Hamm Clinic acknowledges that our community is immersed in incomprehensible yet predictable violence following another state act of violence against Black and brown bodies: the police killing of another Black man, Daunte Wright, at a routine traffic stop in Brooklyn Center. He was just 20 years old, and a parent himself taken from his two-year-old child. Wright’s extrajudicial killing and the repeated state violence feel like all too much to attempt to process. We are feeling, along with the whole community, a range of emotions. We are a city and community over-saturated with suffering and grief – and this is profoundly true for the Black community in MN. During the Chauvin trial, during a pandemic, the system continues to work as designed – ensuring White body supremacy.
Hamm Clinic as part of the community it serves, is composed of community members in its staff, therapists, and clients. We stand in solidarity against police violence and brutality and acknowledge this fight is exhausting, tiring, and wearing on those who cannot turn away from this reality. Many of us live this reality daily and this is (dreadfully) not new. We strive to find support in one another as we navigate this, too, as a community mental health agency.
We recognize that police killing of Black and brown bodies is one visible manifestation of centuries of systemic and institutional racism in America. We support the significant and profound changes that need to occur urgently in our communities and institutions; together we must dismantle white supremacy and work towards collective liberation. We commit to supporting BIPOC leaders and movements in both vision and action towards ensuring racial justice and human rights protections in our community. Hamm is continuing to self-assess the role of White supremacy within our organization and strengthen our commitment to supporting mental health care for BIPOC communities.
Click here to view the April 12th email our Executive Director sent to staff and therapists at the clinic in response to the Daunte Wright’s killing. Click here to read about Hamm’s commitment to Anti-Oppressive Practice, at all levels of the organization as a fundamental value and guiding principle of our work . As part of Hamm Clinic’s mission, we recognize that we must each do better, and we must continue to interrogate the ways White supremacy manifests in our agency, in each of us, and its impacts on our clients and staff; we must continue to dismantle White supremacy and work for safety, well-being, and life for all both inside and outside the walls of our clinic.
In enduring hope for liberation, justice, and healing,
Hamm Clinic