We see you, our sister.

We know your name, or maybe we don’t.

You are a member of SISTA Fire, or a friend told you about us.

You look like our mom, our abuela, our sibling, our neighbor.

We meet you in Providence, Central Falls, Pawtucket, or Woonsocket.

We are on your ancestral lands, or in your neighborhood, or maybe home is still far away.

We move at the pace of trust because we know what it’s like not to be trusted.

We see you. You are not a client. You are a person. You are someone’s mother or daughter or auntie or sister-in-law. You are related by blood or chosen as family.

We know they call you an “essential worker” when the only thing they find essential about you is the work. We know that your work takes you away from the people who know you’re an essential person—your kids, your partner, your parents, your aunt who you translate for.

And we know not working is not an option. We too worry about our rent and bills.
 
We respect your whole self, your language(s), your gender identity, your complexities, and your raw beauty.

We also have experienced the everyday trauma of racism, the triggering of old wounds in new tensions,
and now THIS.

Here we are AGAIN. We have all been here before.

We know sisters dying at the hands of the police.

We know sisters dying at the hands of the medical industrial complex.

We know sisters dying in our prisons and ICE detention centers.

And we know sisters dying from the economic violence that comes from the lack of affordable housing, the lack of jobs with living wages, and the lack of health care.

But you know what else we know?

We know speeches won’t solve this. Kneeling won’t solve this. Minor reforms won’t solve this. Meetings won’t solve this. Tokenizing won’t solve this. $600 a week won’t solve this. Empty gestures and words won’t solve this.

“Solutions” that keep power in the same hands as always won’t solve this.“Solutions” that pour money into the same hands won’t solve this. “Solutions” that reinforce white supremacy won’t solve this. “Solutions” that come from people who have minimal respect for our communities, our families and our leadership will never solve this.

As mothers, daughters, sisters, and essential workers, we demand:

Community Leadership
We demand solutions that CENTER THOSE MOST IMPACTED. We need to be present for the discussions and decisions that directly impact our lives. That means ensuring the leadership, knowledge, and lived experiences of Black womxn, Indigenous womxn, trans-womxn and womxn of color are at the center of all efforts to make or change policies and practices that impact our quality of life.

Community Investment
We demand  that $358 million of the CARES dollars be invested in communities with the greatest levels of poverty and racial disparities in our state’s core cities Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls and Woonsocket. We demand that these funds be invested in the long-term infrastructure and sustainability of these communities and that community leadership help decide where this money is invested.  

Community Health
We demand divestment from state and local police and the Rhode Island Department of Corrections! We demand reinvestment in the health of our communities!  

Our masks cover our mouths, but not our eyes. We see not only injustice but possibility. We see a Rhode Island where our communities are strong and vibrant and all of our beauty gets to shine. We see ourselves—Black, Indigenous, Queer, Trans, Immigrant, and all Womxn of Color—living not in the shadows but in the sun.

We see living in what is real for us: walking down the streets without fear, living in affordable spaces that give us room to breathe, free to choose a doula or midwife when we give birth, confident that our children will be able to thrive and have the best education, understanding and honoring each other in all our complexities, without limits, boxes and gender binaries. Let’s stand together, our collective power is our strength.

And we will exercise our collective power to change Rhode Island.

We ask you to STAND WITH Womxn of Color by signing on to this statement.

In solidarity,
SISTA Fire