Dear John,

Even at the end of a summer marked by historic protests against racial injustice and police killings, officer shootings of unarmed Black people are still occurring at a devastating frequency.

This time it happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rusten Sheskey of the Kenosha Police Department shot an unarmed Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back as his three children watched. He is now paralyzed from the waist down, and doctors say it will take a miracle for him to ever walk again.

We won’t pretend to understand what it’s like to be terrorized, brutalized, or murdered for the color of our skin, or to feel unsafe simply by existing. What we do understand is that there are serious, systemic disparities between how we are treated as white people and how those in the Black community are treated.

We are committed to using our privilege and platform to participate actively in upending systems of control, like police and prisons, that have perpetuated white supremacist violence and the oppression of Black people for centuries.

That’s why we are asking you to make a donation today to the Movement for Black Lives — a collective of more than 150 organizations representing Black people from across the country — to help build a world free of police killings and systemic oppression, in which the full humanity and dignity of Black people is recognized.

The Movement for Black Lives supports the local protests at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement, and is mobilizing to create a shared vision and policy agenda to win rights, recognition, and resources for Black people through grassroots organizing and legislative action.

They recently joined with Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib to advance the BREATHE Act, a landmark bill that would divest federal resources from policing and invest in building safe and equitable communities.

The Movement for Black Lives is also pushing the Democratic National Committee to commit to restoring the Voting Rights Act, immediately demilitarizing police and ending private prisons, abolishing the Electoral College, breaking up Big Banks, and guaranteeing universal health care.

The soul of our country is being fought for in the streets of Kenosha, Louisville, Oakland, and in other cities across America right now. The stakes could not be higher, and we must all come together to support the movement.

Please stand with the Black Lives Matter movement and the protestors literally risking their lives in Kenosha by making a donation to the Movement for Black Lives Fund today. And, if you can, please set up a recurring donation to sustain the work.

In solidarity,

Robert Reich                                  Heather Lofthouse
Co-Founder, Inequality Media        Executive Director, Inequality Media