Our hearts are broken for the Boulder, CO community where on March 22, a 21-year old man went into one of the largest grocery stores in the city and killed 10 people.
Boulder is the home and birth place of 500 Women Scientists, where our co-founders met, where our first Pod was formed, and where many of our members live today.
We are angry. We are afraid. We are tired of living in a society where gun violence is the norm. The attack in Boulder is the seventh mass shooting in the United States in as many days, and it comes less than a week after a Colorado judge blocked Boulder from enforcing restrictions against assault style weapons.
We have watched media narratives that jump through hoops to humanize the white man who murdered eight people in Atlanta (GA), six of whom were women of East Asian descent. We’ve seen them whitewash his crimes, which were motivated by misogyny and anti-Asian racism, and fueled by xenophobic rhetoric and a deeply-rooted history of white supremacy. Now, we brace as the media focus on the heritage and faith of the Colorado shooter, stoking fears around entire immigrant and Muslim communities for the ill deeds of one. Each contortion of white supremacy erases the humanity of the victims and the communities that grieve them, while policymakers refuse to enact the gun reforms necessary to reduce the likelihood of such events.
But we will not let fear and anger determine our actions. We will act with compassion, empathy, and a drive to change our society. We will show up to bring down the patriarchy, de-normalize white supremacy, and dismantle the oppressive social norms that are at the very foundation of our society.
We are scientists, but we are humans first.
We stand with Boulder and all the communities across the U.S. and the world that have experienced mass shootings. Today, we grieve. Tomorrow, we continue to take action.