We Stand Against Injustice
The killing of George Floyd by a white police officer and the demonstrations that have followed are bringing difficult conversations to the table. Discussions about racism and privilege are important and necessary, not only right now, but always.
Heart and Harmony Music Therapy believes that #BlackLivesMatter and condemns the injustices that BIPOC face every day due to institutional racism and implicit biases.
We want to amplify the voices of Black individuals and organizations. If you are local to DFW, we recommend you check out (and financially support, if you can!) Re+Birth Equity Alliance, a local nonprofit organization with Black leadership. In 2019, Heart and Harmony staff and interns participated in Implicit Bias Training and Systemic Racism Training provided by Re+Birth Equity Alliance, whose mission is to “build bridges in the interest of achieving birth justice for marginalized communities across the state of Texas.” Re+Birth has also been kind enough to invite us to collaborate with them in their Thrive community-based workshop series and in several Mobile Mental Health Clinic events that provided free mental health services to people in Dallas and Fort Worth. They are doing good, hard work in our community and we are humbled that they have collaborated with us in events that help them achieve their mission.
We recognize that this is not enough.
We are committed to continue to learn how to be actively anti-racist. We are still learning, and are so eager to connect with other organizations that are led by or lift up BIPOC.
Please do not commend us for this post. We want to make it public that we stand against injustices, but we do not want to participate in performative allyship. Please call out our wrongs, challenge our words, and keep us honest.
We promise to continue to work and learn as individuals, as therapists, and as an organization.
Nikki Belshe, Clinical Director of Heart and Harmony Music Therapy
