Statement by Alejandro Queral, Executive Director, Oregon Center for Public Policy

In these traumatic times for our nation, we find hope in the many Americans who have stood up and demanded the end of police violence against Black Americans. The Oregon Center for Public Policy stands in solidarity with Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities who suffer repression at the hands of law enforcement agencies. The state violence directed at people of color is the result of racist structures. We see those racist structures at play in our other ongoing tragedy, the COVID pandemic, which has inflicted greater economic hardship and worse health outcomes on communities of color. And we see them at play in the vast economic disparities by race and ethnicity that long predated the pandemic. For the Center, this is a moment to redouble our efforts to advance anti-racist policies in the economic and fiscal arena, to once-and-for all end the economic exclusion of Black Americans and other communities of color.