SKIL Resource Center strives to honor all people, regardless of their color, background or other aspects of who they are. As an integral participant in the Independent Living movement, we celebrate each other’s differences. We teach people to be proud of who they are because of their differences, not in spite of them. And we are proud of others and ourselves as we fight for equal treatment and respect of all people, for we at SKIL believe to our core that everyone needs and deserves to be treated equally.

We especially stand up for the rights of people with disabilities. I have personally fought for their rights, and I am honored to represent them in the fight for better treatment.

Now, all that we have fought for is at risk. If we do not stand together and support our brothers and sisters of color and instead allow racism to take over, we all lose. Our strength is in our unity and in the demand for justice for all people, not just some people.

Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This philosophy has guided our actions, in the disability movement and here at SKIL, as we have fought to push back on the injustice of governmental bodies that have allegedly tried to hold us back.

We honor peaceful protests that rightly demand much-needed change in how people are treated by authorities. We will never honor violent, destructive protests, for such protesters kill their own vital message by lowering themselves to the same or similar level as those they protest against.

The essence of our fight is a fight of love, for all of our brothers and sisters…a fight for the equal rights of all people. True societal change comes slowly, but it’s been far too long in coming. The time is now!

So, I challenge every one of you who reads this to please, with all of your hearts, love one another wherever you find yourselves in life, while seeking peaceful, righteous change.

For as Pope John Paul II once wisely said, “The arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good.”

With all my love, Shari