Standing Together Against Hate

Yet another mass shooting. Another community in pain, grieving the senseless loss of loved ones. Another time we as a nation look on in horror. The murders of elderly black men and women in Buffalo, NY while shopping at their community grocery store at the hands of a self-proclaimed white supremacist. The murders of a classroom of Texas elementary school students and their teacher. All in the month in which we raise awareness about mental health and honor military service members who have lost their lives trying to protect our democracy and our people.

These are not isolated incidences and they have happened all too often in the history of the United States. It has to stop.

We cannot become numb to these acts and normalize them. In light of our division, we must fight harder to come together to start caring about each other as people and work together to make hate and bigotry something that lives in our history and not our future.

Verity denounces all forms of hate—racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, extremism, and gender-based violence. We grieve with all who have been affected by these hate-fueled attacks.

Traumatic incidents have the power to bring us together as people, to help one other work through underlying causes and unite on a common goal of preventing a similar incident from happening again.  It’s time we see and acknowledge the identity-based discrimination and violence driving the polarization of our communities. It’s time we decide, together, that it can and must stop. 

Do we at Verity have all the answers? No. But we’re committed to co-creating a future that all of our communities can prosper and thrive as they define it. We acknowledge we’ve had a hand in creating and contributing to disparities that exist within the U.S. financial systems. We have a responsibility and active role in working together to dismantle these oppressive and racist systems.

Like many companies in the U.S., we’re early in our journey of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. We came together during a traumatic time in the months after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and started with good intentions to have staff discussions and trainings. But those early efforts were not enough and didn’t address the root harm and racism that is so deeply engrained in our country. We are taking the actions to go deeper.

For example, we are examining our policies and fee structures, because we know the inherent way they are set up, like overdraft protection, disproportionally impact historically-excluded communities. We are emphasizing products that create opportunities for generational wealth (like business loans and Co-Op housing loans), partnerships with organizations working to create an equitable society (like Black Owned Business Excellence). And we are looking internally, ensuring our staff are paid a living wage and creating space for healing past harms.

Creating systemic change doesn’t happen overnight, there will be missteps, but our commitment to creating and fostering change will continue to be steadfast. We all have a role to play in continuing to evolve society and repair the divisions that exist between different races, religions, ethnicities, gender identities, and ideologies. Everyone deserves a chance to thrive, no matter your racial and cultural identity, sexual orientation, or socio economic status. These are the ideals military service members died to protect. We can’t let tragedies like what happened in Buffalo, Uvalde, and countless other communities, continue.