Kraken Kratom stands with the Black community in condemning racism, police brutality, and the oppression and aggression that Black people face daily due to the color of their skin. We see you, we hear you, and your pain matters to us. We share in your outrage and heartache, and we know that silence in times like this is unacceptable.
As a company, we join in the collective call for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others before them, and for the end to the culture of white supremacy and systemic racism in the United States.
The abhorrent acts we have witnessed in recent months – the murders of Black people by police and vigilantes – are not a new development. They are a continuation of the violence that Black and brown bodies have endured over centuries and are directly connected to this country’s troubled history of enslaving and oppressing people of color.
As a nation, we must reckon with our past if we want to create a better future for all. This means that white people must engage in this struggle as actively as if it were our own bodies and our own children on the line. We must take responsibility for our collective history and must hold ourselves and our officials accountable to overhaul systems of oppression now.
Those with privilege must first recognize how it operates in our society and then use it to demand change. We must commit to the work of being real allies, amplifying BIPOC voices and centering BIPOC experiences. It’s time to go where we may have once been uncomfortable, to opt in because so many cannot opt out.
For our part, we are leaning on our strong ties with the local community and increasing our monetary support of explicitly anti-racist organizations here in Portland, OR. We hope that our donations to Don’t Shoot PDX and Black Lives Matter PDX can help these organizations continue to serve communities that deserve justice. We will continue to look for meaningful ways to contribute to this struggle so our allyship endures even when this painful and powerful moment has passed.
Kraken has always been an intentionally diverse company, and we believe that our success is directly tied to our inclusive culture. But we’re far from experts and far from perfect. We’re committed to learning and listening and challenging ourselves to get better, to examining our own blindspots and confronting our own privilege. This means finding new ways to support our team members of color and ensuring that they feel empowered in the workplace.
Black Lives Matter. We will keep saying this until it’s not a controversial statement. We will keep demonstrating in the streets, on our ballots, and with our dollars until this is a lived experience for Black people everywhere. Kraken is committed to digging in and doing the hard work of anti-racism and to furthering these efforts in our community and beyond. We hope you are too.
In solidarity,
Team Kraken
