated by the voices of those who have been silenced and oppressed for centuries. We stand in solidarity with the African American community against racialized violence and systemic oppression. We wish to explicitly and publicly affirm that the Personal Transformation Institute is an anti-racist organization.
May we all be transformed.
At the Personal Transformation Institute we promote the freedom and transformation of all people and we recognize racial trauma and the generational trauma that exists in the black community. We believe it is important to recognize racism and take comprehensive measures against it. We stand for the human rights of all and the end of systemic, racialized violence and oppression.
We recognize the systemic, racialized violence and oppression in our society that has been going on for centuries. We support steps to overhaul police culture and call on our government and all political parties to take steps to end racism and oppression for BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color).
This problem is not only in the US Justice system, it is also in the US economy. More BIPOC face poverty and the mental and physical results of poverty, including a higher rate of illness and death and a greater impact of the recent world pandemic.
May we all be heard.
We welcome and encourage conversations that will help the Personal Transformation Institute be more aware of the subtle and not so subtle ways that racism is experienced by the BIPOC on our team as well as in our trainings.
May we all take action.
We are working on creating scholarships for clinicians who wish to be trained in EMDR and who will use their clinical skills to dismantle systemic racism. We are dedicated to supporting this cultural change by providing those clinicians with the healing power of EMDR.
We believe the people who have experienced generations of injustice and racism are the ones who get to decide what is racist and what is unfair and it is time for us to respectfully listen and take action to correct it.
Respectfully,
Deborah Kennard, PTI Founder
