The justified uprisings we see erupting across the nation — from New York City to Philadelphia to Atlanta to Minneapolis to Louisville to Salt Lake City to Los Angeles — are in fact the rebellion of a people who are responding to the daily massacres that they have experienced for generations in a long list of past and present injuries that include abusive police tactics, stagnant wages, lack of contracts with black businesses, growing health disparities, discriminatory housing practices, the denial of mortgages and loans, and other offenses that are repeatedly addressed only with symbolic gestures rather than substantive action.

Today, black people are fighting battles seemingly on every front, from ensuring we can survive the health and economic stresses that COVID-19 has put on our businesses and communities, to fighting that other virus that this nation has long given up finding the vaccine for: systemic racism.

In the long history of black rebellion in the United States, protests have never been solely about police violence, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophies and the policies that produce and condone this violence.

On behalf of the leadership of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, we send our deepest sympathies and warmest embrace to the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and the countless others not ingrained in our mental catalogs as hashtags or videos whom we have lost to police violence.

Segun Idowu is the executive director of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA).